It is not Hobbinol wherefore I plain,

Albe my
love he seek with daily suit ;
His clownish gifts and courtesies I disdain,
His kids, his cracknels, and his early fruit.
Ah, foolish Hobbinol! thy gifts been vain ;
Colin them gives to Rosalind again.

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55.

бо

I love thilk lass (alas why do I love ?)
And am forlorn, (alas! why am I lorn?)
She deigns not my good will, but doth reprove,
And of my rural musick, holdeth scorn..
Shepherd's device she hateth as the snake,
And laughs the songs that Colin Clout doth make.

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Wherefore, my Pipe, albe rude Pan thou please,
Yet for thou pleasest not where most I would,
And thou unlucky Muse, that wontst to ease
My musing mind, yet canst not when thou should
Both pipe and Muse shall sore the while abie." 71
So broke his oaten pipe, and down did lie.

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By that the welked Phoebus' gan avail
His weary wain, and now the frosty Night
Her mantle black through heaven 'gan over-hale
Which seen, the pensive boy, half in despight,
Arose, and homeward drove his sullen sheep,
Whose hanging heads did seem his careful case to

weep.

COLIN'S EMBLEM.

Anchora speme.

EGLOGA SECUNDA.

The Argument.

CUDDY, a young shepherd, inveighing against the season of the year, and comparing it to old age, which he treats with scorn, is reprov'd by Thenot, an old shepherd, who to shew him his folly, relates a moral fable of an Oak and a Briar, but without curing the young shepherd's vanity. By Tityrus, mention'd in this Aeglogue, and elsewhere in the Author's works, is meant Geoffry Chaucer, in imitation of whose stile and manner this Aeglogue is written.

CUDDY, THENOT.

CUDDY.

AH for pity! will rank winter's rage
These bitter blasts never 'gin t'asswage?
The keen cold blows through my beaten hide,
All as I were through the body gride:
My ragged ronts all shiver and shake,
As done high towers in an earthquake:
They wont in the wind wag their wriggle tails
Peark as a peacock; but now it avails.

THE. Leudly complainest, thou lazy lad,

Of winter's wrack for making thee sad?

Must not the world wend in his common course,
From good to bad, and from bad to worse,

From worse unto that is worst of all,

And then return to his former fall?
Who will not suffer the stormy time,
Where will he live till the lusty prime?
Self have I worn out thrice thirty years,
Some in much joy, many in many tears,

ΤΟ

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Yet never complained of cold nor heat,

Of summer's flame, nor of winter's threat,
Ne never was to Fortune foe-man,
But gently took that ungently came;
And ever my flock was my chief care,
Winter or summer they mought well fare.
CUD. No marvel, Thenot, if thou can bear
Chearfully the winter's wrathful chear,
For age and winter accord full nigh,
This chill, that cold; this crooked, that wry;
And as the lowring weather looks down,
So seemest thou like Good-Friday to frown;
But my flowring youth is foe to frost,
My ship unwont in storms to be tost.

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THE. The sovereign of seas he blames in vain, That once sea-beat will to sea again:

So loytring live you little heard-grooms,

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Keeping your beasts in the budded brooms;
And when the shining sun laugheth once,
You deemen the spring is come at once:
Tho gin you, fond Flies! the cold to scorn,
And, crowing in pipes made of green corn,
You thinken to be lords of the year;
But eft when ye count you freed from fear,
Comes the breme Winter with chamfred brows,
Full of wrinkles and frosty furrows,

Drerily shooting his stormy dart,

Which cruddles the blood and pricks the heart:

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Then is your careless courage accoyd,

Your careful herds with cold be annoyed:

Then pay you the price of your surquedry,
With weeping, and wailing, and misery.

CUD. Ah! foolish old Man! I scorn thy skill,
That wouldst me my springing youth to spill;
I deem thy brain emperished be
Through rusty eld, that hath rotted thee;
Or siker thy head very totty is,

So on thy corb shoulder it leans amiss.
Now thy self hath lost both lop and top,
Als my budding branch thou wouldest crop,
But were thy years green, as now been mine,
To other delights they would encline:
Tho wouldest thou learn to carol of love,
And hery with hymns thy lasses glove;
Tho wouldest thou pipe of Phillis' praise,
But Phillis is mine for many days;
I wone her with a girdle of gelt,
Embost with bugle about the belt:
Such an one shepherds would make full fain;
Such an one would make thee young again.

THE. Thou art a fon, of thy love to bost;
All that is lent to love will be lost.

CUD. Seest how brag yond bullock bears,
So smirk, so smooth, his pricked ears?
His horns been as brade as rainbow bent,
His dewlap as lythe as lass of Kent :
See how he venteth into the wind,
Weenest of love is not his mind?

Seemeth thy flock thy counsel can,

So lustless been they, so weak, so wan ;

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Cloathed with cold, and hoary with frost,

Thy flock's father his courage hath lost.
Thy ewes, that wont to have blown blags,
Like wailful widdows hangen their crags ;
The rather lambs been starved with cold,
All for their master is lustless and old.

THE. Cuddy, I wot thou kenst little good,
So vainly to advance thy headless hood;
For youth is a bubble blown up with breath,
Whose wit is weakness, whose wage is death,
Whose way is wilderness, whose inn penaunce,
And stoop gallant age, the host of grievaunce.
But shall I tell thee a tale of truth,
Which I cond of Tityrus in my youth,
Keeping his sheep on the hills of Kent?

CUD. To naught more, Thenot, my mind is bent

Than to hear novels of his devise ;

They been so well thewed, and so wise,

What ever that good old man bespake.

THE. Many meet tales of youth did he make,
And some of love, and some of chivalry,
But none fitter than this to apply.
Now listen a while and hearken the end.

"There grew an aged tree on the green,

A goodly Oak sometime had it been,
With arms full strong and lergely display'd,
But of their leaves they were disaray'd:
The body big and mightily pight,

Throughly rooted, and of wondrous height;

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