The Shepheard's Calender Twelve Aeglogues Proportional to the Twelve Monethes by Edmund Spenser

Author:Edmund Spenser [Spenser, Edmund]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-07-30T00:00:00+00:00

JULY · AEGLOGA SEPTIMA

JULY. ÆGLOGA SEPTIMA. ARGUMENT.

This Æglogue is made in the honour and commendation of good shepheards, and to the shame and dispraise of proud and ambitious pastors: such as Morrell is here imagined to be.

THOMALIN. MORRELL. 11

THOMALIN.

Is not thilk same a goatherd proud,

That sits on yonder bank,

Whose straying herd them self doth shroud

Among the bushes rank?

MOR. What, ho, thou jolly shepheard's swain,

Come up the hill to me;

Better is than the lowly plain,

Als for thy flock and thee.

THOM. Ah! God shield, man, that I should climb,

And learn to look aloft;

This rede is rife, that oftentime

Great climbers fall unsoft.

In humble dales is footing fast,

The trode is not so tickle,

And though one fall through heedless hast,

Yet is his miss not mickle.

And now the Sun 12 hath reared up

His fiery-footed team,

Making his way between the Cup

And golden Diademe;

The rampant Lion hunts he fast,

With dogs of noisome breath,

Whose baleful barking brings in hast

Pine, plagues, and dreary death.

Against his cruel scorching heat,

Where thou hast coverture,

The wasteful hills unto his threat

Is a plain overture:

But, if thee list to holden chat

With seely shepheard's swain,

Come down, and learn the little what,

That Thomalin can sayn.

MOR. Siker thou's but a lazy loord,

And recks much of thy swink,

That with fond terms, and witless words,

To blear mine eyes dost think.

In evil hour thou hentst in hand

Thus holy hills to blame,

For sacred unto saints they stand,

And of them have their name.

St. Michel's Mount who does not know,

That wards the Western coast?

And of St. Bridget's Bower I trow

All Kent can rightly boast:

And they that con of Muses' skill

Sayn most-what, that they dwell

(As goatherds wont) upon a hill,

Beside a learned well.

And wonned not the great good Pan

Upon Mount Olivet,

Feeding the blessed flock of Dan,

Which did himself beget?

THOM. O blessed Sheep! O Shepheard great!

That bought his flock so dear,

And them did save with bloody sweat

From wolves that would them tear.

MOR. Beside, as holy Fathers sayn,

There is a holy place

Where Titan riseth from the main

To run his daily race,

Upon whose top the stars be stay'd,

And all the sky doth lean;

There is the cave where Phœbe laid

The shepheard long to dream.

Whilome there used shepheards all

To feed their flocks at will,

Till by his folly one did fall,

That all the rest did spill.

And, sithens shepheards be foresaid

From places of delight,

Forthy I ween thou be afraid

To climb this hillës height.

Of Sinai can I tell thee more,

And of our Lady's Bower;

But little needs to strow my store,

Suffice this hill of our.

Here have the holy Fauns recourse,

And Sylvans haunten rathe;

Here has the salt Medway his source,

Wherein the Nymphs do bathe;

The salt Medway, that trickling streams

Adown the dales of Kent,

Till with his elder brother Themes

His brackish waves be ment.

Here grows melampode every where,

And terebinth, good for goats;

The one my madding kids to smear,

The next to heal their throats.

Hereto, the hills be nigher heaven,

And then the passage eath;

As well can prove the piercing levin,

That seldom falls beneath.

THOM. Siker thou speaks like a lewd lorrell,

Of heaven to deemen so;

How be I am but rude and borrell,

Yet nearer ways I know.

To kirk the narre, from God

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