For heeretofore as thou hast euen, and morrow,
Seene me disdaine thy sight with so small reason,
So maist thou now take pleasure in my sorrow,
And with thy scornes my feeble comforts season:
For now to loue me, lies not in thy power,
Though I must loue thee till my dying hower.
So far from Cupids force thy haps haue blest thee,
And in thy libertie thou tak’st such glorie,
That (gentle Shepherd) I doe not request thee
To cure mine ill (which cannot make thee sorie)
But to beguile these paines by Loue or dained,
With one poore fauour, though it were but fained:
And though mine ils, which thou art not contented
To remedie, nor dost pretend to cease them,
When to thy carelesse thoughts they are presented,
Whose hot reuenge haue vowed to increase them:
Yet turne thine eies, and see how mine are flowing
With riuolets of teares, that still are growing.
Behold my ruine, and my life decaied,
My little hope, which in despaire I borrow,
My teares, my sighes, my senses all dismaied,
Though not to take compassion of my sorrow,
Yet see how with them all I am affreighted,
In thy reuenge to be the more delighted.
For though with greefe, wherewith I still am calling
To mollifie thy hart, and haue no power,
Nor that my teares, which euermore are falling,
Cannot excuse my death one little hower,
Then will I die for loue of thee and neuer
Enioy this breath without I loue thee euer.
Enamoured Diana had not so soone made an end of her delightfull musicke, if on the sudden she had not beene interrupted by a certaine Shepherdesse, which be∣hinde a tuft of Hasels was hearkening vnto her: Who therefore espying her, gaue a pause to her sweete voice by cutting off the substance of her song, and was not a little greeued (which by a naturall blush that tainted her faire face, might easily be coniectured) that her song was heard, and her griefe vnknowen; especially percei∣uing the same Shepherdesse to be a stranger and neuer seene in those parts before. But she, who from a far off had heard so sweete a sound, with silent steps drew neere to enioy such daintie melodie; and vnderstanding the cause of her dolorous song, made on the sudden so goodly a shewe of her excellent beautie before her, as the Nocturnall Moone is woont to doe, when with her shining beames it pearseth and ouercomes the foggie thicknes of the darke clouds. But seeing Diana to be some∣what troubled in minde at her sight, with a merrie countenance, she thus began to say vnto her.
