come, their cares begin afresh,
Thinking upon their morrowes busines.

Thus everie man is troubled with unrest,
From rich to poore, from high to low degree:
Therefore I thinke that man is truly blest,
That neither cares for wealth nor povertie,
But laughs at Fortune, and her foolerie,
That gives rich churles great store of golde and fee,
And lets poore schollers live in miserie.

O, fading branches of decaying bayes,
Who now will water your dry-wither'd armes?
Or where is he that sung the lovely layes
Of simple shepheards in their countrey-farmes?
Ah! he is dead, the cause of all our harmes:
And with him dide my joy and sweete delight;
The cleare to clowdes, the day is turnd to night.

SYDNEY, the syren of this latter age;
SYDNEY, the blasing-starre of England's glory;
SYDNEY, the wonder of the wise and sage;
SYDNEY, the subject of true vertues story:
This syren, starre, this wonder, and this subject,
Is dumbe, dim, gone, and mard by fortune's object.

And thou, my sweete Amintas, vertuous minde,
Should I forget thy learning or thy love,
Well might I be accounted but unkinde,
Whose pure affection I so oft did prove,
Might my poore plaints hard stones to pitty move!
His losse should be lamented of each creature,
So great his name, so gentle was his nature.

But sleepe his soule in sweet Elysium,
(The happy haven of eternall rest);
And let me to my former matter come,
Proving, by reason, shepheard's life is best,
Because he harbours vertue in his brest;
And is content, (the chiefest thing of all),
With any fortune that shall him befall.

He sits all day lowd-piping on a hill,
The whilst his flocke about him daunce apace,
His hart with joy, his eares with musique fill:
Anon a bleating weather beares the bace,
A lambe the treble, and to his disgrace
Another answers like a middle meane,
Thus every one to beare a part are faine.

Like a great king he rules a little land,
Still making statutes and ordayning lawes,
Which if they breake, he beates them with his wand;
He doth defend them from the greedy jawes
Of rav'ning woolves, and lyons bloudy pawes.
His field, his realme; his subjects are his sheepe;
Which he doth still in due obedience keepe.

First he ordaines by act