The Affectionate Shepherd | Page 9

joy was
drowned with his wealth.
The painfull plough-swaine, and the husband-man,
Rise up each
morning by the breake of day,
Taking what toyle and drudging paines
they can,
And all is for to get a little stay;
And yet they cannot put
their care away:
When night is come, their cares begin afresh,

Thinking upon their morrowes busines.
Thus everie man is troubled with unrest,
From rich to poore, from
high to low degree:
Therefore I thinke that man is truly blest,
That
neither cares for wealth nor povertie,
But laughs at Fortune, and her
foolerie,
That gives rich churles great store of golde and fee,
And
lets poore schollers live in miserie.

O, fading branches of decaying bayes,
Who now will water your
dry-wither'd armes?
Or where is he that sung the lovely layes
Of
simple shepheards in their countrey-farmes?
Ah! he is dead, the cause
of all our harmes:
And with him dide my joy and sweete delight;

The cleare to clowdes, the day is turnd to night.
SYDNEY, the syren of this latter age;
SYDNEY, the blasing-starre of
England's glory;
SYDNEY, the wonder of the wise and sage;

SYDNEY, the subject of true vertues story:
This syren, starre, this
wonder, and this subject,
Is dumbe, dim, gone, and mard by fortune's
object.
And thou, my sweete Amintas, vertuous minde,
Should I forget thy
learning or thy love,
Well might I be accounted but unkinde,
Whose
pure affection I so oft did prove,
Might my poore plaints hard stones
to pitty move!
His losse should be lamented of each creature,
So
great his name, so gentle was his nature.
But sleepe his soule in sweet Elysium,
(The happy haven of eternall
rest);
And let me to my former matter come,
Proving, by reason,
shepheard's life is best,
Because he harbours vertue in his brest;

And is content, (the chiefest thing of all),
With any fortune that shall
him befall.
He sits all day lowd-piping on a hill,
The whilst his flocke about him
daunce apace,
His hart with joy, his eares with musique fill:
Anon a
bleating weather beares the bace,
A lambe the treble, and to his
disgrace
Another answers like a middle meane,
Thus every one to
beare a part are faine.
Like a great king he rules a little land,
Still making statutes and
ordayning lawes,
Which if they breake, he beates them with his wand;

He doth defend them from the greedy jawes
Of rav'ning woolves,
and lyons bloudy pawes.
His field, his realme; his subjects are his

sheepe;
Which he doth still in due obedience keepe.
First he ordaines by act of parlament,
(Holden by custome in each
country towne),
That if a sheepe (with any bad intent)
Presume to
breake the neighbour hedges downe,
Or haunt strange pastures that be
not his owne,
He shall be pounded for his lustines,
Untill his master
finde out some redres.
Also if any prove a strageller
From his owne fellowes in a forraine
field,
He shall be taken for a wanderer,
And forc'd himselfe
immediatly to yeeld;
Or with a wyde-mouth'd mastive curre be kild;

And if not claimd within a twelve month's space,
He shall remaine
with land-lord of the place.
Or if one stray to feede far from the rest,
He shall be pincht by his
swift pye-bald curre;
If any by his fellowes be opprest,
The wronger,
(for he doth all wrong abhorre),
Shall be well bangd so long as he can
sturre,
Because he did anoy his harmeles brother,
That meant not
harme to him nor any other.
And last of all, if any wanton weather,
With briers and brambles teare
his fleece in twaine,
He shall be forc'd t' abide cold frosty weather,

And powring showres of ratling stormes of raine,
Till his new fleece
begins to grow againe:
And for his rashnes he is doom'd to goe

Without a new coate all the winter throw.
Thus doth he keepe them still in awfull feare,
And yet allowes them
liberty inough;
So deare to him their welfare doth appeare,
That
when their fleeces gin to waxen rough,
He combs and trims them
with a rampicke bough,
Washing them in the streames of silver
Ladon,
To cleanse their skinnes from all corruption.
Another while he wooes his country wench,
With chaplet crownd and
gaudy girlonds dight,
Whose burning lust her modest eye doth
quench;
Standing amazed at her heavenly sight,
Beauty doth ravish

sense with sweet delight,
Clearing Arcadia with a smoothed browe,

When sun-bright smiles melt flakes of driven snowe.
Thus doth he frollicke it each day by day,
And when night comes
drawes homeward to his coate,
Singing a jigge or merry roundelay,

For who sings commonly so merry a noate,
As he that cannot chop or
change a groate?
And in the winter nights his chiefe desire,
He
turnes a crabbe or cracknell in the fire.
He leads his wench a country horne-pipe round,
About a may-pole on
a holy-day,
Kissing his lovely lasse with garlands crownd,
With
whoopping heigh-ho singing care away.
Thus doth he passe the merry
month of May,
And all th' yere after, in delight and joy;
Scorning a
king, he cares for no annoy.
What though with simple cheere he homely fares,
He lives content; a
king can doo no more,
Nay, not so much, for kings have manie cares,

But he hath