There faw I drunkenness with dropfies fwoln;
And pamper'd luft that many a night had stoln
Over the abbey-wall when gates were lock'd,
To be in Venus wanton bofom rock'd:
And gluttony that surfeiting had been,
Knock at the gate and ftraightway taken in :
Sadly I fat, and fighing griev'd to see,
Their happiness, my infelicity.

At laft came envy by, who having spied
Where I was fadly feated, inward hide,
And to the convent eagerly the cries,

Why fit you here, when with these ears and eyes
I heard and faw a ftrumpet dares to fay,
She is the true fair Aletheia,

Which you have boasted long to live among you?
Yet fuffer not a peevish girl to wrong you.
With this provok'd, all rofe, and in a rout
Ran to the gate, ftrove who should first get out,
Bade me be gone, and then (in terms uncivil)
Did call me counterfeit, witch, hag, whore, devil;
Then like a ftrumpet drove me from their cells,
With tinkling pans, and with the noife of bells.
And he that lov'd me, or but moan'd my case,
Had heaps of firebrands banded at his face.

Thus beaten thence (diftreft, forfaken wight)
Enforc'd in fields to fleep, or wake all night;
A filly fheep feeing me itraying by,
Forfook the fhrub where once he meant to lie;
As if the in her kind (unhurting elf)
Did bid me take fuch lodging as herself :
Gladly I took the place the sheep had given,
Uncanopy'd of any thing but heaven. [quented,
Where nigh benumb'd with cold, with grief fre-
Unto the filent night I thus lamented:

Fair Cynthia, if from thy filver throne,
Thou ever lent'ft an ear to virgin's moan!
Or in thy monthly course, one minute staid
Thy palfreys trot, to hear a wretched maid!
Pull in their reins, and lend thine ear to me,
Forlorn forfaken, cloth'd in mifery :
But if a woe hath never woo'd thine ear,
To stop thofe courfers in their full carreer;
But as ftone hearted men, uncharitable,
Pafs carclefs by the poor, when men less able,
Hold not the needy's help in long fufpence,
But in their hands pour their benevolence.
O if thou be fo hard to stop thine ears;
When stars in pity drop down from their spheres,
Yet for a while in gloomy vale of night,
Infhrowd the pale beams of thy borrowed light:
O! never once difcourage goodness (lending
One glimpse of light) to fee misfortune spending
Her utmoit rage on truth, defpifed, diftreffed,
Unhappy, unreliev'd, yet undreffed.

Where is the heart at virtue's suff'ring grieveth?
Where is the eye that pitying relieveth?
Where is the hand that fill the hungry feedeth?
Where is the ear that the decrepid fteedeth?

That heart, that hand, that ear, or else that eye,
Giveth, relieveth, feeds, fteeds, mifery ?
O earth produce me one (of all thy ftore)
Enjoys; and be vain glorious no more.

By this had Chanticleer, the village cock,
Bidden the good-wife for her maids to knock :
And the fwart ploughman for his breakfast staid,
That he might till thofe lands were fallow laid;
The hills and valleys here and there refound
With re-echoes of the deep mouth'd hound;
Each fhepherd's daughter with her cleanly pail,
Was come a field to milk the morning's meal,
And ere the fun had climb'd the eastern hills,
To gild the mutt'ring bourns, and pretty rills.
Before the lab'ring bee had left the hive,
And nimble fishes which in rivers dive,
Began to leap, and catch the drowned fly,
I rofe from reft, not infelicity.
Seeking the place of charity's resort,
Unware I happ'ned on a prince's court;
Where meeting greatnefs, I requir'd relief,
| (O happy undelayed !) she said in brief,
To fmall effect thine oratory tends,
"How can I keep thee and fo many friends?"
If of my household I fhould make thee one,
Farewell my fervant adulation:

I know the will not ftay when thou art there:
But feek fome great man's fervice otherwhere.
Darkness and light, fummer and winter's wea
ther

May be at once, ere you two live together.
Thus with a nod fhe left me cloth'd in woe.

Thence to the city once I thought to go,
But fomewhat in my mind this though: had
thrown,

"It was a place wherein I was not known." And therefore went unto these homely towns, Sweetly environ'd with the dazied downs.

Upon a ftream washing a village end

A mill is plac'd, that never difference kend
'Twixt days for work, and holy-tides for reft,
But always wrought and ground the neighbour's
greft.

Before the door I faw the miller walking,
And other two (his neighbours) with him talk-

ing:

One of them was a weaver, and the other
The village tailor, and his trusty brother;
To them I came, and thus my fuit began;
Content the riches of a country man
Attend your actions, be more happy still,
Then I am haplefs! and as yonder miil,
Though in his turning it obey the stream,
Yet by the headftrong torrent froin his beam
Is unremov'd, and till the wheel be tore,
It daily toils; then refts, and works no more:
So in life's motion may never be
(Though fway'd with griefs) o'er-borne with
mifery.
[clothes,
With that the miller laughing, brufh'd his
Then fwore by cock and other dunghill oaths,
I greatly was to blame, that durft fo wade
Into the knowledge of a wheel-wright's trade.
1, neighbour, quoth the tailor then he bent
His pace to me, spruce like a Jack of Lent)

Your judgment is not feam-rent when you spend / And trees that on the hill-fide comely grew,

Had cut a path, whereby the grieved wight
Might freely take the comfort of this fcite.
About the edges of whofe roundly form,
In order grew fuch trees as do adorn
The fable hearfe, and fad forfaken mate;
And trees whofe tears their lofs commiferate;
Such are the cyprefs, and the weeping myrrh,
The dropping amber, and the refin'd fir,
The bleeding vine, the wat'ry sycamor,
And willow for the forlorn paramoure;
In comely distance: underneath whose shade
Moft neat in rudenefs nature arbours made:
Some had a light; fome to obfcure a seat,
Would entertain a fufferance ne'er fo great :
Where grieved wights fat (as 1 after found,
Whole heavy hearts the height of fo: row crown'd)
Wailing in faddeft tunes the dooms of fate
On men by virtue cleped fortunate.

The first note that I heard, I foon was won
To think the fighs of fair Endymiou;
The fubject of whose mournful heavy lay
Was his declining with fair Cynthia.

Next him a great man fat, in woe no less;
Tears were but barren fhadows to exprefs
The fubftance of his grief, and therefore stood
Diftilling from his heart red ftreams of blood:
He was a fwain whom all the Graces kift,
A brave, heroic, worthy martialift:
Yet on the downs he oftentimes was seen
To draw the merry maidens of the green
With his fweet voice: once, as he fat alone,
Hefung the outrage of the lazy drone,
Upon the lab'ring bee, in ftrains fo rare,
That all the fitting pinionifts of air
Attentive fat, and in their kinds did long
To learn fome note from his well-timed fong.
Exiled Nafo (from whose golden pen
The mufes did diftil delights for men)
Thus fang of Cephalus (whofe name was worn
Within the bofom of the blufhing morn :)
He had a dart was never fet on wing,

But death flew with it: he could never fling,
But life fled from the place where stuck the head:
A hunter's frolic life in woods he lead
la feparation from his yoked mate,
Whole beauty, once, he valued at a rate
Beyond Aurora's cheek, when the (in pride)
Promis'd their offspring fhould be deify'd:
Procris fhe hight; who (feeking to restore
Herfelf that happiness she had before)
Unto the green wood wends, omits no pain
Might bring her to her lord's embrace again :
But fate thus croft her, coming where he lay
Wearied with hunting all the fummer's day,
He fomewhat heard within the thicket rush,
And deeming it fome beast hid in a bush,
Raised himself, then fet on wing a dart,
Which took a fad reft in the restless heart
Of his chafte wife; who with a bleeding breast
Left love and life, and flept in endless reft.

*Sir Walter Raleigh. + Earl of Effex.
The Buzzing Bee's Complaint; by the Earl of
Efex.

§ Art of Love, Book 3,

With Procris heavy fate this hepherd's wrong
Might be compar'd, and afk as fad a fong.

In th'autumn of his youth, and manhood's spring,
Defert (grown now a moft dejected thing)
Won him the favour of a royal maid,
Who with Diana's nymphs in forests ftray'd,
And liv'd a huntress life exempt from fear.
She once encount'red with a furly bear,
Near to a crystal fountain's flow'ry brink,
Heat brought them thither both, and both would
drink,

When from her golden quiver fhe took forth
A dart, above the reft efteem'd for worth,
And fent it to his fide: the gaping wound
Gave purple ftreams to cool the parched ground,
Whereat he gnafh'd his teeth, ftorm'd his hurt
limb,

Yielded the earth what it denied him :
Yet funk not there, but (wrapt in horror) hy'd
Unto his hellish cave, defpair'd, and dy'd.

After the bear's juft death, the quick'ning fun.
Had twice fix times about the zodiac run,
And (as refpeclefs) never caft an eye,
Upon the night envail'd Cymmerii,
When this brave fwain (approved valorous,
In oppofition of a tyrannous

And bloody favage) being long time gone
Quelling his rage with faithlefs † Gerion,
Returned from the ftratagems of wars,
(Enriched with his quail'd foes bootless fears)
To fee the clear eyes of his dearest love,
And that her fkill in herbs might help remove
The frething of a wound which he had got
In her defence, by envy's poifon'd fhot,
And coming through a grove wherein his fair
Lay with her breasts difplay'd to take the air,
His rufhing through the boughs made her arife,
And dreading fome wild beaft's rude enterprise,
Directs towards the noise a sharpen'd dart,
That reach'd the life of his undaunted heart;
Which when he knew, twice twenty moons
nigh spent

In tears for him, and dy'd in languishment.
Within an arbour fhadow'd with a vine,
Mixed with rosemary and eglantine,

A fhepherdefs was fet, as fair as young,
Whofe praise full many a shepherd whilom fung,
Who on an altar fair had to her name,
In confecration many an anagram :
And when with fuger'd ftrains they ftrove to raise
Worth, to a garland of immoral bays;
She as the learned'ft maid was chofe by them,
(Her flaxen hair crown'd with an anadem)
To judge who beft deferv'd, for the could fit
The height of praife unto the height of wit.
But well-a-day thofe happy times were gone,
(Millions admit a fmall fubtraction).

And as the year hath first his jocund spring,
Wherein the leaves, to birds fweet carolling,
Dance with the wind; then fees the fummer's day
Perfect the embryon blossom of each spray:

BRITANNIA'S PASTORALS.

SONG V.

The Argument.

In notes that rocks to pity move,
Idia fings her buried love :

And from her horn of plenty gives
Comfort to truth, whom none relieves.
Repentance houfe next calls me on,
With riot's true converfion :
Leaving Amynta's love to truth,
To be the theme the Mufe enfu'th.