scene,
Bright SIRENA Natures pride,
Sporting on the pleasant greene:
To whose walkes the Shepheards oft,
Came her god-like foote to finde, 10
And in places that were soft,
Kist the print there left behinde;
Where the path which she had troad,
Hath thereby more glory gayn'd,
Then in heau'n that milky rode,
Which with Nectar _Hebe_ stayn'd:
But bleake Winters boystrous blasts,
Now their fading pleasures chid,
And so fill'd them with his wastes,
That from sight her steps were hid. 20
Silly Shepheard sad the while,
For his sweet SIRENA gone,
All his pleasures in exile:
Layd on the colde earth alone.
Whilst his gamesome cut-tayld Curre,
With his mirthlesse Master playes,
Striuing him with sport to stirre,
As in his more youthfull dayes,
DORILVS his Dogge doth chide,
Layes his well-tun'd Bagpype by, 30
And his Sheep-hooke casts aside,
There (quoth he) together lye.
When a Letter forth he tooke,
Which to him SIRENA writ,
With a deadly down-cast looke,
And thus fell to reading it.
DORILVS my deare (quoth she)
Kinde Companion of my woe,
Though we thus diuided be,
Death cannot diuorce vs so: 40
Thou whose bosome hath beene still,
Th' onely Closet of my care,
And in all my good and ill,
Euer had thy equall share:
Might I winne thee from thy Fold,
Thou shouldst come to visite me,
But the Winter is so cold,
That I feare to hazard thee:
The wilde waters are waxt hie,
So they are both deafe and dumbe, 50
Lou'd they thee so well as I,
They would ebbe when thou shouldst come;
Then my coate with light should shine,
Purer then the Vestall fire:
Nothing here but should be thine,
That thy heart can well desire:
Where at large we will relate,
From what cause our friendship grewe,
And in that the varying Fate,
Since we first each other knewe: