How much (sayd he) more happie is the state, xix In which ye father here doe dwell at ease, Leading a life so free and fortunate, From all the tempests of these worldly seas, Which tosse the rest in daungerous disease; Where warres, and wreckes, and wicked enmitie Doe them afflict, which no man can appease, That certes I your happinesse enuie, And wish my lot were plast in such felicitie. Surely my sonne (then answer’d he againe) xx If happie, then it is in this intent, That hauing small, yet doe I not complaine Of want, ne wish for more it to augment, But doe my self, with that I haue, content; So taught of nature, which doth litle need Of forreine helpes to lifes due nourishment: The fields my food, my flocke my rayment breed; No better doe I weare, no better doe I feed. Therefore I doe not any one enuy, xxi Nor am enuyde of any one therefore; They that haue much, feare much to loose thereby, And store of cares doth follow riches store. The litle that I haue, growes dayly more Without my care, but onely to attend it; My lambes doe euery yeare increase their score, And my flockes father daily doth amend it. What haue I, but to praise th’Almighty, that doth send it? To them, that list, the worlds gay showes I leaue, xxii And to great ones such follies doe forgiue, Which oft through pride do their owne perill weaue, And through ambition downe themselues doe driue To sad decay, that might contented liue. Me no such cares nor combrous thoughts offend, Ne once my minds vnmoued quiet grieue, But all the night in siluer sleepe I spend, And all the day, to what I list, I doe attend. Sometimes I hunt the Fox, the vowed foe xxiii Vnto my Lambes, and him dislodge away; Sometime the fawne I practise from the Doe, Or from the Goat her kidde how to conuay; Another while I baytes and nets display, The birds to catch, or fishes to beguyle: And when I wearie am, I downe doe lay My limbes in euery shade, to rest from toyle, And drinke of euery brooke, when thirst my throte doth boyle. The time was once, in my first prime of yeares, xxiv When pride of youth forth pricked my desire, That I disdain’d amongst mine equall peares To follow sheepe, and shepheards base attire: For further fortune then I would inquire. And leauing home, to roiall court I sought; Where I did sell my selfe for yearely hire, And in the Princes gardin daily wrought: There I beheld such vainenesse, as I neuer thought.