The Affectionate Shepherd | Page 7

thy minde be seldome cloyd with cares:?Be milde and gentle in thy speech to all,?Refuse no honest gaine when it doth fall.
Be not beguild with words, prove not ungratefull,?Releeve thy neighbour in his greatest need,?Commit no action that to all is hatefull,?Their want with welth, the poore with plentie feed:?Twit no man in the teeth with what th' hast done;?Remember flesh is fraile, and hatred shunne.
Leave wicked things, which men to mischiefe move,?Least crosse mis-hap may thee in danger bring:?Crave no preferment of thy heavenly Jove,?Nor anie honor of thy earthly king:?Boast not thyselfe before th' Almighties sight,?Who knowes thy hart, and anie wicked wight.
Be not offensive to the peoples eye,?See that thy praiers harts true zeale affords,?Scorne not a man that's falne in miserie,?Esteeme no tatling tales, no babling words;?That reason is exiled alwaies thinke,?When as a drunkard rayles amidst his drinke.
Use not thy lovely lips to loathsome lyes,?By craftie meanes increase no worldly wealth;?Strive not with mightie men (whose fortune flies),?With temp'rate diet nourish wholesome health:?Place well thy words, leave not thy frend for gold;?First trie, then trust, in ventring be not bold.
In Pan repose thy trust; extoll his praise,?(That never shall decay, but ever lives):?Honor thy parents (to prolong thy dayes),?Let not thy left hand know what right hand gives:?From needie men turne not thy face away,?Though charitie be now yclad in clay.
Heare shepheards oft (thereby great wisdome growes),?With good advice a sober answere make:?Be not remoov'd with every winde that blowes,?(That course doo onely sinfull sinners take):?Thy talke will shew thy fame or els thy shame;?(A pratling tongue doth often purchase blame.)
Obtaine a faithfull frend that will not faile thee,?Think on thy mother's paine in her child-bearing;?Make no debate, least quickly thou bewaile thee,?Visit the sicke with comfortable chearing:?Pittie the prisner, helpe the fatherlesse,?Revenge the widdowes wrongs in her distresse.
Thinke on thy grave, remember still thy end,?Let not thy winding-sheete be staind with guilt;?Trust not a fained reconciled frend,?More than an open foe (that blood hath spilt):?(Who tutcheth pitch, with pitch shalbe defiled),?Be not with wanton companie beguiled.
Take not a flattring woman to thy wife,?A shameles creature, full of wanton words,?(Whose bad, thy good, whose lust will end thy life,?Cutting thy hart with sharpe two edged knife):?Cast not thy minde on her whose lookes allure,?But she that shines in truth and vertue pure.
Praise not thyselfe, let other men commend thee;?Beare not a flattring tongue to glaver anie;?Let parents due correction not offend thee;?Rob not thy neighbor, seeke the love of manie;?Hate not to heare good counsell given thee,?Lay not thy money unto usurie.
Restraine thy steps from too much libertie,?Fulfill not th' envious mans malitious minde;?Embrace thy wife, live not in lecherie;?Content thyselfe with what fates have assignde:?Be rul'd by reason, warning dangers save;?True age is reverend worship to thy grave.
Be patient in extreame adversitie,?(Mans chiefest credit growes by dooing well).?Be not high-minded in prosperitie;?Falshood abhorre, no lying fable tell.?Give not thyselfe to sloth, (the sinke of shame,?The moath of time, the enemie to fame).
This leare I learned of a bel-dame Trot,?(When I was yong and wylde as now thou art),?But her good counsell I regarded not,?I markt it with my eares, not with my hart.?But now I finde it too-too true (my sonne),?When my age-withered spring is almost done.
Behold my gray head, full of silver haires,?My wrinckled skin, deepe furrowes in my face,?Cares bring old age, old age increaseth cares;?My time is come, and I have run my race:?Winter hath snow'd upon my hoarie head,?And with my winter all my joyes are dead.
And thou love-hating boy, (whom once I loved),?Farewell, a thousand-thousand times farewell;?My teares the marble-stones to ruth have moved;?My sad complaints the babling ecchoes tell:?And yet thou wouldst take no compassion on mee,?Scorning that crosse which love hath laid upon mee.
The hardest steele with fier doth mend his misse,?Marble is mollifyde with drops of raine;?But thou (more hard than steele or marble is),?Doost scorne my teares, and my true love disdaine,?Which for thy sake shall everlasting bee,?Wrote in the annalls of eternitie.
By this, the night, (with darknes over-spred),?Had drawne the curtaines of her cole-blacke bed;?And Cynthia, muffling her face with a clowd,?(Lest all the world of her should be too proud)?Had taken conge of the sable night,?(That wanting her cannot be halfe so bright.)
When I, poore forlorn man and outcast creature,?(Despairing of my love, despisde of beautie),?Grew malecontent, scorning his lovely feature,?That had disdaind my ever zealous dutie:?I hy'd me homeward by the moone-shine light,?Foreswaring love, and all his fond delight.
FINIS.
THE SHEPHEARDS CONTENT, OR THE HAPPINES OF A HARMLES
LIFE. WRITTEN UPON OCCASION OF THE FORMER
SUBJECT.
Of all the kindes of common countrey life,?Methinkes a shepheards life is most content;?His state is quiet peace, devoyd of strife;?His thoughts are pure from all impure intent,?His pleasures rate sits at an easie rent;?He beares no mallice in his