Ye carelesse byrds are privy to my cryes,

Which in your songs were woont to make a part; Thou pleasaunt spring hast luld mee oft asleepe, Whose streames my trickling teares did oft augment!

"Resort of people doth my griefes augment, The walled towns doe work my greater woe; The forest wide is fitter to resound

The hollow eccho of my carefull cries:

I hate the house, since thence my Love did part, Whose wailefull want debars mine eyes from sleepe.

"Let stremes of teares supply the place of sleepe; Let all that sweete is voyd,1 and all that may aug

ment

My dole draw neere! More meete to waile my woe
Bene the wild woods, my sorows to resound,

Then bed, nor bowre, both which I fill with cries,
When I them see so waste, and find no part

"Of pleasure past. Here will I dwell apart In gastfull2 grove therefore, till my last sleep

1 Voyd, remove.

2 Gastfull, frightful.

Doo close mine eyes; so shall I not augment
With sight of such as chaunge my restlesse woe.
Help me, yee banefull byrds! whose shrieking sound
Is signe of dreery death, my deadly cries

"Most ruthfully to tune: and as my cryes
(Which of my woe cannot bewray least part)
You heare all night, when Nature craveth sleep,
Increase, so let your yrksome yelles augment.
Thus all the nightes in plaintes, the days in woe,
I vowed have to waste, till safe and sound

"She home returne, whose voyces silver sound To cheerefull songes can chaunge my cheerelesse cries.

Hence with the nightingale will I take part,

That blessed byrd, that spendes her time of sleepe In songes and plaintive pleas, the more t'augment The memorie of his misdeede that bred her woe.

"And you that feel no woe, when as the sound Of these my nightlie cries ye heare apart, Let breake your sounder sleep, and pitie augment."

PER. O Colin, Colin! the shepheardes ioye,

How I admire ech turning of thy verse;

And Cuddie, freshe Cuddie, the liefest1 boye,

How dolefully his dole2 thou didst rehearse!

CUD. Then blow your pypes, shepheards, till you be at home;

The night higheth fast, yts time to be gone.

"The meaning hereof is verie ambiguous: for Perigot by his poesie claiming the conquest, and Willye not yeelding, Cuddie, the arbiter of theyr cause and patron of his owne, seemeth to challenge it as his due, saying, that hee is happie which can; so abruptly ending; but hee meeneth eyther him that can win the best, or moderate himselfe being best, and leave off with the best." E. K.

SPENSER.

118

THE MORNING WALK.

THE MORNING WALK.

To the beech-grove with so sweet an air
It beckoned me.

O earth! that never the cruel ploughshare
Had furrowed thee!

In their dark shelter the flowerets grew,
Bright to the eye,

And smiled by my foot on the cloudless blue
Which decked the sky.

O lovely field and forest fair,

And meads grass-clad!

Her bride-bed Freya everywhere

Enamelled had.

*

The corn-flowers rose in azure band

From earthly cell;

Nought else could I do, but stop and stand.
And greet them well.

"Welcome on earth's green breast again,

Ye flowerets dear!

In spring how charming 'mid the grain

Your heads ye rear !

Like stars 'midst lightning's yellow ray

Ye shine, red, blue:

O how your summer aspect gay
Delights my view!"

"O poet! poet! silence keep,— God help thy case!

Our owner holds us sadly cheap,

And scorns our race.

Each time he sees, he calls us scum,

Or worthless tares,

Hell-weeds, that but to vex him come 'Midst his corn-ears.'

"O wretched mortals!-O wretched aan!

O wretched crowd!

No pleasures ye pluck, no pleasures ye plan,
In life's lone road,—

Whose eyes are blind to the glories great
Of the works of God,

And dream that the mouth is the nearest gate

To joy's abode.

"Come, flowers! for we to each other belong;

Come, graceful elf!