PAST. I. SHEPHERD'S WEEK. THE Lo, here thou hast mine eclogues fair, I'll burn book, preface, notes, and all. MONDAY; OR, The squabble. LOBBIN CLOUT, CUDDY, CLODDIPOLE. LOBBIN CLOUT. THY younglings, Cuddy, are but just awake, No thrustles shrill the bramble-bush forsake, No chirping lark the welkin sheen invokes, No damsel yet the swelling udder strokes ; O'er yonder hill does scant the dawn appear: Then why does Cuddy leave his cot so rear? CUDDY. Ah Lobbin Clout! I ween, my plight is guest, Ah, Blouzelind! LOBBIN CLOUT. 10 love thee more by half, Than does their fawns, or cows the new-fall'n calf; Woe worth the tongue! may blisters sore it gall, That names Buxoma Blouzelind withal. Lo, yonder, Cloddipole, the blithsome swain, CUDDY. My brown Buxoma is the featest maid, That e'er at wake delightsome gambol play'd. Clean as young lambkins or the goose's down, And like the goldfinch in her Sunday gown." The witless lamb may sport upon the plain, The frisking kid delight the gaping swain, And my cur Tray play deftest feats around; The wanton calf may skip with many a bound, But neither lamb, nor kid, nor calf, nor Tray, Dance like Buxoma on the first of May. LOBBIN CLOUT. Sweet is my toil when Blouzelind is near; Of her bereft, 'tis winter all the year. With her no sultry summer's heat I know; In winter, when she's nigh, with love I glow.. Come, Blouzelinda, ease thy swain's desire, My summer's shadow, and my winter's fire! CUDDY. As with Buxoma once I work'd at hay, Ev'n noon-tide labour seem'd an holiday; And holidays, if haply she were gone, Like worky-days I wish'd would soon be done. 40 50 60 Ver. 25. Erst; a contraction of ere this; it signifies sometime ago, or formerly. Ver. 56. Deft, an old word, signifying brisk, or nimble. Ver. 79. Queint has various significations in the ancient English authors. I have used it in this place in the same sense as Chaucer hath done in his Miller's Tale. "As clerkes being full subtle and queint," (by which he means arch, or waggish); and not in that obscene sense wherein he useth it in the line immediately following. Ver. 85. Populus Alcidæ gratissima, vitis Iaccho, VIRG. YOUNG Colin Clout, a lad of peerless meed, 10 " SHEPHERD'S WEEK. nd, mixt with sighs, thus wails in plaining song: Ah, woeful day! ah, woeful noon and morn! When first by thee my younglings white were shorn; hen first, I ween, I cast a lover's eye, Ly sheep were silly, but more silly Ï. feneath the shears they felt no lasting smart, hey lost but fleeces, while I lost a heart. 30 Ah, Colin! canst thou leave thy sweetheart true? What I have done for thee, will Cicely do? nd knit thee gloves made of her own spun yarn? 40 50 nd wist not that with thoughtful love I pine. et Colin Clout, untoward shepherd swain, Talks whistling blithe, while pitiful I plain. "Whilom with thee 'twas Marian's dear delight o moil all day, and merry-make at night. in the soil you guide the crooked share, Bour early breakfast is my constant care; nd when with even hand you strow the grain, fright the thievish rooks from off the plain. misling days, when I my thresher heard, With nappy beer I to the barn repair'd; ost in the music of the whirling flail, > gaze on thee I left the smoking pail : harvest, when the Sun was mounted high, y leathern bottle did thy draught supply; 'hene'er you mow'd, I follow'd with the rake, nd have full oft been sun-burnt for thy sake: Then in the welkin gathering showers were seen, lagg'd the last with Colin on the green; nd when at eve returning with thy car, waiting heard the jingling bells from far, raight on the fire the sooty pot I plac'd, o warm thy broth I burnt my hands for haste. Then hungry thou stood'st staring, like an oaf, slic'd the luncheon from the barley-loaf; With crumbled bread I thicken'd well thy mess. h, love me more, or love thy pottage less! Last Friday's eve, when as the Sun was set, near yon stile, three sallow gypsies met. pon my hand they cast a poring look, 60 70 id me beware, and thrice their heads they shook : hey said, that many crosses I must prove; ome in my worldly gain, but most in love. Text morn I miss'd three hens and our old cock; and off the hedge two pinners and a smock; bore these losses with a Christian mind, and no mishaps could feel, while thou wert kind. But since, alas! I grew my Colin's scorn, ve known no pleasure, night, or noon, or morn. Help me, ye gypsies; bring him home again, And to a constant lass give back her swain. 80 "Have I not sat with thee full many a night, "Remember, Colin, when at last year's wake 'As this is grav'd upon this knife of thine, 90 100 Thus Marian wail'd, her eyes with tears brimful, WEDNESDAY; OR, THE DUMPS.* SPARABELLA. THE wailings of a maiden I recite, Such strains ne'er warble in the linnet's throat, 10 • Dumps, or dumbs, made use of to express a Some have pretended that it is fit of the sullens. derived from Dumops, a king of Egypt, that built a pyramid, and died of melancholy. So mopes, after the same manner, is thought to have come from Merops, another Egyptian king, that died of But our English antiquaries the same distemper. have conjectured that dumps, which is a grievous heaviness of spirits, comes from the word dumplin, the heaviest kind of pudding that is eaten in this country, 'much used in Norfolk, and other counties of England. Ver. 5. Immemor herbarum quos est mirata juvenca Ver. 9. VIRGIL Tu mihi, seu magni superas jam saxa Timavi, VIRG. Ver. 11. An opera written by this author, called The World in the Sun, or the Kingdom of Birds; he is also famous for his song on the Newmarket Ver. 21. Kee, a west-country word for kine, or horse-race, and several others that are sung by the ows. British swains. Yet suffer me, thou bard of wondrous meed, Amid thy bays to weave this rural weed. Now the Sun drove adown the western road And oxen, laid at rest, forgot the goad, 20 "Sooner shall cats disport in waters clear. And speckled mackrel graze the meadows fair; Sooner shall screech-owls bask in sunny day, And the slow ass on trees, like squirrels, play; ? The clown, fatigued, trudg'd homeward with his Sooner shall snails on insect pinions rove; spade, Across the meadows stretch'd the lengthen'd shade; "My plaint, ye lasses, with this burthen aid, "Tis hard so true a damsel dies a maid.' 30 40 "Shall heavy Clumsilis with me compare? View this, ye lovers, and like me despair. Her blubber'd lip by smutty pipes is worn, And in her breath tobacco whiffs are borne! The cleanly cheese-press she could never turn, Her awkward fist did ne'er employ the churn; If e'er she brew'd, the drink would straight go sour, Before it ever felt the thunder's power; No huswifery the dowdy creature knew; To sum up all, her tongue confess'd the shrew. "My plaint, ye lasses, with this burthen aid, 'Tis hard so true a damsel dies a maid.' "I've often seen my visage in yon lake, Nor are my features of the homeliest make: Though Clumsilis may boast a whiter dye, Yet the black sloe turns in my rolling eye; And fairest blossoms drop with every blast, But the brown beauty will like hollies last. Her wan complexion's like the wither'd leek, While Katharine pears adorn my ruddy cheek. Yet she, alas! the witless lout hath won, And by her gain poor Sparabell's undone! Let hares and hounds in coupling straps unite, The clucking hen make friendship with the kite; Let the fox simply wear the nuptial noose, And join in wedlock with the waddling goose; For love hath brought a stranger thing to pass, The fairest shepherd weds the foulest lass. "My plaint, ye lasses, with this burthen aid, 'Tis hard so true a damsel dies a maid,' Than I forget my shepherd's wonted love.. "My plaint, ye lasses, with this burthen aid, 'Tis hard so true a damsel dies a maid.” "Ah! didst thou know what proffers I withstoo When late I met the squire in yonder wood! To me he sped, regardless of his game, While all my cheek was glowing red with shame My lip he kiss'd, and prais'd my healthful look, Then from his purse of silk a guinea took, Into my hand he forc'd the tempting gold, While I with modest struggling broke his hold. He swore that Dick, in livery strip'd with lace, Should wed me soon, to keep me from disgrace; But I nor footmen priz'd, nor golden fee; For what is lace or gold, compar'd to thee? "My plaint, ye lasses, with this burthen aid, ''Tis hard so true a damsel dies a maid.' "Now plain I ken whence Love his rise begun Sure he was born some bloody butcher's son, Bred up in shambles, where our younglings shin Erst taught him mischief, and to sport with pain. The father only silly sheep annoys, The son the sillier shepherdess destroys. Does son or father greater mischief do? The sire is cruel, so the son is too. My plaint, ye lasses, with this burthen aid, 'Tis hard so true a damsel dies a maid.' "Farewell, ye woods, ye meads, ye streams that flow; 100 50 A sudden death shall rid me of my woe. 61 Ver. 17. Meed, an old word for fame, or renown. VIRG. "Ye lasses, cease your burthen, cease to mo And, by my case forewarn'd, go mind your own." Ver. 67. Ante leves ergo pascentur in æthere cervi, VIR Ver. 89. To ken. Scire. Chaucer, to ken, und kende ; notus A. S. cunnam. Goth. kunnam. Ge manis kennen. Danis kiende. Islandis S Belgis kennen. This word is of general use, b not very common, though not unknown to th vulgar. Ken, for prospicere, is well known, used to discover by the eye. Ray, F. R. S Nunc scio quid sit amor, &c. HOBNELIA, seated in a dreary vale, And turn me thrice around, around, around.' "When first the year I heard the cuckoo sing, With my sharp heel I three times mark the And turn me thrice around, around, around.' 50 With my sharp heel I three times mark the ground, And turn me thrice around, around, around.' "Two hazel nuts I threw into the flame, 20 'With my sharp heel I three times mark the ground, And turn me thrice around, around, around.' 30 "At eve last Midsummer no sleep I sought, With my sharp heel I three times mark the And turn me thrice around, around, around.' "Last Valentine, the day when birds of kind 40 Ver. 8. Dight, or bedight, from the Saxon word dightan, which signifies to set in order. Ver. 21. Doff and don, contracted from the words do off and do on. 60 With my sharp heel I three times mark the And turn me thrice around, around, around.' "This lady-fly I take from off the grass, Fly, lady-bird, North, South, or East, or West, With my sharp heel I three times mark the "I pare this pippin round and round again, Yet on my heart a fairer L is seen 90 |