The Affectionate Shepherd | Page 5

that meanes would mend my misse,?Oh, let me then with thy sweete lips b'inspired!?When thy lips touch my lips, my lips will turne?To corall too, and, being cold yce, will burne.
Why should thy sweete love-locke hang dangling downe,?Kissing thy girdle-stud with falling pride??Although thy skin be white, thy haire is browne:?Oh, let not then thy haire thy beautie hide!?Cut off thy locke, and sell it for gold wier:?The purest gold is tryde in hottest fier.
Faire long-haire-wearing Absolon was kild,?Because he wore it in a braverie:?So that which gracde his beautie, Beautie spild,?Making him subject to vile slaverie,?In being hangd: a death for him too good,?That sought his owne shame and his father's blood.
Againe we read of old king Priamus,?The haplesse syre of valiant Hector slaine,?That his haire was so long and odious?In youth, that in his age it bred his paine:?For if his haire had not been halfe so long,?His life had been, and he had had no wrong.
For when his stately citie was destroyd,?That monument of great antiquitie,?When his poore hart, with griefe and sorrow cloyd,?Fled to his wife, last hope in miserie;?Pyrrhus, more hard than adamantine rockes,?Held him and halde him by his aged lockes.
These two examples by the way I show,?To prove th' indecencie of men's long haire:?Though I could tell thee of a thousand moe,?Let these suffice for thee, my lovely faire,?Whose eye's my starre, whose smiling is my sunne,?Whose love did ende before my joyes begunne.
Fond love is blinde, and so art thou, my deare,?For thou seest not my love and great desart;?Blinde love is fond, and so thou dost appeare,?For fond and blinde, thou greevst my greeving hart:?Be thou fond-blinde, blinde-fond, or one, or all,?Thou art my love, and I must be thy thrall!
Oh lend thine yvorie forehead for loves booke,?Thine eyes for candles to behold the same;?That when dim-sighted ones therein shall looke,?They may discerne that proud disdainefull dame;?Yet claspe that booke, and shut that cazement light,?Lest, th'one obscurde, the other shine too bright.
Sell thy sweet breath to th' daintie musk-ball makers,?Yet sell it so as thou mayst soone redeeme it:?Let others of thy beauty be pertakers,?Else none but Daphnis will so well esteeme it.?For what is beauty, except it be well knowne??And how can it be knowne, except first showne?
Learne of the gentlewomen of this age,?That set their beauties to the open view,?Making disdaine their lord, true love their page,?A custome zeale doth hate, desert doth rue:?Learne to looke red, anon waxe pale and wan,?Making a mocke of love, a scorne of man.
A candle light, and cover'd with a vaile,?Doth no man good, because it gives no light;?So Beauty of her beauty seemes to faile,?When being not seene it cannot shine so bright:?Then show thyselfe and know thyselfe withall,?Lest climing high thou catch too great a fall.
Oh foule eclipser of that fayre sun-shine,?Which is intitled Beauty in the best,?Making that mortall, which is els divine,?That staines the fayre which women steeme not least:?Get thee to Hell againe, from whence thou art,?And leave the center of a woman's hart.
Ah be not staind, sweet boy, with this vilde spot,?Indulgence daughter, mother of Mischaunce;?A blemish that doth every beauty blot,?That makes them loath'd, but never doth advaunce?Her clyents, fautors, friends, or them that love her,?And hates them most of all, that most reprove her.
Remember age, and thou canst not be prowd,?For age puls downe the pride of every man;?In youthfull yeares by Nature tis allowde?To have selfe-will, doo Nurture what she can;?Nature and Nurture once together met,?The soule and shape in decent order set.
Pride looks aloft, still staring on the starres,?Humility looks lowly on the ground;?Th' one menaceth the gods with civill warres,?The other toyles till he have Vertue found.?His thoughts are humble, not aspiring hye,?But Pride looks haughtily with scornefull eye.
Humillity is clad in modest weedes,?But Pride is brave and glorious to the show;?Humillity his friends with kindnes feedes,?But Pride his friends in neede will never know,?Supplying not their wants, but them disdaining,?Whilst they to pitty never neede complayning.
Humillity in misery is reliev'd,?But Pride in neede of no man is regarded;?Pitty and Mercy weepe to see him griev'd,?That in distresse had them so well rewarded;?But Pride is scornd, contemnd, disdaind, derided,?Whilst Humblenes of all things is provided.
Oh then be humble, gentle, meeke, and milde,?So shalt thou be of every mouth commended;?Be not disdainfull, cruell, proud, sweet childe,?So shalt thou be of no man much condemned:?Care not for them that vertue doo despise;?Vertue is loathde of fooles, lovde of the wise.
O faire boy, trust not to thy beauties wings,?They cannot carry thee above the sunne:?Beauty and wealth are transitory things,?For all must ende that ever was begunne.?But Fame and Vertue never shall decay,?For Fame is toombles, Vertue lives for aye.
The snow is white, and yet the pepper 's blacke,?The one is bought, the other is