Should You consent, I'll quit my shepherd's grey,
And don more graceful and more costly gear,
My crook and scrip I'll throw with scorn away,
And in a samite garment streit appear.

Farewell, ye groves, which once I held so dear;
Farewell, ye glens, I other joys pursue ;

Then shall the world your matchless pow'r revere, And own what wonders your sweet smiles can do, That could a simple clown into a bard transmew.

CANTO I.

The Squire of Dames to Satyrane

His history doth tell,

With all the toils he underwent
To gain his Columbel.

1.

THE Squire of Dames his tale thus 'gan to tell;
Sith you command my tongue, Sir Satyrane,
I now will all declare that me befell,

The cause of muchel scath and dolorous pain,
Ne shall thy gentle eye from tears refrain.
Me Columbel commanded far to go

'Till I should full three hundred Nymphs attain, Whose hearts should aye with Virtue's lessons

glow,

And to all swains but one cry out for ever, No.

II.

To find the fortilage that ne'er will yield
Is not an easy matter, good Sir Knight;
Troy town, they say, is now a grass-grown field,
That long withstood the force of Grecian might;
And castles fall though deep in earth empight;
Ne ought so strong is found but what may fail,

The sun at last shall lose his glorious light,

And vows or bribes o'er women may prevail; Their hearts are made of flesh, and mortal flesh is frail.

III.

With heavy heart, and full of cark I go,
And take my conge of my blooming Maid,
I kiss'd her hond, and louting very low,
To her behest at length myself array'd:
The fair we love expects to be obey'd,
Although she bid us with the kestrel fly ;
So forth I prick, though much by doubt dismay'd,
The hard experiment resolv'd to try:

For she was wond'rous fair, and much in love was I.

IV.

A grove I reach'd, where tuneful throstles sung; The linnet here did ope his little throat;

His twitting jests around the cuckoo flung, And the proud goldfinch show'd his painted coat, And hail'd us with no inharmonious note: The robin eke here tun'd his sonnet shrill, And told the soothing ditty all by rote, How he with leaves his pious beak did fill, To shroud those pretty babes, whom Sib unkind would kill.

V.

And many a fair Narcissus deck'd the plain,
That seem'd anew their passions to admire;
Here Ajax told his dolors o'er again,

And am'rous Clytie sicken'd with desire;
Here the blown rose with odors sweet did spire;
Through the dun grove a murmʼring river led
His chrystal streams that wound in many a gyre;
The baleful willow all the banks bespread,
And ever to the breeze ycurl'd his hoary head.

VI.

Soon to the grove there came a lovely maid
(For maiden sure she did to me appear);
In plain check-laton was the nymph array'd,
Her sparkling eyes stood full of many a tear,
And she bewept the absence of her dear.
Alas! should beauty be to woe allay'd?

Beauty, methinks, should meet with better cheer,
Content should never wander from her side;

Good luck, I pray to Heav'n, the face that's fair be

tide.

VII.

"Ah! woe is me, she cry'd, since Colin's fled,
Whose gentle presence did these plains adorn,
Soon was he ravish'd from the nuptial bed,
Torn from these arms, from his dear leman torn!

O grief! far sharper than the pointed thorn,

I saw him ill-bestad by martial band.

Alas the day that ever I was born!

Where roves my Colin, on what foreign strand, Arraught from Laura's eyes, and his dear native land ?

VIII.

"Alas! he only knew to prune the vine,
Or through the earth to urge the biting share,
To twist the bower with fragrant eglantine,
Where free from heat we shun'd the noon-tide air,
Or to the mart to lead his fleecy care.

And is it fit in hacqueton and mail

The youth for war's grim terrors should prepare! His voice outsung the love-lorn nightingale, And deftly could he dance, or pipe along the dale.

IX.

"The goshawk fierce may pounce the trembling dove,

The savage wolf may tear the bounding fawn;
But sparrows mild are form'd for feats of love,
And kids dew not with blood the flow'ry lawn;
Then how shall he, in whom all graces dawn,
In the red field the cruel paynim kill ?

For scenes like these find men of hellish spawn.
'Tis his with joy the virgin's heart to fill.

And not on foreign shore his foemen's blood to spill.