University of Virginia Library

[If teares cannot with tendernesse relent thee]

Syrenus.
If teares cannot with tendernesse relent thee,
How can my song thy cruelty assured,
Since nought of mine could euer yet content thee:
What hart was euer that so much endured?
That to deride thou neuer canst suffice thee,
A greefe that hath the worlds wonder procured.
Ah blinde conceite, let loue nor time disguise thee,
And such a thought of change that neuer told me
But to thy good and my content aduise thee.
Ah wilt thou in such cares and greefes enfold me,
Fierce Shepherdesse, and in such lamentations
To spend my dolefull yeeres, wilt thou behold mo?
A hart that's thine, dispos'st thou in such fashions?
Intreat'st thou thus a soule to thee affied,
That the lest greefe it is to suffer passions?

Syluanus.
Loue such a knot, that's endles thou hast tied,
That's blinde, and thou, and I more blinde intended:
And she is blinde, for whom my life's denied:
For I sawe not my life, and pleasure ended,
Nor she how I for her to death imploy me,
Nor thou, that I in flames am thus incended.
Fell Loue, shall faire Diana now destroy me
With absence? then conclude (since hate surrounds it)
To end my life, and fortunes that annoy me.
Ioy's slowe, time flies, and with his shortnes wounds it,
Hope dies, an amorous thought liues still augmented:
Loue shortens it, prolongs it, and confounds it.
To speake I am ashamed thus tormented,
And though it greeues me, yet with ceaslesse payning
Without the same I cannot liue contented.

Syrenus.
O soule, forsake not now thy dolefull plaining,
And you my wearied eies
Cease not in swelling teares my cheekes to steepe,
Since you haue learn'd to weepe,
And waile the chiefest cause of all my cries.

Syluanus.
And waile the chiefest cause of all my cries:
Yet (cruell Shepherdesse)
Sometimes they were of my most sweete content.
O thoughts in sorrow spent,
How small time lasts a ioy and happines?

Syrenus.
How small time lasts a ioy and happines,
And that sweete gracious smile,
(Fortune) wherewith I sawe thee not accoyd?
Now all is well imployd
In him, whom time doth counsell and beguile.

Syluanus.
In him, whom time doth counsell and beguile,
Loue works his behest:

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But in his things who can him well aduise?
Or his deceites who spies?
O cruell Shepherdesse, O cruell brest.

Syrenus.
O cruell Shepherdesse, O cruell brest
Whose crueltie is no
Whit lesse then her braue beautie and her grace,
And my mishap and case:
How to my cost my sorrowes doe I knowe?

Syluanus.
My Shepherdesse, in white and red more cleere,
Then both those roses pluckt, in May we see:
And brighter then the sunne beames sent
From their coruscant Orient
By morning, that vpon thy foldes appeere:
How can I liue, if thou forgettest me?
My Shepherdesse, thy rigour then impaire,
For crueltie becomes not one so faire.

Syrenus.
My faire Diana more resplendant, then
The Emerauld, or Diamond in the night:
Whose beautious eies doe cease
My sorrowes, that increase,
If gently that (perhaps) to me they bend.
So maist thou with thy flocke so faire and vvhite,
Come to my shadovved sheepefold in the heate,
That such a vvretch thou vvould'st not ill intreate.

Syluanus.
My Shepherdesse, when that thy yellow haire
Thou combest in the beames of shining sunne,
Dost thou not see the same obscured?
My pride and ioy by them procured?
That am from hence beholding it so faire,
Woon now with hope, now with despaire vndone,
But so maist thou thy beautie braue enioy,
As thou wouldst giue, a meane in such annoy.

Syrenus.
Diana, whose sweete name in all these hils
The wilde beastes tames, and crueltie rebates:
And whose surpassing beautie to it
Doth subiect fortune, and vndoe it.
And feares not loue, but wars against his wils:
Respecting not occasion, time, nor fates.
To thee thy flockes and folds such ioy may giue,
As carelesse of my greefe thou wouldst not liue.

Syluanus.
The heate is past (Syrenus) and doth cease,
The Shepherds to their folds begin to goe,
And wearie grashoppers doe hold their peace:
The night will not stay long, which, hid belovve,
Is comming in, vvhile Phœbus in our skie
Doth heere and there his vading light be stovve:
Therefore before the darkest shade shall lie
Vpon the ground, and vvhile the vvren doth sing
In top of this greene Sicamour on hie,
Our vvandring flockes together let vs bring,
And driue them vvhere Diana novv doth stay
For vs, vvhile in the vvoods our voices ring.

Syrenus.
My friend, Syluanus, goe not yet avvay,
Since all his beames not yet the sunne doth hide,
And that vve haue sufficient of the day.
There's time for vs and for our flocke beside,
And time to driue them to the riuer cleere.
For in this meade to day they shall abide:
And, Shepherd, let my song be ended heere.