CHRIST TO HIS Sspouse.

By William Baldwin. *

From "Solomon's Canticles and Ballads," 1549.

THE TEXT.

Lo, thou art fair, my Love; lo, thou art fair;
Thou hast dove's eyes.

THE ARGUMENT.

WHEN the Church hath transcribed the glory of all her goodness to her beloved, and praised him as the author thereof, he, pleased with this her true judgment, praiseth her therefore, singing again, as followeth :

Lo, thou, my Love, art fair:
Myself have made thee so:

Yea, thou art fair indeed,

Wherefore thou shalt not need

In beauty to despair;

For I accept thee so,

For fair.

For fair, because thine eyes

Are, like the culver's, white;

Principal Author and Conductor of the "Mirror for Magis

trates," 1559, &c.

Whose simpleness in deed
All others do exceed;

Thy judgment wholly lies

In true sense of sprite

Most wise.

THE DESCRIPTION OF THE SHEPHERD

AND HIS WIFE.

From "Robert Greene's Mourning Garment," 1616.

It was near a thicky shade,

That broad leaves of beech had made;

Joining all their tops so nigh,

That scarce Phoebus in could pry,

To see if Lovers in the thick,

Could dally with a wanton trick;
Where sate the Swain and his Wife,

Sporting in that pleasing life,
That Coridon commendeth so,

All other lives to over-go.

He and she did sit and keep

Flocks of kids, and folds of sheep:

And for you might her housewife know, Voice did sing and fingers sow:

He was young, his coat was green,

With welts of white seam'd between,

Turned over with a flap,

That breast and bosom in did wrap,
Skirts side, and plighted free,
Seemly hanging to his knee.

A whittle with a silver chape,

Cloak was russet, and the cape
Served for a bonnet oft,

To shroud him from the wet aloft:

A leather scrip of colour red,
With a button on the head;
A bottle full of country whig,
By the Shepherd's side did lig;
And in a little bush hard by,
There the Shepherd's dog did lie,

Who while his master 'gan to sleep,

Well could watch both kids and sheep.

The Shepherd was a frolic swain,

For though his 'parel was but plain,
Yet doon the authors soothly say,

His colour was both fresh and gay;
And in their writs plain discuss,
Fairer was not Tytirus,

Nor Menalcas whom they call,

The alderleefest swain of all;

Seeming him was his wife,

Both in line and in life:

Fair she was, as fair might be,
Like the roses on the tree;

Buxom, blithe, and young, I ween,
Beautious, like a Summer's Queen,
For her cheeks were ruddy hued,
As if lillies were imbrued,

With drops of blood to make thee white,
Please the eye with more delight;

Love did lie within her eyes,

In ambush for some wanton prize,

A leefer lass than this had been,
Coridon had never seen.

Nor was Phillis, that fair May,

Half so gaudy or so gay:

She wore a chaplet on her head,
Her cassock was of scarlet red,
Long and large as straight as bent,
Her middle was both small and gent.
A neck as white as whales' bone,
Compast with a lace of stone;
Fine she was, and fair she was,

Brighter than the brightest glass:

Such a Shepherd's wife as she,

Was not more in Thessaly.

PHILADOR seeing this couple sitting thus lovingly, noted the concord of country amity, and began to conjecture with himself what a sweet kind of life those men use, who were by their birth too low for dignity, and by their fortunes too simple for envy: well, he thought to fall in prattle with them, had not the Shepherd taken his pipe in hand and began to play, and his wife to sing out this Roundelay:

the shepherd's wife's song.

From the same.

AH! what is Love? It is a pretty thing,

As sweet unto a Shepherd as a King,

And sweeter too:

For Kings have cares that wait upon a crown,

And cares can make the sweetest love to frown:

Ah then, ah then,