"HAPPY are you so inclosed, May the maides be still disposed,

In their gestures and their dances,
So to grace you, with intwining,
That Envy wish in such combining,
Fortune's smile with happy chances.
"Here it seems as if the Graces
Measur'd out the plaine in traces,
In a shepheardesse disguising.
Are the spheares so nimbly turning,
Wand'ring lampes in Heaven burning,

To the eye so much intising?

"Yes, Heaven meanes to take these thither,
And adde one joy to see both dance together.
"Gentle nymphes, be not refusing,
Love's neglect is time's abusing,

They and beauty are but lent you ;
Take the one and keepe the other:
Love keepes fresh what age doth smother,
Beauty gone, you will repent you.
""Twill be said when ye have proved,
Never swaines more truely loved :

O then fly all nice behaviour!
Pitty faine would (as her dutie)
Be attending still on Beautie,

Let her not be out of favour.

"Disdaine is now so much rewarded,
That Pitty weepes since she is unregarded."

The measure and the song here being ended,
Each swaine his thoughts thus to his love com-
mended.

The first presents his DoGGE, with these:

WHEN I my flocke neere you doe keepe,
And bid my dogge goe take a sheepe,
He cleane mistakes what I bid doe,
And bends his pace still towards you.

Poore wretch! he knowes more care I keepe
To get you, than a seely sheepe.

The second, his PIPE, with these:

BID Ine to sing, (faire maide) my song shall prove There ne'er was truer pipe sung truer love.

The third, a paire of GLOVES, thus: THESE will keepe your hands from burning, Whilst the Sunne is swiftly turning; But who can any veile devise

To shield my heart from your faire eyes?

The fourth, an ANAGRAM.

MAIDEN AND MEN,

MAIDENS should be ayding men,
And for love give love agen:
Learne this lesson from your mother,
"One good wish requires another."
They deserve their names best, when
Maides most willingly ayd men.

The fift, a RING, with a picture in a JEWELL on it. NATURE bath fram'd a jemme beyond compare, The world's the ring, but you the jewell are.

The tenth, a COMBE.

LOVELY maiden, best of any,

O f our plaines though thrice as many : V aile to love, and leave denying, Endless knots let Fates be tying. Such a face, so fine a feature, (K indest, fairest, sweetest creature) N ever yet was found, but loving: O then let my plaints be moving! Trust a shepherd, though the meanest, Truth is best when she is plainest. I love not with vowes contesting: Faith is faith without protesting. Time, that all things doth inherit, Renders each desert his merit. If that faile in me, as no man, Doubtless time nere won a woman. Maidens still should be relenting, And once flinty, still repenting. Youth with youth is best combined, E ach one with his like is twined. Beauty should have beauteous meaning, E ver that hope easeth playning. Unto you, whom Nature dresses, Needs no combe to smooth your tresses. This way it may doe his dutie, In your locks to shade your beautie. Doe so, and to love be turning, E Ise each heart it will be burning.

The eleventh, a KNOT.

The twelfth, CUPID:

LOE, Cupid leaves his bowe: his reason is,
Because your eyes wound when bis shaftes do misse.

Whilst every one was off'ring at the shrine
Of such rare beauties, might be stil'd divine,
This lamentable voyce towards them flyes:
"O Heaven, send aid, or else a maiden dyes!"
Herewith some ranne the way the voyce them led;
Some with the maidens staid which shooke for
dread:

What was the cause time serves not now to tell.
Hearke! for my jolly weather rings his bell,
And almost all our flockes have left to graze ;
Shepheards, 'tis almost night, hie home apace;
When next we meet, (as we shall meet ere long)
Ile tell the rest in some ensuing song.

BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS.

THE FOURTH SONG.

THE ARGUMENT.

Fida's distrest, the hinde is slaine,
Yet from her ruines lives againe.
Riot's description next I rime,
Then Aletheia, and old Time:
And lastly, from this song I goe,
Having describ'd the Vale of Woe.

HAPPY, ye dayes of olde, when every waste
Was like a sanctuarie to the chaste:

When incests, rapes, adulteries, were not knowne;
All pure as blossomes, which are newly blowne.
Maides were as free from spots, and soiles within,
As most unblemisht in the outward skinne.
Men every plaine and cottage did afford,

As smooth in deedes, as they were faire of word.
Maidens with men, as sisters with their brothers;
And men and maides convers'd as with their
mothers;

Free from suspition, or the rage of bloud,
Strife only raign'd, for all striv'd to be good.

But then, as little wrens, but newly fledge,

First, by their nests hop up and downe the hedge;

Then one from bough to bough gets up a tree :
His fellow, noting his agilitie,

Thinkes he as well may venter as the other,
So flushing from one spray unto another,
Gets to the top, and then enbold'ned flyes,
Unto an height past ken of humane eyes:
So time brought worse, men first desir'd to talke;
Then came suspect; and then a private walke;
Then by consent appointed times of meeting,
Where most securely each might kisse his sweeting;
Lastly, with lusts their panting brests so swell,
They came to-but to what I blush to tell.
And ent'red thus, rapes used were of all,
Incest, adultery, held as veniall:

The certaintie in doubtfull ballance rests,
If beasts did learne of men, or men of beasts,
Had they not learn'd of man, who was their king,
So to insult upon an underling,
They civilly had spent their lives' gradation,
As meeke and milde as in their first creation;

Nor had th' infections of infected mindes
So alter'd nature, and disorder'd kindes,
Fida had beene lesse wretched, I more glad,
That so true love so true a progresse had.

When Remond left her, (Remond then unkinde)
Fida went downe the dale to seeke the hinde;
And found her taking soyle within a floud:
Whom when she call'd, straight follow'd to the
wood.

Fida, then wearied, sought the cooling shade,
And found an arbour, by the shepheards made
To frolicke in, (when Sol did hotest shine)
With cates which were farre cleanlier than fine.
For in those dayes men never us'd to feede
So much for pleasure as they did for neede.
Enriching then the arbour, downe she sate her;
Where many a busie bee came flying at her:
Thinking, when she for ayre her breasts discloses,
That there had growne some tuft of damaske-roses,
And that her azure veynes, which then did swell,
Were conduit-pipes brought from a living well,
Whose liquor might the world enjoy for money,
Bees would be bankerupt, none would care for
honey.

The hinde lay still without, (poor silly creature,
How like a woman art thou fram'd by Nature!
Timerous, apt to teares, wilie in running,
Caught best when force is entermixt with cunning)
Lying thus distant, different chances meete them,
And with a fearefull object Fate doth greete them.
Something' appear'd, which seem'd, farre off, a
In stature, habit, gate, proportion:
[man,

But when the eyes their object's masters were,
And it for stricter censure came more neere,
By all his properties one well might ghesse,
Than of a man he sure had nothing lesse.
For verily since olde Deucalion's flood
Upon the various earth's embrodered gowne
Earth's slime did ne'er produce a viler brood.
There is a weed, upon whose head growes downe;
Sow-thistle 'tis yeleep'd, whose downy wreath,
If any one can blow off at a breath,
We deeme her for a maide: such was his haire,
Ready to shed at any stirring aire.

His eares were strucken deafe when he came nie,
To hear the widowe's or the orphan's crie.
His eyes encircled with a bloody chaine,
With poaring in the bloud of bodies slaine.
His mouth exceeding wide, from whence did flie
Vollies of execrable blasphemie;

Banning the Heavens, and he that rideth on them,
Dar'd vengeance to the teeth to fall upon him:
Like Scythian wolves, or men of wit bereaven,
Which howle and shoote against the lights of
Heaven.
[corse,
His hands, (if hands they were) like some dead
With digging up his buried ancestors;
Making his father's tombe and sacred shrine
The trought wherein the hog-heard fed his swine.
And as that beast hath legs (which shepheards feare,
Ycleep'd a badger, which our lambs doth teare)
One long, the other short, that when he runnes
Upon the plaines, he halts; but when he wonnes
On craggy rocks, or steepy hills, we see
None runnes more swift, nor easier, than he :

Such legs the monster had, one sinew shrunk,
That in the plaines be reel'd, as being drunk ;
And halted in the paths to virtue tending;
And therefore never durst be that way bending:
But when he came on carved monuments,
Spiring colosses, and high raised rents,

He pass'd them o'er, quick, as the easterne winde
Sweepes through a meadow; or a nimble hinde;
Or satyre on a lawne; or skipping roe;
Or well-wing'd shaft forth of a Parthian bowe.
His body made (still in consumptions rife)
A miserable prison for a life.

Riot he hight; whom some curs'd fiend did raise,
When like a chaos were the nights and dayes;
Got and brought up in the Cimmerian clime,
Where sunne nor moone, nor daies nor nights do
time:
[faces
As who should say, they scorn'd to show their
To such a fiend, should seeke to spoil the graces.
At sight whereof, Fida nigh drown'd in feare,
Was cleane dismaide when he approached neare ;
Nor durst she call the deere, nor whistling winde
her,
[her;
Fearing her noise might make the monster finde
Who slilie came, for he had cunning learn'd him,
And sciz'd upon the hinde, ere she discern'd him.
Oh how she striv'd and strugled; every nerve
Is prest at all assaies a life to serve :
Yet soon we lose, what we might longer keepe
Were not prevention commonly a sleepe.
Maides, of this monster's brood be fearfull all,
What to the hinde may hap to you befall.
Who with her feete held up instead of hands,
And tears which pittie from the rocke commands,
She sighes, and shrikes, and weepes, and looks
upon him:

[him;

Alas! she sobs, and many a groan throwes on
With plaints which might abate a tyrant's knife,
She begges for pardon, and entreates for life;
The hollow caves resound her moanings neere it;
That heart was flint which did not grieve to heare
it;
[keepe,

The high topt firres which on that mountain
Have ever since that time been seene to weepe.
The owle till then, 'tis thought, full well could sing,
And tune her voice to every bubling spring:
But when she heard those plaints, then forth she
Out of the covert of an ivy rod,
And hollowing for aide, so strain'd her throate,
That since she cleane forgot her former noate.
A little robin sitting on a tree,

[yode

In doleful noates bewail'd her tragedie. [semble,
An aspe, who thought him stout, could not dis-
But show'd his feare, and yet is scene to tremble.
Yet cruelty was deafe, and had no sight -
In ought which might gaine-save the appetite:
But with his teeth rending her throat asunder,
Besprinckel'd with her blood the green grasse under,
And gurmundizing on her flesh and bloud,
He vomiting returned to the wood.

Riot but newly gone, as strange a vision
Though far more heavenly, came in apparition.
As that Arabian bird (whom all aduire)
Her exequies prepar'd and funerall fire,
Burnt in a flame conceived from the Sunne,
And nourished with slips of cynamon,
Out of her ashes hath a second birth,
And flies abroad, a wonderment on Earth:

*See Claudian's Phenix.

So from the ruiges of this mangled creature
Arose so faire and so divine a feature,
That Envy for her heart would doat upon her ;
Heaven could not chuse but be enamour'd on her:
Were I a starre, and she a second spheare,
Ide leave the other, and be fixed there.
Had faire Arachne wrought this maiden's haire,
When she with Pallas did for skill compare,
Minerva's worke had never been esteem'd,
But this had been more rare and highly deem'd.
Yet gladly now she would reverse her doome,
Weaving this haire within a spider's loome.
Upon her fore-head, as in glory sate
Mercy and majesty, for wond'ring at,
As pure and simple as Albania's snow, [of Po:
Or milke white swannes which stem the streames
Like to some goodly fore-land bearing out,
Her haire, the tufts which fring'd the shoare about.
And least the man which sought those coasts

might slip,

Her eyes like starres, did serve to guide the ship.
Upon her front (Heaven's fairest promontory)
Delineated was th' authentique story

Of those elect, whose sheepe at first began
To nibble by the springs of Canaan:
Out of whose sacred loynes, (brought by the stem
Of that sweet singer of Jerusalem)
Came the best shepheard ever flockes did keepe,
Who yielded up his life to save his sheepe.

O thou Eterne! by whom all beings move,
Giving the springs beneath, and springs above :
Whose finger doth this universe sustaine,
Bringing the former and the latter raine :
Who dost with plenty meades and pastures fill,
By drops distil'd like dew on Hermon hill:
Pardon a silly swaine, who (farre unable
In that which is so rare, so admirable)
Dares on an oaten-pipe, thus meanely sing
Her praise immense, worthy a silver string.
And thou which through the desart and the
deepe,

Didst lead thy chosen like a flocke of sheepe:
As sometimes by a starre thou guidedst them,
Which fed upon the plaines of Bethelem;
So by thy sacred spirit direct my quill,
When I shall sing ought of thy holy hill,
That times to come, when they my rimes rehearse,
May wonder at me, and admire my verse :
For who but one rapt in cœlestiall fire,
Can by his Muse to such a pitch aspire?
That from aloft he might behold and tell
Her worth, whereon an iron pen might dwell.
When she was borne, Nature in sport began,
To learne the cunning of an artizan,
And did vermilion with a white compose,,
To mocke herselfe, and paint a damaske rose.
But scorning Nature unto art should seeke,
She spilt her colours on this maiden's cheeke.
Her mouth the gate from whence all goodnesse
Of power to give the dead a living name. [caine,
Her words embalmed in so sweet a breath,
That made then triumph both on Time and Death,
Whose fragrant sweets, since the camelion knew,
And tasted of, he to this humour grew:
Left other elements, held this so rare,
That since he never feeds on ought but ayre.

Description of truth.

• Ovid's Metamorphoses, book 6.

To follow you, which sweetly trilling wanders
In many mazes, intricate meanders;
Till at the last, to mocke th' enamour'd rill,
Ye bend your traces up some shady hill;
And laugh to see the wave no further treade;
But in a chafe runne foaming on his head,
Being enforc'd a channell new to frame,
Leaving the other destitute of name.
If thou be one of these, or all, or more,
Succour a seely maid, that doth implore
Aide, on a bended heart, unfain'd and meeke,
As true as blushes of a maiden cheeke."
"Maiden arise," replide the new borue maide:
Pure innocence the stones will aide.'

Nor of the fairie troope, nor Mases nine;
Nor am I Venus, nor of Proserpine:
But daughter to a lusty aged swaine,

That cuts the greene turffs of th' enamel'd plaine;
And with his sythe hath many a summer shorne
The plow'd-lands lab'ring with a crop of corne;
Who from the could-clipt mountaine by his stroake
Fels downe the lofty pine, the cedar, oake:
He opes the flood gates as occasion is
Sometimes on that man's land, sometimes on this.
When Verolame, a stately nymph of yore,
Did use to decke herselfe on Isis' shore,
One morne (among the rest) as there she stood,
Saw the pure channel all besmear'd with bloud;
Inquiring for the cause, one did impart,
Those drops came from her holy Alban's' heart;
Herewith in griefe she gan entreate my syre,
That Isis' streame, which yeerely did attire
Those gallant fields in changeable array,
'Might turn her course and run some other way.
Least that her waves might wash away the guilt.
From off their hands which Alban's bloud had spilt:
He condescended, and the nimble wave
Her fish no more within that channell drave:
But as a witness left the crimson gore
To staine the earth, as they their hands before.
He had a being ere there was a birth,

And shall not cease until the sea and earth,
And what they both containe, shall cease to be,
Nothing confines him but eternitie.

By him the names of good men ever live,
Which short-liv'd men unto oblivion give:
And in forgetfulnesse he lets him fall,
That is no other man than naturall:
'Tis he alone that rightly can discover,
Who is the true, and who the fained lover.
In summer's heate when any swaine to sleepe
Doth more addict himselfe than to his sheepe;
And whilst the leaden god sits on his eyes,
If any of his folde, or strayes, or dyes,
And to the waking swaine it be unknown,
Whether his sheepe be dead, or straid, or stolue;
To meete my syre he bends his course in paine,
Either where some high hill survaics the plaine;
Or takes his step toward the flow'ry vallyes,
Where Zephyre with the cowslip bourely dallyes;
Or to the groves, where birds from heate or
weather,

Sit sweetly tuning of their noates together;

"He was slain and suffered martyrdom in the days of Diocletian and Maximinian. The place of his execution was an hill in a wood called Holmhurst, where at one stroke his head as smitten off. See the Golden Legend; Robert of Glocester; Harding, c. 57. &c.