Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO SHEPHERDS, UTTERED IN A PASTORAL SHOW, by PHILIP SIDNEY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO SHEPHERDS, UTTERED IN A PASTORAL SHOW, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Dick, since we cannot dance, come, let a cheerful voice
Last Line: But hence, even hence, I needs must go, such is my dogged fate.


Will: Dick, since we cannot dance, come, let a cheerful voice
Show that we do not grudge at all when others do rejoice.
Dick: Ah Will, though I grudge not, I count it feeble glee
With sight made dim with daily tears another's sport to see.
Who ever lambkins saw (yet lambkins love to play)
To play when that their loved dams are stolen or gone astray?
If this in them be true, as true in men, think I,
A lustless song, forsooth, sings he, that hath more lust to cry.
Will: A time there is for all, my mother often says,
When she with skirts tucked very high with girls at stoolball plays.
When thou hast mind to weep, seek out some smoky room;
Now let those lightsome sights we see thy darkness overcome.
Dick: What joy the joyful sun gives unto bleared eyes,
That comfort in these sports you like, my mind his comfort tries.
Will: What, is thy bagpipe broke, or are thy lambs miswent,
Thy wallet or thy tar-box lost, or thy new raiment rent?
Dick: I would it were but thus, for thus it were too well.
Will: Thou seest my ears do itch at it; good Dick, thy sorrow tell.
Dick: Hear then, and learn to sigh: a mistress I do serve
Whose wages makes me beg the more, who feeds me till I starve,
Whose livery is such as most I freeze, apparelled most,
And looks so near unto my cure that I must needs be lost.
Will: What? These are riddles, sure; art thou then bound to her?
Dick: Bound as I neither power have, nor would have power to stir.
Will: Who bound thee? Dick: Love my lord. Will: What
witnesses thereto?
Dick: Faith in myself, and worth in her, which no proof can undo.
Will: What seal? Dick: My heart deep graven. Will: Who
made the band so fast?
Dick: Wonder that by two so black eyes the glittering
stars be passed.
Will: What keepeth safe thy band? Dick: Remembrance is the chest,
Locked fast with knowing that she is of worldly things the best.
Will: Thou late of wages 'plained'st; what wages may'st thou have?
Dick: Her heavenly looks, which more and more do give me
cause to crave.
Will: If wages make you want, what food is that she gives?
Dick: Tears' drink, sorrows' meat, wherewith, not I, but
in me my death lives.
Will: What living get you then? Dick: Disdain; but just disdain;
So have I cause myself to plain, but no cause to complain.
Will: What care takes she for thee? Dick: Her care is to prevent
My freedom, with show of her beams, with virtue my content.
Will: God shield us from such dames; if so our downs be sped,
The shepherds will grow lean, I trow, their sheep will ill be fed.
But, Dick, my counsel mark: run from the place of woe;
The arrow being shot from far doth give the smaller blow.
Dick: Good Will, I cannot take thy good advice, before
That foxes leave to steal, because they find they die therefore.
Will: Then Dick, let us go hence, lest we great folks annoy,
For nothing can more tedious be than plaint in time of joy.
Dick: O hence! O cruel word, which even dogs do hate;
But hence, even hence, I needs must go, such is my dogged fate.





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