The Affectionate Shepherd | Page 3

sleepy head.
And when it pleaseth thee to walke abroad,?Abroad into the fields to take fresh ayre,?The meades with Floras treasure should be strowde,?The mantled meaddowes, and the fields so fayre.?And by a silver well with golden sands?Ile sit me downe, and wash thine yvory hands.
And in the sweltring heate of summer time,?I would make cabinets for thee, my love;?Sweet-smelling arbours made of eglantine?Should be thy shrine, and I would be thy dove.?Cool cabinets of fresh greene laurell boughs?Should shadow us, ore-set with thicke-set eughes.
Or if thou list to bathe thy naked limbs?Within the cristall of a pearle-bright brooke,?Paved with dainty pibbles to the brims,?Or cleare, wherein thyselfe thyselfe mayst looke;?Weele goe to Ladon, whose still trickling noyse?Will lull thee fast asleepe amids thy joyes.
Or if thoult goe unto the river side,?To angle for the sweet freshwater fish,?Arm'd with thy implements that will abide,?Thy rod, hooke, line, to take a dainty dish;?Thy rods shall be of cane, thy lines of silke,?Thy hooks of silver, and thy bayts of milke.
Or if thou lov'st to hear sweet melodie,?Or pipe a round upon an oaten reede,?Or make thyselfe glad with some myrthfull glee,?Or play them musicke whilst thy flocke doth feede.?To Pans owne pype Ile helpe my lovely lad,?Pans golden pype, which he of Syrinx had.
Or if thou darst to climbe the highest trees?For apples, cherries, medlars, peares, or plumbs,?Nuts, walnuts, filbeards, chestnuts, cervices,?The hoary peach, when snowy winter comes;?I have fine orchards full of mellowed frute,?Which I will give thee to obtaine my sute.
Not proud Alcynous himselfe can vaunt?Of goodlier orchards or of braver trees?Than I have planted; yet thou wilt not graunt?My simple sute, but like the honey bees?Thou suckst the flowre till all the sweet be gone,?And loost mee for my coyne till I have none.
Leave Guendolen, sweet hart; though she be faire,?Yet is she light; not light in vertue shining,?But light in her behaviour, to impaire?Her honour in her chastities declining;?Trust not her teares, for they can wantonnize,?When teares in pearle are trickling from her eyes.
If thou wilt come and dwell with me at home,?My sheepcote shall be strowed with new greene rushes: Weele haunt the trembling prickets as they rome?About the fields, along the hauthorne bushes;?I have a pie-bald curre to hunt the hare,?So we will live with daintie forrest fare.
Nay, more than this, I have a garden plot,?Wherein there wants nor hearbs, nor roots, nor flowers; Flowers to smell, roots to eate, hearbs for the pot,?And dainty shelters when the welkin lowers:?Sweet-smelling beds of lillies, and of roses,?Which rosemary banks and lavender incloses.
There growes the gilliflowre, the mynt, the dayzie?Both red and white, the blue-veynd violet;?The purple hyacinth, the spyke to please thee,?The scarlet dyde carnation bleeding yet:?The sage, the savery, and sweet margerum,?Isop, tyme, and eye-bright, good for the blinde and dumbe.
The pinke, the primrose, cowslip and daffodilly,?The hare-bell blue, the crimson cullumbine,?Sage, lettis, parsley, and the milke-white lilly,?The rose and speckled flowre cald sops-in-wine,?Fine pretie king-cups, and the yellow bootes,?That growes by rivers and by shallow brookes.
And manie thousand moe I cannot name?Of hearbs and flowers that in gardens grow,?I have for thee, and coneyes that be tame,?Young rabbets, white as swan, and blacke as crow;?Some speckled here and there with daintie spots:?And more I have two mylch and milke-white goates.
All these and more Ile give thee for thy love,?If these and more may tyce thy love away:?I have a pidgeon-house, in it a dove,?Which I love more than mortall tongue can say.?And last of all Ile give thee a little lambe?To play withall, new weaned from her dam.
But if thou wilt not pittie my complaint,?My teares, nor vowes, nor oathes, made to thy beautie: What shall I doo but languish, die, or faint,?Since thou dost scorne my teares, and my soules duetie: And teares contemned, vowes and oaths must faile,?And where teares cannot, nothing can prevaile.
Compare the love of faire Queene Guendolin?With mine, and thou shalt [s]ee how she doth love thee: I love thee for thy qualities divine,?But shee doth love another swaine above thee:?I love thee for thy gifts, she for hir pleasure;?I for thy vertue, she for beauties treasure.
And alwaies, I am sure, it cannot last.?But sometime Nature will denie those dimples:?Insteed of beautie, when thy blossom's past,?Thy face will be deformed full of wrinckles;?Then she that lov'd thee for thy beauties sake,?When age drawes on, thy love will soone forsake.
But that I lov'd thee for thy gifts divine,?In the December of thy beauties waning,?Will still admire with joy those lovely eine,?That now behold me with their beauties baning.?Though Januarie will never come againe,?Yet Aprill yeres will come in showers of raine.
When will my May come, that I may embrace thee??When will the hower be of my soules joying??Why dost thou seeke in mirth still to disgrace mee??Whose mirth's my health, whose