ÆGLOGA SEPTIMA
ARGUMENT
This Æglogue is made in the honour and commendation of good shepeheardes, and to the shame and disprayse of proude and ambitious pastours: such as Morrell is here imagined to bee.

THOMALIN. MORRELL
Thom. Is not thilke same a goteheard prowde,
That sittes on yonder bancke,
Whose straying heard them selfe doth shrowde
Emong the bushes rancke?
Mor. What ho! thou jollye shepheards swayne,

Hobbinoll

Lo, Colin, here the place whose pleasant site
From other shades hath wean'd my wand'ring mind.
Tell me, what wants me here to work delight?
The simple air, the gentle warbling wind,
So calm, so cool, as nowhere else I find;
The grassy ground with dainty daisies dight;
The bramble bush, where birds of every kind
To the water's fall their tunes attemper right.

Colin

O happy Hobbinoll, I bless thy state!
Thou Paradise hast found, which Adam lost.

PALINODE. PIERS.

Pal. Is not thilke the mery moneth of May,
When love lads masken in fresh aray?
How falles it then, we no merrier bene,
Ylike as others, girt in gawdy greene?
Our bloncket liveryes bene all to sadde
For thilke same season, when all is yeladd
With pleasaunce: the grownd with grasse, the wods
With greene leaves, the bushes with bloosming buds.
Yougthes folke now flocken in every where,
To gather may buskets and smelling brere:
And home they hasten the postes to dight,

Ye dainty nymphs, that in this blessed brook
Do bathe your breast,
Forsake your watery bowers, and hither look,
At my request;
And eke you virgins, that on Parnasse dwell,
Whence floweth Helicon the learned well,
Help me to blaze
Her worthy praise,
Which in her sex doth all excel.

Of fair Elisa be your silver song,
That blessed wight;
The flower of virgins, may she flourish long,
In princely plight.
For she is Syrinx' daughter without spot,
Which Pan the shepherds' God of her begot:
So sprang her grace

Thenot. Hobbinoll.
The. Tell me, good Hobbinoll, what garres thee greete?
What! hath some wolfe thy tender lambes ytorne?
Or is thy bagpype broke, that soundes so sweete?
Or art thou of thy loved lasse forlorne?

Or bene thine eyes attempred to the yeare,
Quenching the gasping furrowes thirst with rayne?
Like April shoure, so stremes the trickling teares
Adowne thy cheeke, to quenche thy thristye payne.

Hob. Nor thys, nor that, so muche doeth make me mourne,
But for the ladde whome long I lovd so deare

WILLYE. THOMALIN.

Wil. Thomalia, why sytten we soe,
As weren overwent with woe,
Upon so fayre a morow?
The joyous time now nigheth fast,
That shall alegge this bitter blast,
And slake the winters sorowe.
Tho. Sicker, Willye, thou warnest well:
For winters wrath beginnes to quell,
And pleasant spring appeareth.
The grasse nowe ginnes to be refresht,
The swallow peepes out of her nest,
And clowdie welkin cleareth.

Ah for pittie! wil rancke winters rage

These bitter blasts never ginne tasswage?
The kene cold blowes through my beaten hyde,
All as I were through the body gryde.
My ragged rontes all shiver and shake,
As doen high towers in an earthquake:
They wont in the wind wagge their wrigle tailes,
Perke as peacock: but nowe it avales.
The. Lewdly complainest thou, laesie ladde,
Of winters wracke, for making thee sadde.
Must not the world wend in his commun course,
From good to badd, and from badde to worse,

A Shepheardes boye (no better do him call),
When Winters wastful spight was almost spent
All in a sunneshine day, as did befall,
Led forth his flock that had bene long ypent:
So faynt they woxe, and feeble in the folde,
That now unnethes their feete could them uphold.

All as the Sheepe, such was the shepeheards looke,
For pale and wanne he was, (alas the while!)
May seeme he lovd, or els some care he tooke;
Well couth he tune his pipe and frame his stile:
Tho to a hill his faynting flocke he ledde,

What time the wearie weather-beaten Sheepe,
To get them Fodder, hie them to the Fold,
And the poore Heards that lately did them keepe,
Shuddred with keenenesse of the Winters cold:
The Groves of their late Summer pride forlorne,
In mossie Mantles sadly seem'd to mourne.

That silent time, about the upper World,
P HoeBUS had forc'd his fierie-footed Teame,
And downe againe the steepe Olympus whurld,
To wash his Chariot in the Westrene streame,

Late 'twas in June , the Fleece when fully growne,
In the full compasse of the passed yeere,
The Season well by skilfull Shepheards knowne,
That them provide immediately to sheere.

Their Lambes late wax't so lusty and so strong,
That time did them their Mothers Teats forbid,
And in the fields the common flocks among,
Eate of the same Grasse that the greater did.

When not a Shepheard any thing that could,
But greaz'd his start-ups blacke as Autumns Sloe,
And for the better credit of the Wold,
In their fresh Russets every one doth goe.