DORUS Unto the gods with a thankful heart all thanks I do render, That to my advancement their wisdoms have me abased. But yet, alas! O but yet alas! our haps be but hard haps, Which must frame contempt to the fittest purchase of honour. Well may a pastor plain, but alas his plaints be not esteem’d: Silly shepherd’s poor pipe, when his harsh sound testifies anguish, Into the fair looking on, pastime, not passion, enters. And to the woods or brooks, who do make such dreary recital? What be the pangs they bear, and whence those pangs be derived, Pleas’d to receive that name by rebounding answer of Echo, May hope thereby to ease their inward horrible anguish, When trees dance to the pipe, and swift streams stay by the music, Or when an Echo begins unmov’d to sing them a love-song; Say then, what vantage do we get by the trade of a pastor? (Since no estates be so base, but love vouchsafeth his arrow, Since no refuge doth serve from wounds we do carry about us, Since outward pleasures be but halted helps to decayed Souls) Save that daily we may discern what fire we do burn in. Far more happy be you, whose greatness gets a free access; Whose fair bodily gifts are fram’d most lovely to each eye, Virtue you have, of virtue you have left proof to the whole world. And virtue is grateful, with beauty and richness adorn’d. Neither doubt you a whit; time will your passion utter. Hardly remains fire hid where skill is bent to the hiding, {106} But in a mind that would his flames should not be repressed, Nature worketh enough with a small help for the revealing: Give therefore to the Muse great praise, in whose very likeness You do approach to the fruit your only desires be to gather.