The Affectionate Shepherd | Page 4

Thy bane my bale, thy blisse my blessednes,?Thy ill my hell, thy weale my welfare is.
Thus doo I honour thee that love thee so,?And love thee so, that so doo honour thee?Much more than anie mortall man doth know,?Or can discerne by love or jealozie:?But if that thou disdainst my loving ever,?Oh happie I, if I had loved never!
FINIS.
Plus fellis quam mellis amor.
THE SECOND DAYES LAMENTATION OF THE AFFECTIONATE
SHEPHEARD.
Next morning, when the golden sunne was risen,?And new had bid good morrow to the mountaines;?When night her silver light had lockt in prison,?Which gave a glimmering on the christall fountaines:?Then ended sleepe, and then my cares began,?Ev'n with the uprising of the silver swan.
Oh, glorious sunne! quoth I, viewing the sunne,?That lightenst everie thing but me alone:?Why is my summer season almost done,?My spring-time past, and ages autumne gone??My harvest's come, and yet I reapt no corne:?My love is great, and yet I am forlorne.
Witnes these watrie eyes my sad lament,?Receaving cisternes of my ceaseles teares;?Witnes my bleeding hart my soules intent,?Witnes the weight distressed Daphnis beares:?Sweet love, come ease me of thy burthens paine,?Or els I die, or else my hart is slaine.
And thou, love-scorning boy, cruell, unkinde,?Oh, let me once againe intreat some pittie:?May be thou wilt relent thy marble minde,?And lend thine eares unto my dolefull dittie:?Oh, pittie him, that pittie craves so sweetly,?Or else thou shalt be never named meekly.
If thou wilt love me, thou shalt be my boy,?My sweet delight, the comfort of my minde,?My love, my dove, my sollace, and my joy;?But if I can no grace nor mercie finde,?Ile goe to Caucasus to ease my smart,?And let a vulture gnaw upon my hart.
Yet if thou wilt but show me one kinde looke,?A small reward for my so great affection,?Ile grave thy name in Beauties golden booke,?And shrowd thee under Hellicon's protection:?Making the muses chaunt thy lovely prayse,?For they delight in shepheard's lowly layes.
And when th'art wearie of thy keeping sheepe?Upon a lovely downe, to please thy minde,?Ile give thee fine ruffe-footed doves to keepe,?And pretie pidgeons of another kinde:?A robbin-redbrest shall thy minstrell bee,?Chirping thee sweet and pleasant melodie.
Or if thou wilt goe shoote at little birds,?With bow and boult, the thrustle-cocke and sparrow,?Such as our countrey hedges can afford,?I have a fine bowe, and an yvorie arrow.?And if thou misse, yet meate thou shalt [not] lacke,?Ile hang a bag and bottle at thy backe.
Wilt thou set springes in a frostie night?To catch the long-bill'd woodcocke and the snype,?By the bright glimmering of the starrie light,?The partridge, ph?sant, or the greedie grype;?Ile lend thee lyme-twigs, and fine sparrow calls,?Wherewith the fowler silly birds inthralls.
Or in a mystie morning if thou wilt?Make pitfalls for the larke and pheldifare,?Thy prop and sweake shall be both overguilt,?With Cyparissus selfe thou shalt compare?For gins and wyles, the oozels to beguile,?Whilst thou under a bush shalt sit and smile.
Or with hare-pypes set in a muset hole,?Wilt thou deceave the deep-earth-delving coney;?Or wilt thou in a yellow boxen bole,?Taste with a wooden splent the sweet lythe honey;?Clusters of crimson grapes Ile pull thee downe,?And with vine-leaves make thee a lovely crowne.
Or wilt thou drinke a cup of new-made wine,?Froathing at top, mixt with a dish of creame?And strawberries, or bilberries, in their prime,?Bath'd in a melting sugar-candie streame:?Bunnell and perry I have for thee alone,?When vynes are dead, and all the grapes are gone.
I have a pleasant noted nightingale,?That sings as sweetly as the silver swan,?Kept in a cage of bone as white as whale,?Which I with singing of Philemon wan:?Her shalt thou have, and all I have beside,?If thou wilt be my boy, or els my bride.
Then will I lay out all my lardarie?Of cheese, of cracknells, curds and clowted-creame,?Before thy malecontent ill-pleasing eye;?But why doo I of such great follies dreame??Alas, he will not see my simple coate,?For all my speckled lambe, nor milk-white goate!
Against my birth-day thou shalt be my guest,?Weele have greene-cheeses and fine silly-bubs,?And thou shalt be the chiefe of all my feast,?And I will give thee two fine pretie cubs,?With two yong whelps, to make thee sport withall,?A golden racket, and a tennis-ball.
A guilded nutmeg, and a race of ginger,?A silken girdle, and a drawn-worke band,?Cuffs for thy wrists, a gold ring for thy finger,?And sweet rose-water for thy lilly-white hand;?A purse of silke, bespangd with spots of gold,?As brave a one as ere thou didst behold.
A paire of knives, a greene hat and a feather,?New gloves to put upon thy milk-white hand,?Ile give thee, for to keep thee from the weather,?With phoenix feathers shall thy face be fand,?Cooling those cheekes, that being cool'd wexe red,?Like lillyes in a bed of roses shed.
Why doo thy corall lips disdaine to kisse,?And sucke that sweete which manie have desired??That baulme my bane, that meanes would mend