( 10 )
He ceas'd his homely rhyme.
When [1] Colin Clout, Eliza's shepherd swain,
The blithest lad that ever pip'd on plain,
Came with his reed soft-warbling on the way,
And thrice he bow'd his head with motion mild,
And thus his gliding numbers gan essay.
When [1] Colin Clout, Eliza's shepherd swain,
The blithest lad that ever pip'd on plain,
Came with his reed soft-warbling on the way,
And thrice he bow'd his head with motion mild,
And thus his gliding numbers gan essay.
I.
"[2]Ah! luckless swain, alas! how art thou lorn,
"Who once like me could'st frame thy pipe to play
"Shepherds devise, and chear the ling'ring morn:
"Ne bush, ne breere, but learnt thy roundelay.
"Ah plight too sore such worth to equal right!
"Ah worth too high to meet such piteous plight!
"[2]Ah! luckless swain, alas! how art thou lorn,
"Who once like me could'st frame thy pipe to play
"Shepherds devise, and chear the ling'ring morn:
"Ne bush, ne breere, but learnt thy roundelay.
"Ah plight too sore such worth to equal right!
"Ah worth too high to meet such piteous plight!
II. "But
- ↑ Colin Clout.] i.e. Spenser, which name he gives himself throughout his works.
- ↑ The two first stanzas of this speech, as they relate to Pastoral, are written in the measure which Spenser uses in the first eclogue of the Shepherd's Calendar; the rest, where he speaks of Fable, are in the stanza of the Faery Queen.
