The Canterbury tales and Faerie queene &c., &c., &c., ed. for popular perusal with current illustrations and explanatory notes, by D. Laing Purves.

COLIN CLOUT'S COME HOME AGAIN. 60
COLIN CLOUT'S COME HOME AGAIN.
[1595.]
To THE RIGHT WORTHY AND NOBLE KNIGHT " Colin, my lief,8 my life, how great a loss
SIR WALTER: RALEIGH Had all the shepherds' nation by thy lack!
And I, poor swain, of many, greatest cross!
CAPTAIN OF HER MAJESTY'S GUARD, LORD WARDEN OF That, since thy Muse first since thy turning back
THE STANNARIES, AND LIEUTENANT OF THE COUNTY Was heard to sound as she was wont on high,
OF CORNWALL. -Hast made us all so blessed and so blithe.
Sin,-That you may see that I am not always Whilst thou wast hence, all dead in dole 9 did
idle as ye think, though not greatly well occu- lie:
pied, nor altogether undutiful, though not pre- The woods were heard to wailfull many a'sithe,10
cisely officious, I' make you present of this And all their birds with silence to complain:
simple Pastoral, unworthy of your higher con- The fields with faded flow'rs did seem to mourn,
ceit for the meanness of the style, but agreeing And all their flocks from feeding to refrain:
with the truth in circumstance and matter. The running waters wept for thy return,
The which I humbly beseech you to accept in And all their fish with languor did lament:
part of payment of the infinite debt, in which I But now both woods and fields and floods revive,
acknowledge myself bounden unto you for your Since thou art come, their cause of merriment,
singular favours, and sundry good turns, showed That us, late dead hastmade again alive:
to me at my late being in England; and with But, were it not too painful to repeat
your good countenance protect against the The passd fortunes which to thee befell
malice of evil mouths, which are always wide In thy late voyage, we thee wouldentreat
open to carp at and misconstrue my simple Now at thy leisure them to us to tell."meaning. I pray continually for your happi- To whom the shepherd gently answer'd thus;
ness. From my house of Kilcolman, the 27th Hobbin, thou temptest me totha I covet:
of December, 1591. For of good passed newly12 to discuss,
Yours very humbly, By double usury doth twice renew it.
ED. SP. And since I saw that Angel's 13 blessed eye,
Her world's bright sun, her heaven's fairest
light,
My mind, full of my thoughts' satiety,
THE Shepherd's Boy (best knowen by that name) Doth feed on sweet contentment of that sight:
That after Tityrusl first sung his lay,- Since that same day in naught I take delight,
Lays of sweet love, without rebuke or blame,- Nor feeling have in any earthly pleasure,
Sat (as his custom was) upon a day, But in remembrance of that glory bright,
Charming 2 his oaten pipe unto his peers, My life's sole bliss,' my heart's eternal treasure.
The shepherd swains that did about him play: Wake then, my pipe; my sleepy Muse, awake!
Who all the while, with greedy listful4 ears, Till I have told her praises lasting long:
Did stand astonish'd at his curious skill, Hobbin desires, thou may'st it not forsake;
Like heartless deer, dismay'd with thunder's Hark then, ye jolly shepherds, to my song."
sound. With that they all gan throng about him near,,
At last, when as he piped had his fill, With hungry ears to hear his harmony:
He rested him: and, sitting then around, The while their flocks, devoid of danger's lear,
One of those grooms 5 (a jolly groom was he, Did round about them feed at liberty.
As ever piped on an oaten reed, "One day," quoth he, "I sat (as was my
And lov'd this shepherd dearest in degree, trade 14)
Hight Hobbinol, gan thus to him aread.7 Under the foot of Mole,l5 that mountain hoar,
" Tityrus" would appear to signify, not Chaucer, 5 Shepherds. The word "groom," in its original
according to some explanations, but Virgil-who is by sense, means generally an attendant or keeper of anyPropertius, in the thirty-fourth elegy of his second thing-horses, sheep, &c.
book, called " Tityrus," from the name of the shepherd 6 As in " The Shepherd's Calendar," Hobbinol reprethat figures in the Eclogues-and " after " whom, in sents the poet's friend, Gabriel Harvey.
whose manner or pastoral vein, Spenser had "first" 7 Speak. 8 Loved friend.
tried the powers of his Muse, in "The Shepherd's 9 Grief. 10 Time.
Calendar." 11 The thing which. 12 Anew.
2 Modulating, playing; the Latin " carmen," a song 13 Queen Elizabeth's. 14 Custom, vocation.
or tune, is the original of our " charm." 15 The Ballyhoura Hills, which rose at a short distance
3 Companions. from Kilcolman Castle, Spenser's Irish residence. See
4 Listening, attentive, note 15, page 546.