Page:Shepheards Calendar-Crane 1898.djvu/39

 I deem thy brain emperished be

Through rusty eld, that hath rotted thee;

Or sicker thy head very totty is,

So on thy corb shoulder it leans amiss.

Now thyself hath lost both lop and top,

Als my budding branch thou wouldest crop;

But were thy years green, as now be mine,

To other delights they would incline:

Then wouldest thou learn to carol of love,

And hery with hymns thy lass’s glove;

Then wouldest thou pipe of Phillis’ praise;

But Phillis is mine for many days;

I won her with a girdle of gelt,

Embost with bugle about the belt:

Such an one shepheards would make full fain;

Such an one would make thee young again.

THE. Thou art a fon, of thy love to boast;

All that is lent to love will be lost.

CUD. Seest how brag yond bullock bears,

So smirk, so smooth, his pricked ears?

His horns be as broad as rainbow bent,

His dewlap as lithe as lass of Kent:

See how he venteth into the wind;

Weenest of love is not his mind?

Seemeth thy flock thy counsel can,

So lustless be they, so weak, so wan;

Clothed with cold, and hoary with frost,

Thy flock’s father his courage hath lost.

Thy ewes, that wont to have blowen bags,

Like wailful widows hangen their crags;

The rather lambs be starved with cold,

All for their master is lustless and old.

THE. Cuddie, I wot thou kenst little good,

So vainly to advance thy heedlesshood;

For youth is a bubble blown up with breath,

Whose wit is weakness, whose wage is death,

Whose way is wilderness, whose inn penance,

And stoop-gallant Age, the host of Grievance.