University of Virginia Library

My friends, I will; you know I am a swain,
That keep a poor flock on a barren plain:
Who, though it seems I could do nothing less,
Can make a song, and woo a shepherdess.
And not alone the fairest where I live,
Have heard me sing, and favours deigned to give:
But, though I say 't, the noblest nymph of Thame
Hath graced my verse, unto my greater fame.
Yet, being young, and not much seeking praise,
I was not noted out for shepherds' lays
Nor feeding flocks, as, you know, others be:
For the delight that most possessed me
Was hunting foxes, wolves, and beasts of prey
That spoil our folds, and bear our lambs away.
For this, as also for the love I bear
Unto my country, I laid by all care
Of gain, or of preferment, with desire
Only to keep that state I had entire,
And like a true-grown huntsman sought to speed
Myself with hounds of rare and choicest breed,
Whose names and natures, ere I further go,
Because you are my friends I'll let you know.
My first-esteemed dog that I did find,
Was by descent of old Actæon's kind;
A brach, which if I do not aim amiss,
For all the world is just like one of his:
She's named Love, and scarce yet knows her duty;
Her dam's my lady's pretty beagle, Beauty.
I bred her up myself with wondrous charge,
Until she grew to be exceeding large,
And wax'd so wanton, that I did abhor it,
And put her out amongst my neighbours for it.
The next is Lust, a hound that's kept abroad
'Mongst some of mine acquaintance; but a toad
Is not more loathsome: 'tis a cur will range
Extremely, and is ever full of mange:
And 'cause it is infectious, she's not wont
To come among the rest, but when they hunt.
Hate is the third, a hound both deep and long:
His sire is true, or else supposed, Wrong.
He'll have a snap at all that pass him by,
And yet pursues his game most eagerly.
With him goes Envy coupled, a lean cur,
And yet she'll hold out, hunt we ne'er so far:
She pineth much, and feedeth little too,
Yet stands and snarleth at the rest that do.
Then there's Revenge, a wondrous deep-mouthed dog,
So fleet I'm fain to hunt him with a clog,
Yet many times he'll much outstrip his bounds,
And hunts not closely with the other hounds:
He'll venture on a lion in his ire:
Curst Choler was his dam, and Wrong his sire.
This Choler is a brach that's very old,
And spends her mouth too much to have it hold:
She's very testy; an unpleasing cur,
That bites the very stones, if they but stir:
Or when that ought but her displeasure moves,
She'll bite and snap at any one she loves.
But my quick-scented'st dog is Jealousy;
The truest of this breed's in Italy.
The dam of mine would hardly fill a glove,
It was a lady's little dog, called Love:
The sire, a poor deformed cur, named Fear,
As shagged and as rough as is a bear:
And yet the whelp turn'd after neither kind,
For he is very large, and near-hand blind.
Far off, he seemeth of a pretty colour,
But doth not prove so when you view him fuller.
A vile suspicious beast, whose looks are bad,
And I do fear in time he will grow mad.
To him I couple Avarice, still poor,
Yet she devours as much as twenty more;
A thousand horse she in her paunch can put,
Yet whine as if she had an empty gut;
And having gorged what might a land have found,
She'll catch for more, and hide it in the ground.
Ambition is a hound as greedy full,
But he for all the daintiest bits doth cull;
He scorns to lick up crumbs beneath the table,
He'll fetch 't from boards and shelves, if he be able;
Nay, he can climb, if need be; and for that
With him I hunt the marten and the cat:
And yet sometimes in mounting, he's so quick
He fetches falls are like to break his neck.
Fear is well-mouthed, but subject to distrust;
A stranger cannot make him take a crust:
A little thing will soon his courage quail,
And 'twixt his legs he ever claps his tail.
With him Despair now often coupled goes,
Which by his roaring mouth each huntsman knows.
None hath a better mind unto the game;
But he gives off, and always seemeth lame.
My bloodhound Cruelty, as swift as wind,
Hunts to the death, and never comes behind;
Who, but she's strapp'd and muzzled too withal,
Would eat her fellows and the prey and all.
And yet she cares not much for any food
Unless it be the purest harmless blood.

All these are kept abroad at charge of many;
They do not cost me in a year a penny.
But there's two couple of a middling size,
That seldom pass the sight of my own eyes.
Hope, on whose head I've laid my life to pawn;
Compassion, that on every one will fawn.
This would, when 'twas a whelp, with rabbits play
Or lambs, and let them go unhurt away:
Nay, now she is of growth, she'll now and then
Catch you a hare, and let her go again.
The two last, Joy and Sorrow, make me wonder,
For they can ne'er agree, nor bide asunder.
Joy's ever wanton, and no order knows,
She'll run at larks, or stand and bark at crows.
Sorrow goes by her, and ne'er moves his eye:
Yet both do serve to help make up the cry:
Then comes behind all these to bear the base,
Two couple more of a far larger race,
Such wide-mouth'd trollops, that 'twould do you good,
To hear their loud-loud echoes tear the wood:
There's Vanity, who by her gaudy hide
May far away from all the rest be spied,
Though huge, yet quick, for she's now here, now there;
Nay, look about you, and she's everywhere:
Yet ever with the rest, and still in chase,
Right so, Inconstancy fills every place;
And yet so strange a fickle-natured hound,
Look for her, and she's nowhere to be found.
Weakness is no fair dog unto the eye,
And yet she hath her proper quality.
But there's Presumption; when he heat hath got,
He drowns the thunder, and the cannon-shot:
And when at start he his full roaring makes,
The earth doth tremble, and the heaven shakes:
These were my dogs, ten couple just in all,
Whom by the name of Satyrs I do call:
Mad curs they be, and I can ne'er come nigh them,
But I'm in danger to be bitten by them.
Much pains I took, and spent days not a few,
To make them keep together, and hunt true:
Which yet I do suppose had never bin,
But that I had a Scourge to keep them in.
Now when that I this kennel first had got,
Out of mine own demesnes I hunted not,
Save on these downs, or among yonder rocks,
After those beasts that spoiled our parish flocks:
Nor during that time was I ever wont
With all my kennel in one day to hunt:
Nor had done yet, but that this other year,
Some beasts of prey that haunt the deserts here
Did not alone for many nights together
Devour, sometime a lamb, sometime a wether,
And so disquiet many a poor man's herd,
But that of losing all they were afeared.
Yea, I among the rest did fare as bad,
Or rather worse; for the best ewes I had,
Whose breed should be my means of life and gain,
Were in one evening by these monsters slain:
Which mischief I resolved to repay,
Or else grow desperate and hunt all away.
For in a fury such as you shall see
Huntsmen in missing of their sport will be,
I vowed a monster should not lurk about
In all this province, but I'd find him out;
And thereupon, without respect or care
How lame, how full, or how unfit they were,
In haste unkennell'd all my roaring crew,
Who were as mad, as if my mind they knew;
And ere they trail'd a flight-shot, the fierce curs,
Had roused a hart, and through brakes, briars, and furze
Follow'd at gaze so close, that Love and Fear
Got in together, and had surely there
Quite overthrown him, but that Hope thrust in
'Twixt both, and saved the pinching of his skin.
Whereby he 'scaped, till coursing overthwart,
Despair came in, and gripp'd him to the heart.
I halloed in the res'due to the fall,
And for an entrance there I flesh'd them all:
Which having done, I dipp'd my staff in blood,
And onward led my thunder to the wood;
Where what they did, I'll tell you out anon;
My keeper calls me, and I must be gone.
Go, if you please, awhile attend your flocks,
And when the sun is over yonder rocks,
Come to this cave again, where I will be,
If that my guardian so much favour me.
Yet, if you please, let us three sing a strain,
Before you turn your sheep into the plain.