Page:The Shepheardes Calender - Spenser (1579).djvu/96

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October.
And weary thys long lingring Phœbus race.
Whilome thou wont the shepheards laddes to leade,
In rymes, in ridles, and in bydding base:
Now they in thee, and thou in sleepe art dead?

Cuddye.
Piers, I haue pyped erst so long with payne,
That all mine Oten reedes bene rent and wore:
And my poore Muse hath spent her spared store,
Yet little good hath got, and much lesse gavne.
Such pleasaunce makes the Grashopper so poore,
And ligge so layd, when Winter doth her straine:
The dapper ditties, that I wont deuise,
To feede youthes fancie, and the flocking fry,
Delighten much: what I the bett for thy?
They han the pleasure, I a sclender prise.
I beate the bush, the byrds to them doe flye:
What good there of to Cuddie can arise?

Pires.
Cuddie, the prayse is better, then the price,
The glory eke much greater then the gayne:
O what an honor is it, to restraine
The lust of lawlesse youth with good aduice:
Or pricke them forth with pleasaunce of thy vaine,
Whereto thou list their trayned willes entice.

Soone as thou gynst to sette thy notes in frame,
O how the rurall routes to thee doe cleaue:
Seemeth thou dost their soule of sence bereaue,
All as the shepheard, that did fetch his dame
From Plutoes balefull bowre withouten leaue:
His musicks might the hellish hound did tame.

Cuddie.
So praysen babes the Peacoks spotted traine,
And wondren at bright Argus blazing eye:
But who rewards him ere the more for thy?
Or feedes him once the fuller by a graine?

Sike