Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Seccombe and Arber, comps. Elizabethan Sonnets. 1904.

Chloris

Sonnet III. Feed, silly sheep! although your keeper pineth

William Smith (fl. 1596)

FEED, silly sheep! although your keeper pineth;

Yet, like to TANTALUS, doth see his food.

Skip you and leap! now bright APOLLO shineth

Whilst I bewail my sorrows in yon wood:

Where woeful PHILOMELA doth record

(And sings with notes of sad and dire lament),

The tragedy wrought by her sister’s Lord.

I’ll bear a part in her black discontent!

That pipe, which erst was wont to make you glee,

Upon these downs whereon you careless graze,

Shall to her mournful music tunèd be!

Let not my plaints, poor lambkins, you amaze!

There, underneath that dark and dusky bower,

Whole showers of Tears to CHLORIS I will pour!