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To pardon me; and hear this hard constraint
With patience, while I sing; and pity it.
And eke ye rural Muses, that do dwell
In these wild woods: if ever piteous plaint
We did indite, or taught a woeful mind
With words of pure affect, his grief to tell;
Instruct me now! Now COLIN then go on;
And I will follow thee, though far behind.

  Colin. PHILLISIDES is dead! O harmful death!
O deadly harm! Unhappy Albion!
When shalt thou see emong thy shepherds all
Any so sage, so perfect? Whom uneath
Envy could touch for virtuous life and skill;
Courteous, valiant, and liberal.
Behold the sacred PALES! where with hair
Untrusst, she sits in shade of yonder hill;
And her fair face bent sadly down, doth send
A flood of tears to bathe the earth: and there
Doth call the heavens despiteful, envious;
Cruel his fate, that made so short an end
Of that same life, well worthy to have been
Prolonged with many years, happy and famous.
The Nymphs and Oreades her round about
Do sit lamenting on the grassy green;
And with shrill cries, beating their whitest breasts,
Accuse the direful dart that DEATH sent out