The Shepheards Lamentation.
To the tune of the plaine-dealing Woman.
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COme Shepheards, decke your heads,
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no more with bayes but willowes
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Forsake your downy beds,
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and make your ground your pillowes:
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And mourne with me, since crost
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as I, was never no man:
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Nor never shepheard lo, lo, lo, lost,
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so plaine a dealing woman.
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All you forsaken woers.
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that ever were distressed,
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And all you lusty Lovers,
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that ever love molested,
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Your losse I must condole,
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and all together summon,
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To mourne for the poore so, so, soule,
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of my plaine dealing woman:
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Faire Venus made her chast,
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and Ceres beauty gave her:
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Pan wept when she was lost,
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and Satyres strove to have her:
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But oh she was to them
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so nice, so coy, that no man,
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Could judge but he knew, knew, knew,
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she was plaine dealing woman,
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For all her pretty parts,
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I never enough shall wonder,
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She overcame all hearts,
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and all hearts made to wonder.
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Her breath it is so sweet,
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so sweet the like felt no man,
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Oh, Shepheards never lo, lo, lost,
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so plaine a dealing woman.
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Her eyes did shine like glasse,
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to grace her comely feature:
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Faire Venus she did farre surpasse,
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she was a comely creature.
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[But] oh she was so coy,
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[as] never yet was no one:
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[And] Cupid that blind bo, bo, boy,
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[lov'd] my plaine dealing Woman.
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So beautiful was she,
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in favour and in feature:
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Her well shapt limbs did shew,
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she was a comely creature:
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What griefe was this to me,
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judge all true hearted yong men:
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To have so great a lo, lo, losse,
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of my plaine dealing woman.
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Diana faire and chast,
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on her might well attend,
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A Nimph she was at least,
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and to Shepheards a great friend:
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And oh she was so kind,
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as never yet was no one,
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A man could hardly fi, fi, find,
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so plaine a dealing woman.
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So courteous eke she was,
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I and so kind to all men:
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What better pleasure could you wish,
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then so plaine a dealing woman:
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But now alas shees gone
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it makes my heart to pitty:
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Oh there was never such an o, o, other wench
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in Country or in Citty.
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Kind Shepheards all farewell,
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since death hath me ore taken:
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Unto the world pray tell,
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that I am quite forsaken,
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And so to all adue,
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goe forth I pray and summon,
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The slanting crew to mourne for me,
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and my plaine dealing woman.
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Put on your mourning weeds,
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and bring the wreath of willow:
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Goe tell the world I am dead,
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and make the ground my pillow.
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And ring, ding dong, ding dong,
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ding dong, adew,
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Love, you no more so so long,
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but change each day a new.
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Come Shepheards leave your sighing
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and wipe away your teares,
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And let us fall to piping,
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to drive away all cares:
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For though that she be gone,
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that was so faire a good one,
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Yet once more may we find,
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as plaine a dealing woman.
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FINIS.
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The Second Part of the Plaine dealing woman.
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YE Silvan Nimphes come skip it,
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and crowne your heads with Mirtle:
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Yee faire Ewes come trip it,
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on earths imbroydered kirtle.
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And O you Driades,
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which haunt the coolest Fountaines:
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Come leave your silken shadie groves,
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and sport it in the Mountaines.
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For lo the Gods obtaine it,
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that wonders shall possesse her:
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And Nature did decree it,
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when she with life did blesse her.
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The Queene disdaind not,
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faire Phillis for her feature,
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For all the world containd not,
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so rare a comely creature.
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Diana made her chast,
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and Pallas made her witty:
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The Goddesse Ceres grac't
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her heart with love and pitty.
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The Muses did select her,
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to grace their learned number:
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And Venus did elect her,
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the onely beautious wonder.
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When Jove beheld her beauty,
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his Leda did repent him:
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Jove thought that in loves duty,
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she onely did content him.
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And Phoebus blusht to know it,
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that Daphne had abus'd him,
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For lo, her worth did show, that
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desertles she refus'd him.
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Pan was enamoured on her.
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his Sirynx could not please him:
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And when he lookt upon her,
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her very sight did ease him:
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The Satyre mournd to misse her,
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whom all the world admired:
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Silvanus wisht to kisse her,
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whom greatest Gods desired.
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Cupid his Psyche left,
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to feed his eies upon her,
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Of Godlike power bereft,
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that her he more might honour,
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His bow and shafts he gave her,
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wherewith she wounds all hearts
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So well she doth behave her,
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like love in all his parts.
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I list no more to praise her,
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whom heaven and earth admire,
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A loftier Muse must raise her,
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whose verse can mount up higher:
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A golden pen must write it,
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dipt in the Muses Fountaine,
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And they themselves in[d]ite it,
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upon their sacred Mountaine.
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Then O yee Shepheard Swaines,
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with garlands deck your bonnets,
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And let th'Arcadian plaines,
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ring forth with Lyrick Sonets:
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Come tune your rurall voyces,
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to chant her matchlesse merits,
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Whose faire exceeds all beauties,
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the spacious world inherits.
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FINIS.
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