Classic Poem

CONCERNING OLD AGE .

The beginning and end of this Eclogue are wanting.

PERIN. WRENOCK .

PERIN .

For when thou art not as thou wont of yore,
No cause why life should please thee any more.
Whilom I was in course of former years,
Ere freezing Eld had cooled my youthly rage;
Of mickle worth among my shepherds' peers.
Now for I am some-deal 'ystept in age,
For pleasance, strength, and beauty 'gins assuage,
Each little herd-groom laughs my wrinkled face
Each bonny lass for Cuddy shuns the place;
For all this woe none can we justly twight,
But hateful Eld, the foe to pleasant rest,
Which like a thief doth rob us of delight.

WRENOCK .

Perin, enough; few words been always best;
Needs must be borne that cannot be redrest.
Self am I as thou seest in thilke estate;
The grief is eath to bear that haz a mate:
But sicker for to speak the truth, indeed,
Thou seem'st to blame that blameless seems to me,
And hurtless Eld to sneb; (ill mought he speed,
That slays the dog, for wolves so wicked be;)
The faults of men thou lay'st on age, I see;
For which if Eld were in itself to blame,
Then I and all my peers should taste the same.

PERIN .

Wrenock, I ween, thou doat'st through rusty Eld,
And think'st with feigned words to blear mine eye;
Thou for thy store art ever blissful held:
Thy heaps of gold, nil let thee sorrow spy:
Thy flocks full safe here under shade do lie;
Thy weanlings fat, thine ewes with bladder blown:
A jollier shepherd have we seldom known.

WRENOCK .

For thilke my store, great Pan y'herried be:
But if for-thy mine age with joy I bear,
How falls it that thyself unlike to me,
Art vexed so with grief and bootless fear?
Thy store will let thee sleep on either ear.
But neither want makes age to wise men hard;
Nor fools by wealth from grievous pains are barred.

PERIN .

Seest not how free yond lambkin skips and plays,
And wags his tail, and buts with tender head?
All for he feels the heat of youngthly days,
Which secret law of kind hath inly bred.
Thilke ewe from whom all joy with youth is fled,
See how it hangs the head, as it would weep;
Whilom it skipped, uneaths now may it creep.

WRENOCK .

No fellowship hath state of beasts with man;
In them is nought but strength of limb and bone,
Which ends with age, as it with age began.
But man, they say'n (as other creature none)
Hath uncouth fire conveyed from heaven by one:
His name, I wist, that yields him inward light,
Sike fire as Welkin shows in winter night.

Which neither age nor time can wear away;
Which waxeth bett for use, as shepherd's crook,
That ever shineth brighter day by day.
Also though wrinkled seem the aged look,
Bright shines the fire that from the stars we took
And sooth to say, thilke ewe laments the pain
That thilke same wanton lamb is like sustain.

PERIN .

Ah, Wrenock! be not all thy teeth on edge,
To see youngth's folk to sport in pastimes gay?
To pitch the barr, to throw the weighty sledge;
To dance with Phillis all the holy-day;
To hunt by day the fox; by night the gray?
Sike peerless pleasures wont us for to queem,
Now lig we laid, as drowned in heavy dream.

DEEST .