Thomalin.

Where is every piping lad

That the fields are not yclad

With their milk-white sheep?

Tell me: is it holiday,

Or if in the month of May

Use they long to sleep?

Piers.

Thomalin, 'tis not too late,

For the turtle and her mate

Sitten yet in nest:

And the thrustle hath not been

Gath'ring worms yet on the green,

But attends her rest.

Not a bird hath taught her young,

Nor her morning's lesson sung

In the shady grove:

But the nightingale in dark

Singing woke the mounting lark:

She records her love.

Not the sun hath with his beams

Gilded yet our crystal streams;

Rising from the sea,

Mists do crown the mountains' tops,

And each pretty myrtle drops:

'Tis but newly day.

Willie.

Roget, droop not, see the spring

Is the earth enamelling,

And the birds on every tree

Greet this morn with melody:

Hark, how yonder thrustle chants it,

And her mate as proudly vants it

See how every stream is dress'd

By her margin with the best

Of Flora's gifts; she seems glad

For such brooks such flow'rs she had.

All the trees are quaintly tired

With green buds, of all desired;

And the hawthorn every day

Spreads some little show of May:

See the primrose sweetly set

By the much-lov'd violet,

All the banks do sweetly cover,

As they would invite a lover

With his lass to see their dressing

And to grace them by their pressing:

Yet in all this merry tide

When all cares are laid aside,

Roget sits as if his blood

Had not felt the quick'ning good

Of the sun, nor cares to play,

Or with songs to pass the day

As he wont: fie, Roget, fie,

Raise thy head, and merrily

Tune us somewhat to thy reed:

See our flocks do freely feed,

Here we may together sit,

And for music very fit

Is this place; from yonder wood

Comes an echo shrill and good,

Twice full perfectly it will

Answer to thine oaten quill.

Roget, droop not then, but sing

Some kind welcome to the spring.

All.

Autumn it was when droop'd the sweetest flow'rs,

And rivers, swoll'n with pride, o'erlook'd the banks;

Poor grew the day of summer's golden hours,

And void of sap stood Ida's cedar-ranks.

The pleasant meadows sadly lay

In chill and cooling sweats

By rising fountains, or as they

Fear'd winter's wastfull threats.

CHORUS.

Then come on shore,

Where no joy dies till love hath gotten more.

Son of Erebus and Night,

Hie away; and aim thy flight

Where consort none other fowl

Than the bat and sullen owl;

Where upon the limber grass

Poppy and mandragoras

With like simples not a few

Hang for ever drops of dew.

Where flows Lethe without coil

Softly like a stream of oil.

Hie thee thither, gentle Sleep:

With this Greek no longer keep.

Thrice I charge thee by my wand;

Thrice with moly from my hand

Do I touch Ulysses' eyes,

And with the jaspis: Then arise,

Sagest Greek....

Lo, I the man that whilom lov'd and lost,

Not dreading loss, do sing again of love;

And like a man but lately tempest-toss'd,

Try if my stars still inauspicious prove:

Not to make good that poets never can

Long time without a chosen mistress be,

Do I sing thus; or my affections ran

Within the maze of mutability;

What last I lov'd was beauty of the mind,

And that lodg'd in a temple truly fair,

Which ruin'd now by death, if I can find

The saint that liv'd therein some otherwhere,

I may adore it there, and love the cell

For entertaining what I lov'd so well.

Why might I not for once be of that sect,

Which hold that souls, when Nature hath her right,

Some other bodies to themselves elect;

And sunlike make the day, and license night?

That soul, whose setting in one hemisphere

Was to enlighten straight another part;

In that horizon, if I see it there,

Calls for my first respect and its desert;

Her virtue is the same and may be more;

For as the sun is distant, so his power

In operation differs, and the store

Of thick clouds interpos'd make him less our.

And verily I think her climate such,

Since to my former flame it adds so much.

Fairest, when by the rules of palmistry

You took my hand to try if you could guess

By lines therein if any wight there be

Ordain'd to make me know some happiness;

I wish'd that those characters could explain,

Whom I will never wrong with hope to win;

Or that by them a copy might be ta'en,

By you alone what thoughts I have within.

But since the hand of Nature did not set

(As providently loath to have it known)

The means to find that hidden alphabet.

Mine eyes shall be th' interpreters alone:

By them conceive my thoughts, and tell me, fair,

If now you see her that doth love me there.

Were't not for you, here should my pen have rest

And take a long leave of sweet poesy;

Britannia's swains, and rivers far by west,

Should hear no more mine oaten melody;

Yet shall the song I sung of them awhile

Unperfect lie, and make no further known

The happy loves of this our pleasant Isle;

Till I have left some record of mine own.

You are the subject now, and, writing you,

I well may versify, not poetize:

Here needs no fiction: for the graces true

And virtues clip not with base flatteries.

Here could I write what you deserve of praise,

Others might wear, but I should win the bays.

Sing soft, ye pretty birds, while Cælia sleeps,

And gentle gales play gently with the leaves;

Learn of the neighbour brooks, whose silent deeps

Would teach him fear, that her soft sleep bereaves

Mine oaten reed, devoted to her praise,

(A theme that would befit the Delphian lyre)

Give way, that I in silence may admire.

Is not her sleep like that of innocents,

Sweet as herself; and is she not more fair,

Almost in death, than are the ornaments

Of fruitful trees, which newly budding are?

She is, and tell it, Truth, when she shall lie

And sleep for ever, for she cannot die.

I saw a silver swan swim down the Lea,

Singing a sad farewell unto the vale,

While fishes leapt to hear her melody,

And on each thorn a gentle nightingale

And many other birds forbore their notes,

Leaping from tree to tree, as she along

The panting bosom of the current floats,

Rapt with the music of her dying song:

When from a thick and all-entangled spring

A neatherd rude came with no small ado,

Dreading an ill presage to hear her sing,

And quickly struck her tender neck in two;

Whereat the birds, methought, flew thence with speed,

And inly griev'd for such a cruel deed.

A rose, as fair as ever saw the North,

Grew in a little garden all alone;

A sweeter flower did Nature ne'er put forth,

Nor fairer garden yet was never known:

The maidens danc'd about it morn and noon,

And learned bards of it their ditties made;

The nimble fairies by the pale-faced moon

Water'd the root and kiss'd her pretty shade.

But well-a-day, the gard'ner careless grew;

The maids and fairies both were kept away,

And in a drought the caterpillars threw

Themselves upon the bud and every spray.

God shield the stock! if heaven send no supplies,

The fairest blossom of the garden dies.

Down in a valley, by a forest's side,

Near where the crystal Thames rolls on her waves,

I saw a mushroom stand in haughty pride,

As if the lilies grew to be his slaves;

The gentle daisy, with her silver crown,

Worn in the breast of many a shepherd's lass;

The humble violet, that lowly down

Salutes the gay nymphs as they trimly pass:

These, with a many more, methought, complain'd

That Nature should those needless things produce,

Which not alone the sun from others gain'd

But turn it wholly to their proper use:

I could not choose but grieve that Nature made

So glorious flowers to live in such a shade.

A gentle shepherd, born in Arcady,

That well could tune his pipe, and deftly play

The nymphs asleep with rural minstrelsy,

Methought I saw, upon a summer's day,

Take up a little satyr in a wood,

All masterless forlorn as none did know him,

And nursing him with those of his own blood,

On mighty Pan he lastly did bestow him;

But with the god he long time had not been,

Ere he the shepherd and himself forgot,

And most ingrateful, ever stepp'd between

Pan and all good befell the poor man's lot:

Whereat all good men griev'd, and strongly swore

They never would be foster-fathers more.

May! Be thou never grac'd with birds that sing,

Nor Flora's pride!

In thee all flowers and roses spring,

Mine only died.

Underneath this sable herse

Lies the subject of all verse:

Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother:

Death, ere thou hast slain another,

Fair and learn'd, and good as she,

Time shall throw a dart at thee.

Marble piles let no man raise

To her name: for after days

Some kind woman born as she,

Reading this, like Niobe

Shall turn marble, and become

Both her mourner and her tomb.