Where be the nosegays that she dight1 for thee?
The colour'd chapelets wrought with a chief,2
The knotted rush-rings, and gilt rosemary?
For she deemed no thing too dear for thee.
Ah! they be all y-clad in clay;
One bitter blast blew all away.
O heavy herse!

Thereof naught remains but the memory;
O careful verse!

"Ah me! that dreary Death should strike so

mortal stroke,

That can undo Dame Nature's kindly course;
The faded locks 3 fall from the lofty oak,
The floods do gasp, for dried is their source,
And floods of tears flow in their stead perforce:
The mantled meadows mourn,

Their sundry colours turn.

O heavy herse!

She hath the bonds broke of eternal night,
Her soul unbodied of the burdenous corse.
Why then weeps Lobbin so without remorse?
O Lobb! thy loss no longer lament;
Dido n' is dead, but into heaven hent."
O happy herse!

Cease now, my Muse, now cease thy sorrows'

source;

O joyful verse!

"Why wail we then? why weary we the gods
with plaints,

As if some evil were to her betight? 10
She reigns a goddess now among the saints,
That whilom was the saint of shepherds' light,
And is installed now in heaven's height.

I see thee, blessed soul! I see
Walk in Elysian fields so free.

O happy herse!

O joyful verse!

The heav'ns do melt in tears without remorse; Might I once come to thee (O that I might !) O careful verse! "The feeble flocks in field refuse their former "Unwise and wretched men, to weet what's food, good or ill,

And hang their heads as they would learn to We deem of death as doom of ill desert;

But knew we, fools, what it us brings until,
Die would we daily, once it to expert! 11
No danger there the shepherd can astert; 12
Fair fields and pleasant lays 13 there be'n;
The fields ay fresh, the grass ay green.

O happy herse!

Make haste, ye shepherds, thither to revert.
O joyful verse!

"Dido is gone afore (whose turn shall be the
· next?)

"The water nymphs, that wont with her to There lives she with the blessed gods in bliss;

sing and dance,

And for her garland olive branches bear,
Now baleful boughs of cypress do advance ;
The Muses, that were wont green bays to wear,
Now bringen bitter elder-branches sear;

The Fatal Sisters eke repent

Her vital thread so soon was spent.

O heavy herse!

Mourn now, my Muse, now mourn with heavy cheer;

O careful verse!

There drinks she nectar with ambrosia mixt,
And joys enjoys that mortal men do miss.
The honour now of highest gods she is,
That whilom was poor shepherd's pride,
While here on earth she did abide.

O happy herse!

Cease now, my song, my woe now wasted is ;
O joyful verse!"

T. Ah! frank shepherd, how be thy verses
meint 14

With doleful pleasance, so as I not wot

"O trustless state of earthly things, and Whether rejoice or weep for great constraint!

5

slipper hope

Thine be the cosset, well hast thou it got.

Of mortal men, that swink and sweat for Up, Colin, up, enough thou mourned hast;

of his former ways, he proportioneth his life to the four seasons of the year; comparing his youth to the spring time, when he was fresh and free from love's folly. His manhood to the summer, which, he saith, was consumed with great heat and excessive drouth, caused through a comet or blazing star, by which he meaneth love; which passion is commonly compared to such flames and immoderate heat. His riper years he resembleth to an unsea

sonable harvest, wherein the fruits fall ere they be ripe. His latter age to winter's chill and frosty season, now drawing near to his last end.

THE gentle shepherd sat beside a spring,
All in the shadow of a bushy brere,1

And, if that Hobbinol right judgment bare,
To Pan his own self pipe I need not yield:

For, if the flocking nymphs did follow Pan,
The wiser Muses after Colin ran.
"But, ah! such pride at length was ill repaid;
The shepherds' god (pardie! god was he none)
My hurtless pleasance did me ill upbraid;
My freedom lorn," my life he left to moan.
Love they him called that gave me check-
mate,

But better might they have behote 8 him
Hate.

That Colin hight, which well could pipe and sing, And Summer season sped him to display
For he of Tityrus his song did lear: 2

"Then gan my lovely Spring bid me farewell,

There as he sat in secret shade alone,
Thus gan he make of love his piteous moan.
"O sov'reign Pan! thou god of shepherds all,
Which of our tender lambkins takest keep,3
And, when our flocks into mischance might fall,
Dost save from mischief the unwary sheep,

Als' of their masters hast no less regard
Than of the flocks, which thou dost watch

and ward;

"I thee beseech (so be thou deign to hear
Rude ditties, tun'd to shepherd's oaten reed,
Or if I ever sonnet sung so clear,

As it with pleasance might thy fancy feed),
Hearken a while, from thy green cabinet,
The rural song of careful Colinet.

"Whilom in youth, when flower'd my joyful
Spring,

Like swallow swift I wander'd here and there;
For heat of heedless lust me so did sting,
That I of doubted danger had no fear :

I went the wasteful woods and forest wide,
Withouten dread of wolves to be espied.
"I wont to range amid the mazy thicket,
And gather nuts to make my Christmas-game,
And joyëd oft to chase the trembling pricket,4
Or hunt the heartless hare till she were tame.
What recked I of wintry age's waste?
Then deemed I my spring would ever last.
"How often have I scal'd the craggy oak,
All to dislodge the raven of her nest?
How have I wearied, with many a stroke,
The stately walnut-tree, the while the rest
Under the tree fell all for nuts at strife?
For like to me was liberty and life.
"And, for I was in those same looser years
(Whether the Muse so wrought me from my
birth,

Or I too much believ'd my shepherd peers),
Somedeal y-bent to song and music's mirth,
A good old shepherd, Wrenock was his name,
Made me by art more cunning in the same.
"From thence I durst in derring-do 6 compare
With shepherd's swain whatever fed in field;

(For Love then in the Lion's house' did dwell)
The raging fire that kindled at his ray.
A comet stirr'd up that unkindly heat,
That reigned (as men said) in Venus' seat.
"Forth was I led, not as I wont afore,
When choice I had to choose my wand'ring

way,

But whither luck and love's unbridled lore

Would lead me forth on Fancy's bit to play:
The bush my bed, the bramble was my

bow'r ;

The woods can witness many a woeful stour.10 "Where I was wont to seek the honey-bee, Working her formal rooms in waxen frame, The grisly toadstool grown there might I see, And loathed paddocks 11 lording on the same: And where the chanting birds lull'd me asleep,

The ghastly owl her grievous inn 12 doth keep.

Then, as the Spring gives place to elder time, And bringeth forth the fruit of Summer's pride;

All so my age, now passed youthly prime,
To things of riper season self applied,

And learn'd of lighter timber cotes to frame,
Such as might save my sheep and me from
shame.

"To make fine cages for the nightingale,
And baskets of bulrushes, was my wont:
Who to entrap the fish in winding sale 13
Was better seen, 14 or hurtful beasts to hunt?
I learned als' the signs of heav'n to ken,15
How Phoebus fails, 16 where Venus sets, and

when.

And tried time yet taught me greater things;
The sudden rising of the raging seas,
The sooth 17 of birds by beating of their wings,
The pow'r of herbs, both which can hurt and

ease,

And which be wont t'enrage the restless sheep,
And which be wont to work eternal sleep.
"But, ah! unwise and witless Colin Clout,
That kid'st 18 the hidden kinds of many a weed,
Yet kid'st not one to cure thy sore heart-root,

EPILOGUE.

And from the falser's fraud his folded flock to The better please, the worse despise; I ask no keep.

THE RUINS OF TIME.

[1591.]

"I was that city which the garland wore
Of Britain's pride, deliver'd unto me
By Roman victors, which it won of yore;
Though naught at all but ruins now I be,
And lie in mine own ashes, as ye see:
Ver'lam I was: what boots it that I was,
Since now I am but weeds and wasteful grass?
"O vain world's glory! and unsteadfast state
Of all that lives on face of sinful earth!
Which, from their first until their utmost date,
Taste no one hour of happiness or mirth;
But like as at the ingate of their birth
They crying creep out of their mother's womb,

Nigh where the goodly Ver❜lam stood of yore, So wailing back go to their woeful tomb.

"Why then doth flesh, a bubble-glass of breath,
Hunt after honour and advancement vain,
And rear a trophy for devouring death,
With so great labour and long-lasting pain,
As if his days for ever should remain?
Since all that in this world is great or gay
Doth as a vapour vanish and decay.

"Look back, who list, unto the former ages,
And call to count what is of them become :
Where be those learned wits and antique sages
Which of all wisdom knew the perfect sum?
Where those great warriors, which did overcome
The world with conquest of their might and
main,

"But, long ere this, Bonduca, Britoness,
Her mighty host against my bulwarks brought;
Bonduca! that victorious conqueress,

That, lifting up her brave heroic thought
'Bove women's weakness, with the Romans
fought,

Fought, and in field against them thrice pre-
vail'd:

Yet was she foil'd, when as she me assail'd.
"And though at last by force I conquer'd were
Of hardy Saxons, and became their thrall;
Yet was I with much bloodshed bought full
dear,

And pric'd with slaughter of their General :

And made one meer1 of th' earth and of their The monument of whose sad funeral,

For wonder of the world, long in me lasted;
But now to naught, through spoil of time, is
wasted.

"Wasted it is, as if it never were;
And all the rest, that me so honour'd made,
And of the world admired ev'rywhere,
Is turn'd to smoke, that doth to nothing fade;
And of that brightness now appears no shade,
But grisly shades, such as do haunt in hell
With fearful fiends, that in deep darkness
dwell.

"Where my high steeples whilom us'd to
stand,

On which the lordly falcon wont to tow'r,
There now is but a heap of lime and sand

With her own weight down pressed now she lies, For the screech-owl to build her baleful bow'r: And by her heaps her hugeness testifies.

"O Rome, thy ruin I lament and rue,
And in thy fall my fatal overthrow,

That whilom was, whilst heav'ns with equal view
Deign'd to behold me, and their gifts bestow,
The picture of thy pride in pompous show:
And of the whole world as thou wast the empress,
So I of this small northern world was princess.
"To tell the beauty of my buildings fair,
Adorn'd with purest gold and precious stone;
To tell my riches and endowments rare,
That by my foes are now all spent and gone;
To tell my forces, matchable to none;
Were but lost labour, that few would believe,
And with rehearsing would me more aggrieve.
"High tow'rs, fair temples, goodly theatres,
Strong walls, rich porches, princely palaces,
Large streets, brave houses, sacred sepulchres,
Sure gates, sweet gardens, stately galleries
Wrought with fair pillars and fine imageries;
All those (O pity!) now are turn'd to dust,
And overgrown with black oblivion's rust.
"Thereto for warlike pow'r, and people's store,
In Brittany was none to match with me,
That many often did aby full sore:
Nor Troynovant,3 though elder sister she,
With my great forces might compared be;
That stout Pendragon to his peril felt,
Who in a siege sev'n years about me dwelt.

And where the nightingale wont forth to pour
Her restless plaints, to comfort wakeful lovers,
There now haunt yelling mews and whining
plovers.

"And where the crystal Thamis wont to slide
In silver channel, down along the lea,
About whose flow'ry banks on either side
A thousand nymphs, with mirthful jollity,
Were wont to play, from all annoyance free;
There now no river's course is to be seen,
But moorish fens, and marshes ever green.
"Seems, that that gentle River, for great grief
Of my mishaps, which oft I to him plain'd,-
Or for to shun the horrible mischief,
With which he saw my cruel foes me pain'd,
And his pure streams with guiltless blood oft
stain'd,-

From my unhappy neighbourhood far fied,
And his sweet waters away with him led.
"There also, where the winged ships were seen
In liquid waves to cut their foamy way,
And thousand fishers number'd to have been,
Of fish, which they with baits us'd to betray,
In that wide lake looking for plenteous prey
Is now no lake, nor any fisher's store,
Nor ever ship shall sail there any more.

"They all are gone, and all with them is gone?
Nor aught to me remains, but to lament
My long decay, which no man else doth moan,

4 The father of King Arthur-Uther Pendragon.
5 Boadicea.
6 Purchased.