COLIN CLOUTS

COME HOME AGAINE.

BY ED. SPENCER.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR WILLIAM PONSONBIE.

1595.

TO THE RIGHT WORTHY AND NOBLE KNIGHT,

SIR WALTER RALEIGH,

CAPTAINE OF HER MAIESTIES GUARD, LORD WARDEIN
OF THE STANNERIES, AND LIEUTENANT OF

THE COUNTIE OF CORNWALL.

SIR,

THAT you may see that I am not alwaies ydle as yee thinke, though not greatly well occupied, nor altogither undutifull, though not precisely officious, I make you present of this simple Pastorall, unworthie of your higher conceipt for the meanesse of the stile, but agreeing with the truth in circumstance and matter. The which I humbly beseech you to accept in part of paiment of the infinite debt in which I acknowledge my selfe bounden unto you, for your singular favours and sundrie good turnes shewed to me at my late being in England, and with your good countenance protect against the malice of evill mouthes, which are alwaies wide open to carpe at and misconstrue my simple meaning. I pray continually for your happinesse. From my house of Kilcolman, the

27. of December, 1591.*

Yours ever humbly,

ED. SP.

* Malone and Todd maintain that this is a misprint for 1594 or 1595, founding their objections to the earlier date, among other

things, on supposed allusions in the course of the piece to works of Daniel printed after 1591, and to the death of the Earl of Derby, which occurred in 1594. But these passages, even if we grant them to have the meaning which is ascribed to them, might have been inserted just before publication. Spenser speaks in this dedication of favors shown him by Raleigh at his late being in England, and we have no trace of his having been there from the early part of 1591 up to the time when this poem was published. Besides, it is more likely that Spenser would write this account of his introduction at court immediately after his return to Ireland, than that he should wait three or four years until it was an old story. C.

COLIN CLOUTS COME HOME

AGAINE.

THE shepheards boy (best knowen by that name)
That after Tityrus1 first sung his lay,

Laies of sweet love, without rebuke or blame,
Sate, as his custome was, upon a day,
Charming his oaten pipe unto his peres,

The shepheard swaines that did about him play:
Who all the while, with greedie listfull eares,
Did stand astonisht at his curious skill,

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Like hartlesse deare dismayd with thunders sound. At last, when as he piped had his fill,

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He rested him: and, sitting then around,
One of those groomes (a iolly groome was he
As ever piped on an oaten reed,
And lov'd this shepheard dearest in degree,
Hight Hobbinol 3) gan thus to him areed.1

"Colin, my liefe,5 my life, how great a losse Had all the shepheards nation by thy lacke! And I, poore swaine, of many, greatest crosse;

1 I. e. Chaucer.

2 Charming, tuning.
3 I. e. Gabriel Harvey.

4 Areed, say.
5 Liefe, dear.

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