 | The Shepherd's Garden |  |
107
WINTER.
Ye fields that were so green;
Ye meadows strewed with flowers;
Your lustre all so well beseen
When summer crowned the bowers:
Ye meadows strewed with flowers;
Your lustre all so well beseen
When summer crowned the bowers:
Your sweetness now is reft;
Your rills hard frost doth seal:
No more the wind, with gentle theft,
Their music comes to steal.
Your rills hard frost doth seal:
No more the wind, with gentle theft,
Their music comes to steal.
The flocks in silent bands
Stand on the banks forlorn,
Whilst shivering shepherds blow their hands
Beside the naked thorn.
Stand on the banks forlorn,
Whilst shivering shepherds blow their hands
Beside the naked thorn.
No more glad children stray
The lanes at even-time;
Where merry feet did dance and play
Is whitened o'er with rime.
The lanes at even-time;
Where merry feet did dance and play
Is whitened o'er with rime.
The flowers that once did bloom
To glad the rustic's toil,
Long since have sought a sullen tomb
Shut in the frozen soil.
To glad the rustic's toil,
Long since have sought a sullen tomb
Shut in the frozen soil.
108
Thus doth the summer pass
With all its joys full soon,
And gloomy night bedims, alas!
Our day before its noon.
With all its joys full soon,
And gloomy night bedims, alas!
Our day before its noon.
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