“This charming idyl occurs, with the absence of two lines, amongst the Poems in Divers Humours appended to Bamfield’s Encomion of Lady Pecunia, in 1598, and the first twenty-six lines with the addition of two new ones are found in England’s Helicon, 1600. This latter version follows in that work No. xviii of this list, [“My flocks feed not,”] is also subscribed _Ignoto_, and is headed: ‘Another of the same Sheepheards.’ The probability is that the copies of these little poems, as given in the Helicon, were taken from a Common Place book in which the names of the authors were not recorded; the two supplementary lines just noticed having the appearance of being an unauthorized couplet improvised for the sake of giving a neater finish to the abridgment.” We will now reproduce the aforesaid poems from “England’s Helicon,” second edition, 1614. A brief version of the first song, No. xviii of “The Passionate Pilgrim,” says Halliwell-Phillipps, appeared in 1597: *The unknown Shepherd's Complaint.* My flocks feed not, my ewes breed not, My rams speed not, all is amiss; Love is denying, Faith is defying; Hearts ren[e]ging, causer of this. All my merry jigs are quite forgot, And my lady’s love is lost, God wot: Where her faith was firmly fixed in love, There a nay is placed without remove. [31] One silly cross wrought all my loss; O frowning fortune, cursed fickle Dame, For now I see, inconstancy More in women than in men remain. In black mourn I, all fears scorn I, Love hath forlorn me, living in thrall; Heart is bleeding, all help needing, O cruel speeding, fraughted with gall. My shepherd’s pipe can sound no deal, My wether’s bell rings doleful knell. My curtail dog that wont to have played, Plays not at all, but seems afraid. With sighs so deep, procure to weep, In howling−wise to see my doleful plight, How sighs resound, through heartless ground, Like a thousand vanquished men in bloody fight. Clear wells spring not, sweet birds sing not, Green plants bring not forth their dye; Herds stand weeping—flocks all sleeping, Nymphs back peeping fearfully. All our pleasures known to us poor swains, All our merry meeting on the plains, All our evening sports from us are fled, All our love is lost, for love is dead. Farewell sweet lass, thy like ne’er was, For sweet content, the cause of all my moan: Poor Corydon must live alone, Other help for him, I see that there is none. Finis Ignoto