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(Occasioned by Two Doctors Disputing upon Predestination.)
Coridon. HO! 1 jolly Thirsis, whither in such haste? | |
| Is’t for a wager that you run so fast? | |
| Or, past your howre, belowe yon hawthorne-tree | |
| Doth longing Galathæa looke for thee? | |
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Thirsis. No, Coridon; I heard young Daphnis say, | 5 |
| Thenot hath challeng’d Colin Clowt to-day, | |
| Who best shall sing of shepherd’s art and praise: | |
| But hark! I heare them; listen to their laies. | |
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Thenot. Colin doth reade: what meanes this mystique thing? | |
| An ewe I had two lambes at once did bring, | 10 |
| The one black as jet, the other white as snowe; | |
| Say, in just Providence, how it could be soe. | |
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Colin. Will you Pan’s goodnesse therefore partiall call, | |
| That might as well haue giuen you none at all? | |
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Thenot. Were they not both yeaned by the selfe-same ewe? | 15 |
| How could they merit, then, a different hue? | |
| Poor lamb, and could’st thou, yet, alas, unborne, | |
| Sin to deserve the guilt of such a scorne? | |
| Thou hadst not yet fowld a religious spring, | |
| Nor fedd on plots of hallowed grass, to bring | 20 |
| Staynes to thy fleece; nor browz’d vpon a tree | |
| Sacred to Pan or Pale’s deitie. | |
| The gods are ignoraunt, if they not foreknow, | |
| And, knowing, ’tis uniust to vse thee so. | |
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Colin. Thenot, with me contend, or Coridon; | 25 |
| But let the gods and their high wills alone: | |
| For in our flocks that freedome challeng wee,— | |
| This kid is sacrifiz’d, and that goes free. | |
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Thenot. Feed where you will, my lambs; what boots it us | |
| To watch and water, drive and ffold you thus: | 30 |
| This on the barren mountaines flesh can gleane, | |
| That fedd in flowry pastures will be leane. | |
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Colin. Plowgh, soaw, and compass, nothing boots at all, | |
| Unless the dew upon the tilths doe fall: | |
| So labour, silly shepherds, what we can,— | 35 |
| All ’s vain, unless a blessing drop from Pan. | |
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Thenot. Doatard: you fowle on Pan’s omniscience fall— | |
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Colin. And you his goodnes into question call. | |
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Thirsis. Ffy, shepherds, fy; while you these strifes begin, | |
| Here creeps the woolf, and there the fox gets in; | 40 |
| To your vain piping on so deepe a reed | |
| The lambkins listen, but forget to feed. | |
| It gentle swaines befitts of loue to sing; | |
| How loue left heauen, and heauen’s immortall King, | |
| His co-eternall Father; oh! admire: | 45 |
| Loue is a son as auncient as his sire; | |
| Hys mother was a virgin; how could come | |
| A birth so great, and from so chast a womb? | |
| His cradle was a mangre: shepherds, see, | |
| True faith delightes in pure simplicitie. | 50 |
| Deepe sages by a star his mansion sought, | |
| Poore swaines by his own harbingers were brought. | |
| He pressed no grapes, nor prunde the fruitfull vine; | |
| Nor did he plowgh the earth, and to his barne | |
| The haruest bring, nor thresh and grinde the corne. | 55 |
| Without all these, Loue could supply our need, | |
| And with fiue loaues fiue thousand hungry feed. | |
| More wonders did He; for all which suppose | |
| How was He crowned,—with lillies or the rose, | |
| The winding ivy or the glorious bay, | 60 |
| Or mirtle, with the which Venus, they say, | |
| Girt her proud temples? Shepherds, none of them; | |
| But wore, poor soule! a thorney diadem. | |
| Feete to the lame He gave, with which they run | |
| To work their surgeon’s last destruction: | 65 |
| The blind from him had eies, but use that light | |
| Like basiliscks, to kill him with their sight. | |
| Lastly, He was betrai’d—(oh! sing of this)— | |
| How Loue could be betrayed—’twas with a kis: | |
| And then his inocent hand and guiltless feete | 70 |
| Were nail’d vnto the crosse, striving to meete, | |
| In his spread armes, his spowse: so mild in show, | |
| He seemed to court the embraces of his foe. | |
| Through his pierced side, through which a spear was sent, | |
| A torrent of all-flowing balsam went. | 75 |
| Run, Amarillis, run: one drop from thence | |
| Cures thy sad soule, and driues all anguish hence. | |
| Go, sun-burnt Thestilis, goe and repaire | |
| The beautie lost, and be againe made faire. | |
| Love-sick Aminsas, get a philtrum here, | 80 |
| To make thee lovely to thy truly deere: | |
| But, coy Sycoris, take the pearle from thine, | |
| And take the blood-shot from Palaemon’s eyne; | |
| Wear this an amulet ’gainst all syrens’ smiles, | |
| The sting of snakes, and tears of crocodiles. | 85 |
| Now Loue is dead;—oh! no, He neuer dies; | |
| Three days He sleepes, and then againe doth rise, | |
| (Like fair Aurora from the easterne bay), | |
| And with his beames driues all our clouds away. | |
| This pipe vnto our flocks, this sonnet get: | 90 |
| But, loa! I see the sun ready to set. | |
| Good night to all; for the great night is come: | |
| Flocks, to your foldes, and, shepherds, hye ye home. | |
| To-morrow morning, when we all haue slept, | |
| Pan’s cornets blowes, and the great sheepshear’s kept. | 95 |
