ASTROPHEL. A PASTORAL ELEGIE UPON THE DEATH OF THE MOST NOBLE AND VALOROUS KNIGHT, SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. DEDICATED TO THE MOST BEAUTIFULL AND VERTUOUS LADIE, THE COUNTESS OF ESSEX. 1 SHEPHERDS, that wont, on pipes of oaten reed, Hearken, ye gentle shepheards, to my song, To you alone I sing this mournfull verse, The mournfulst verse that ever man heard tell : Yet as they been, if any nycer wit Shall hap to heare, or covet them to read: Let him be moov'd to pity such a case. ASTROPHEL. AGENTLE Shepheard borne in Arcady, Of gentlest race that ever shepheard bore, About the grassie bancks of Hamony Young Astrophel, the pride of shepheards praise, For from the time that first the Nymph his mother Which daily more and more he did augment, Ne Spight it selfe, that all good things doth spill, His sports were faire, his joyance innocent, And he himselfe seemd made for meriment, For he could pipe, and daunce, and caroll sweet, Full many Maydens often did him woo, And many a Nymph both of the wood and brooke, Both christall wells and shadie groves forsooke, But he for none of them did care a whit, Stella the faire, the fairest star in skie, (A fairer star saw never living eie,) Shot her sharp pointed beames through purest aire. His thoughts, his rimes, his songs were all 27 |