=Colin.= PHILLISIDES is dead! O harmful death!
O deadly harm! Unhappy Albion!
When shalt thou see emong thy shepherds all
Any so sage, so perfect? Whom uneath
Envy could touch for virtuous life and skill:
Courteous, valiant, and liberal.
Behold the sacred PALES! where with hair
Untrusst, she sits in shade of yonder hill;
And her fair face bent sadly down, doth send
A flood of tears to bathe the earth: and there
Doth call the heavens despiteful, envious;
Cruel his fate, that made so short an end
Of that same life, well worthy to have been
Prolonged with many years, happy and famous.
The Nymphs and Oreades her round about
Do sit lamenting on the grassy green;
And with shrill cries, beating their whitest breasts,
Accuse the direful dart that DEATH sent out
To give the fatal stroke. The stars they blame;
That deaf or careless seem at their request.
The pleasant shade of stately groves they shun.
They leave their crystal springs, where they wont frame
Sweet bowers of myrtle twigs and laurel fair;
To sport themselves free from the scorching sun.
And now the hollow caves, where HORROR dark
Doth dwell, whence banished is the gladsome air
They seek; and there in mourning spend their time
With wailful tunes; whiles wolves do howl and bark,
And seem to bear a bourdon to their plaint.
=Lycon.= PHILLISIDES is dead! O doleful rhyme!
Why should my tongue express thee? Who is left
Now to uphold thy hopes, when they do faint;
LYCON unfortunate? What spiteful fate?
What luckless destiny hath thee bereft
Of thy chief comfort, of thy only stay?
Where is become thy wonted happy state?
Alas, wherein through many a hill and dale,
Through pleasant woods, and many an unknown way,
Along the banks of many silver streams,
Thou with him yodest; and with him did scale
The craggy rocks of th'Alps and Appennine?
Still with the Muses sporting, while those beams
Of virtue kindled in his noble breast;
Which after did so gloriously forth shine?
But, woe is me, they now yquenched are
All suddenly, and death hath them oppressed,
Lo, father NEPTUNE! with sad countenance,
How he sits mourning on the strond now bare
Yonder; where th'OCEAN with his rolling waves
The white feet washeth, wailing this mischance,
Of Dover cliffs. His sacred skirt about
The sea gods all are set; from their moist caves,
All for his comfort gathered there they be.
The Thamis rich, the Humber rough and stout,
The fruitful Severn, with the rest; are come
To help their lord to mourn, and eke to see
The doleful sight, and sad pomp funeral
Of the dead corps passing through his kingdom;
And all their heads with cypress garlands crowned:
With woeful shrieks salute him, great and small.
Eke wailful ECHO, forgetting her dear
NARCISSUS, their last accents doth resound.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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