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THE PASSIONATE SHEPHERD: PASTORAL 3. THE HAPPY COUNTRYMAN, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Who can live in heart so glad
Last Line: To become a country lad!
Variant Title(s): The Country Lad;worldly Paradise;merry Country Lad
Subject(s): Country Life


WHO can live in heart so glad
As the merry country lad,
Who upon a fair green baulk
May at pleasure sit and walk,
And amid the azure skies
See the morning sun arise?
While he hears in every spring
How the birds do chirp and sing;
Or before the hounds in cry
See the hare go stealing by;
Or, along the shallow brook,
Angling with a baited hook,
See the fishes leap and play
In a blessed sunny day;
Or to hear the partridge call
Till she have her covey all;
Or to see the subtle fox,
How the villain plies the box;
After feeding on his prey
How he closely sneaks away,
Through the hedge and down the furrow
Till he gets into his burrow;
Then the bee to gather honey;
And the little black haired coney
On a bank for sunny place
With her forefeet wash her face:
Are not these with thousands moe
Than the courts of kings do know?
The true pleasing spirit's sights,
That may breed true love's delights?
But with all this happiness,
To behold that shepherdess,
To whose eyes all shepherds yield
All the fairest of the field;
Fair Aglaia, in whose face

. . . .

Lives the shepherd's highest grace:
For whose sake I say and swear,
By the passions that I bear,
Had I got a kingly grace,
I would leave my kingly place
And in heart be truly glad
To become a country lad!





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