And now are clothd with mosse and hoary frost,

Instede of bloosmes, wherewith your buds did flowre: I see your teares that from your boughes do raine, Whose drops in drery ysicles remaine.

"All so my lustfull leafe is drye and sere,

My timely buds with wayling all are wasted;
The blossome which my braunch of youth did beare,
With breathed sighes is blowne away and blasted;
And from mine eyes the drizling teares descend,
As on your boughes the ysicles depend.

"Thou feeble flocke, whose fleece is rough and rent,
Whose knees are weake through fast and evill fare,
Mayst witnesse well, by thy ill governement,

Thy maysters mind is overcome with care:
Thou weake, I wanne; thou leane, I quite forlorne:
With mourning pyne I; you with pyning mourne.

"A thousand sithes1 I curse that carefull houre

Wherein I longd the neighbour towne to see,
And eke tenne thousand sithes I blesse the stoure 2
Wherein I sawe so fayre a sight as shee:

Yet all for naught: such sight hath bred my bane,
Ah, God! that love should breede both joy and payne!

"It is not Hobbinol 3 wherefore I plaine,

Albee my love hee seeke with dayly suit;

His clownish gifts and curtsies I disdaine,
His kiddes, his cracknelles, and his early fruit,

1 sithe, time.

2 stoure, a fit.

8 Hobbinol "is a fained country name, whereby, it being so commune and usuall, seemeth to be hidden the person of some his very speciall and most familiar freend, whom he entirely and extraordinarily beloved" (E. K.). Hobbinol is said in the gloss on the September Eclogue to stand for Gabriel Harvey, the Cambridge scholar and pamphleteer.

Ah, foolish Hobbinol! thy giftes bene vayne;
Colin them gives to Rosalind1 againe.

"I love thilke lasse, (alas! why doe I love?)
And am forlorne, (alas! why am I lorne?)
She deignes not my good will, but doth reprove,
And of my rurall musick holdeth scorne,
Shepheards devise she hateth as the snake,
And laughes the songs that Colin Clout doth make.

"Wherefore, my pype, albee rude Pan thou please, Yet for thou pleasest not where most I would; And thou, unlucky Muse, that wontst to ease

My musing minde, yet canst not when thou should; Both pype and Muse shall sore the while abye." So broke his oaten pype, and down did lye.

By that, the welked 2 Phoebus gan availe

His wearie waine; and now the frostie night Her mantle black through Heaven gan overhaile *; Which seene, the pensife boy, halfe in despight, Arose, and homeward drove his sonned sheepe, Whose hanging heads did seeme his carefull case to weepe.

1 Rosalind "is also a feigned name, which, being well ordered, will bewray the very name of hys love and mistresse, whom by that name he coloureth" (E. K.). Probably the letters of Rosalinde, if rearranged according to the known laws of Elizabethan anagrams, will give the true name. It has been conjectured to be Rose Daniel, sister of the poet of that name, a lady who probably never existed, or Rose Dyneley. The curious may pursue the matter further in Grosart's edition of Spenser, vol. ii., and in Fleay's Guide to the Study of Chaucer and Spenser. 2 welked, waning. 3 availe, bring down.

overhaile, draw over.

IV. APRIL.

COLIN'S LAY OF ELISA.

This is sung by Hobbinol in a dialogue with Thenot on the subject of their friend Colin and his helpless love. It is a courtly compliment to Queen Elizabeth.

Hobbinol.

CONTENTED I: then will I sing his laye

Of fair Elisa, Queene of shepheardes all,
Which once he made as by a spring he laye,
And tuned it unto the Waters fall.

"Ye daynty Nymphs, that in this blessed brooke
Doe bathe your brest,

Forsake your watry bowres, and hether looke,
At my request.

And eke you Virgins, that on Parnasse dwell,
Whence floweth Helicon the learned well,
Help me to blaze

Her worthy praise,

Which in her sexe doth all excell.

"Of fair Elisa be your silver song,
That blessed wight,

The flowre of Virgins; may she florish long
In princely plight!

For shee is Syrinx' daughter without spotte,
Which Pan, the shepheards god, of her begot;
So sprong her grace

Of heavenly race,

No mortall blemishe may her blotte.

1 Syrinx...Pan, Elizabeth's mother Anne Boleyn, and her father Henry VIII. Pan plays many parts in bucolic poetry; in the Eclogue for July he is the Pope; in that for May, as at a later date in Milton's Ode on the Nativity, he stands for Christ himself.

"See, where she sits upon the grassie greene.
(O seemely sight!)

Yclad in Scarlot, like a mayden Queene,
And ermines white:

Upon her head a Cremosin coronet,

With Damaske roses and Daffadillies set:
Bayleaves betweene,

And primroses greene,

Embellish the sweete Violet.

"Tell me, have ye seene her angelick face,
Like Phoebe fayre?

Her heavenly haveour, her princely grace,
Can you well compare?

The Redde rose medled with the White yfere1,
In either cheeke depeincten lively chere:

Her modest eye,

Her Majestie,

Where have you seen the like but there?

"I sawe Phoebus thrust out his golden hedde, Upon her to gaze;

But, when he saw how broade her beames did spredde,

It did him amaze.

Hee blusht to see another Sunne belowe,
Ne durst againe his fyrye face out showe.
Let him, if he dare,

His brightnesse compare

With hers, to have the overthrowe.

"Shewe thyself, Cynthia, with thy silver rayes,
And be not abasht:

When shee the beames of her beauty displayes,
O how art thou dasht!

1yfere, together.

But I will not match her with Latonaes seede:

Such follie great sorow to Niobe did breede.
Now she is a stone,

And makes dayly mone,

Warning all other to take heede.

"Pan may be proud that ever he begot
Such a Bellibone1;

And Syrinx rejoyse, that ever was her lot
To beare such an one.

Soon as my younglings cryen for the dam
To her will I offer a milkwhite Lamb:
Shee is my goddesse plaine,

And I her shepherds swayne,

Albee forswonck2 and forswatt3 I am.

"I see Calliope speede her to the place, Where my Goddesse shines;

And after her the other Muses trace,

With their Violines.

Bene they not Bay braunches which they doe beare, All for Elisa in her hand to weare?

So sweetly they play

And sing all the way,

That it a heaven is to heare.

"Lo, how finely the Graces can it foote To the Instrument:

They dauncen deffly, and singen soote1,

In their meriment.

Wants not a fourth Grace, to make the daunce even? Let that rowme to my Lady bee yeven.

1 Bellibone, beauty.

3 forswatt, spent with heat.

2 forswonck, wearied out.

4 soote, sweet.