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My soule I would haue giuen faine
This day, which thou hast conquer’d soe,
Not to haue seene thee in this plaine
(Although no other life I knowe)
Onely to misse (I care not how)
The greefe of this departure now.
And giue me leaue (faire Shepherdesse)
To thinke, that thou canst not deny it,
But thou dost feele my heauinesse
In that degree, as I doe trie it:
For in thy presence t’is not such
A matter to presume so much.
If then, Diana, it be so,
Tell me, how can I now depart?
How dost thou suffer me to go
When each doth carry others hart?
Or how doe I come hither yet,
To take my farewell without let?
O my faire Shepherdesse againe
No reason can I yeeld thee why,
Nor how of thee I should complaine,
As thou shalt haue continually
Absent, when I am gone from thee
O, neuer to remember me.
I knowe right well it is not thow,
That mak’st me to depart, and lesse,
My purest faith constraines me now,
(For needes I must the same confesse)
And if I should but tell and show it,
Who doth the same, I doe not know it.
Thus full of paine and bitter teares,
And sighing, which he neuer spar’d,
The Shepherd to her louing eares
Did speake these words which you haue heard.
And hearing them, in minde she kept
Them, and full bitterly she wept.
To answere him she went about
A thousand times, but could not doe it,
For still her greefe did put her out,
And so she could not frame her to it.
But then for her, her loue so stable
An answere shapt (her toong vnable.)
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