Thou feeble flock! whose fleece is rough and rent, 43
Whose knees are weak through fast and evil fare,
Mayst witness well, by thy ill government,
Thy master's mind is overcome with care:

Thou weak, I wan; thou lean, I quite forlorn:
With mourning pine I; you with pining mourn.

'A thousand siths1 I curse that careful hour
Wherein I long'd the neighbour town to see,
And eke ten thousand siths I bless the stoure2
Wherein I saw so fair a sight as she:

50

Yet all for naught: such sight hath bred my bane.
Ah, God! that love should breed both joy and pain!

It is not Hobbinol* wherefore I plain,
Albe3 my love he seek with daily suit;
His clownish gifts and court'sies I disdain,
His kids, his cracknels, and his early fruit.
Ah, foolish Hobbinol! thy gifts be vain;
Colin them gives to Rosalind again.

'I love thilk lass, (alas! why do I love?)
And am forlorn, (alas! why am I lorn?)
She deigns not my good will, but doth reprove,
And of my rural music holdeth scorn.

60

Shepherd's device she hateth as the snake,
And laughs the songs that Colin Clout doth make.

'Wherefore, my pipe, albe rude Pan thou please,
Yet for thou pleasest not where most I would;
And thou, unlucky Muse, that wont'st to ease
My musing mind, yet canst not when thou should; 70
Both Pipe and Muse shall sore the while abye.'
So broke his oaten pipe, and down did lie.

*Hobbinol:' the author's friend Gabriel Harvey.

1 Times.

2 Occa

sion.

3 Although.

4 Biscuits.

5 This

same.

1 Decreased. 2 Bring down. 3 Draw

over.

By that, the welked1 Phoebus gan availe2
His weary wain; and now the frosty Night
Her mantle black through heaven gan overhale: 3
Which seen, the pensive boy, half in despite,

73

Arose, and homeward drove his sunned sheep, Whose hanging heads did seem his careful case to weep.

COLIN'S EMBLEM.

Ancora speme.

(Hope is my anchor.)

4 Feeble

ness

FEBRUARY.

EGLOGA SECUNDA.

ARGUMENT.

This Eglogue is rather moral and general than bent to any secret or particular purpose. It specially containeth a discourse of old age, in the person of Thenot, an old shepherd, who, for his crookedness and unlustiness, is scorned of Cuddie, an unhappy herdman's boy. The matter very well accordeth with the season of the month, the year now drooping, and as it were drawing to his last age. For as in this time of year, so then in our bodies, there is a dry and withering cold, which congealeth the curdled blood, and freezeth the weather-beaten flesh, with storms of Fortune and hoar-frosts of Care. To which purpose the old man telleth a tale of the Oak and the Brier, so lively, and so feelingly, as, if the thing were set forth in some picture before our eyes, more plainly could not appear.

5 Pierced.

• Young bullocks.

CUDDIE.

Aн for pity! will rank winter's rage
These bitter blasts never gin t' assuage?

The keen cold blows through my beaten hide,
All as I were through the body gride: 5
My ragged ronts all shiver and shake,
As doen high towers in an earthquake:

They wont in the wind wag their wriggle tails
Perk1 as a peacock; but now it availes.2

THE. Lewdly complainest, thou lazy lad,
Of winter's wrack4 for making thee sad.
Must not the world wend5 in his common

course,

From good to bad, and from bad to worse,
From worse unto that is worst of all,
And then return to his former fall?
Who will not suffer the stormy time,
Where will he live till the lusty prime?

Self have I worn out thrice thirty years,
Some in much joy, many in many tears,
Yet never complained of cold nor heat,
Of summer's flame, nor of winter's threat,
Ne ever was to Fortune foeman,
But gently took that ungently came;
And ever my flock was my chief care;
Winter or summer they might well fare.
CUD. No marvel, Thenot, if thou can bear
Cheerfully the winter's wrathful cheer;
For age and winter accord full nigh,
This chill, that cold; this crooked, that wry;
And as the louring weather looks down,
So seemest thou like Good Friday* to frown:
But my flow'ring youth is foe to frost,
My ship unwont in storms to be tost.

THE. The sovereign of seas he blames in vain,
That, once sea-beat, will to sea again:
So loit'ring live you little herdgrooms,7
Keeping your beasts in the budded brooms;
And, when the shining sun laugheth once,
You deemen, the spring is come at once;

7

10

*Good Friday:' Good Friday is said to frown, as being a fast-day.

20

30

1 Foolish. Then gin you, fond1 flies! the cold to scorn, And, crowing in pipes made of green corn, You thinken to be lords of the year;

2 Quickly. But eft,2 when ye count you freed from fear,

3 Sharp.

4 Wrinkled.

Comes the breme3 Winter with chamfred brows,
Full of wrinkles and frosty furrows,

Drearily shooting his stormy dart,

Which curdles the blood and pricks the heart:
5 Daunted. Then is your careless courage accoyed,5
Your careful herds with cold be annoyed:
Then pay you the price of your surquedry,
With weeping, and wailing, and misery.

6 Pride.

7

Age.

8 Surely.

9 Wavering.

11 Also.

CUD. Ah! foolish old man! I scorn thy skill,
That wouldst me my springing youth to spill:
I deem thy brain emperished be

Through rusty eld,7 that hath rotted thee;
Or sickers thy head very totty9 is,

So on thy corb 10 shoulder it leans amiss.
10 Crooked. Now thyself hath lost both lop and top,
Als 11 my budding branch thou wouldest crop;
But were thy years green, as now be mine,
To other delights they would incline:
Then wouldest thou learn to carol of love,
And hery 12 with hymns thy lass's glove;
Then wouldest thou pipe of Phillis' praise;
But Phillis is mine for many days;

12 Praise.

13 A gilded I won her with a girdle of gelt,13 Embost with bugle 14 about the belt:

girdle.

14 Beads.

15 Fool.

15 Proudly.

17 Nice.

Such an one shepherds would make full fain;
Such an one would make thee young again.

THE. Thou art a fon,15 of thy love to boast;
All that is lent to love will be lost.

CUD. Seest how brag 16 yond bullock bears,
So smirk,17 so smooth, his pricked ears?

His horns be as broad as rainbow bent,
His dewlap as lithe as lass of Kent:
See how he venteth1 into the wind;
Weenest of love is not his mind?
Seemeth thy flock thy counsel can,
So lustless 2 be they, so weak, so wan;
Clothed with cold, and hoary with frost,
Thy flock's father his courage hath lost.
Thy ewes, that wont to have blowen bags,
Like wailful widows hangen their crags; 3
The rather lambs be starved with cold,
All for their master is lustless and old.

THE. Cuddie, I wot thou kenst little good,
So vainly to advance thy heedlesshood;
For youth is a bubble blown up with breath,
Whose wit is weakness, whose wage is death,
Whose way is wilderness, whose inn penance,
And stoop-gallant Age, the host of Grievance.
But shall I tell thee a tale of truth,
Which I cond of Tityrus in my youth,
Keeping his sheep on the hills of Kent?
CUD. To nought more, Thenot, my mind is
bent

Than to hear novels of his devise;
They be so well thewed," and so wise,
Whatever that good old man bespake.

THE. Many meet tales of youth did he make,
And some of love, and some of chivalry;
But none fitter than this to apply.

Now listen a while and hearken the end.

There grew an aged tree on the green,

A goodly Oak sometime had it been,
With arms full strong and largely display'd,
But of their leaves they were disarray'd::