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Home  »  The Book of Elizabethan Verse  »  Thomas Lodge (1558–1625)

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Elizabethan Verse. 1907.

The Solitary Shepherd’s Song

Thomas Lodge (1558–1625)

O SHADY vales, O fair enrichèd meads,

O sacred woods, sweet fields, and rising mountains;

O painted flowers, green herbs, where Flora treads,

Refreshed by wanton winds and wat’ry fountains.

O all you wingèd choristers of wood

That perched aloft, your former pains report,

And straight again recount with pleasant mood

Your pleasant joys in sweet and seemly sort.

O all you creatures, whosoever thrive

On mother earth, in seas, by air, or fire,

More blest are you than I here under sun:

Love dies in me, whenas he doth revive

In you; I perish under beauty’s ire,

Where after storms, winds, frosts, your life is won.