I'm sure I canna change, ye needna fear; Tho' we're but young, I've loo'd you mony a year. I mind it well, when thou cou'd'st hardly gang, Or lisp out words, I choos'd ye frae the thrang Of a' the bairns, and led thee by the hand, Aft to the Tansy-know, or Rashy-strand. Thou smiling by my side,--I took delite, To pu' the rashes green, with roots sae white, Of which, as well as my young fancy cou'd, For thee I plet the flowry belt and snood. _Act 2, Scene 4._ Let this be contrasted with its corresponding sentiment in the _Pastor Fido_, when _Mirtillo_ thus pleads the constancy of his affection for _Amaryllis_: _Sooner than change my mind, my darling thought, Oh may my life be changed into death!_ (and mark the pledge of this assurance) For cruel tho', tho' merciless she be, Yet my whole life is wrapt in Amaryllis; Nor can the human frame, I think, contain A double heart at once, a double soul! _Pastor Fido, Act 3, Scene 6._ The charm of the _Gentle Shepherd_ arises equally from the nature of the passions, which are there delineated, and the engaging simplicity and truth, with which their effects are described. The poet paints an honourable and virtuous affection between a youthful pair of the most amiable character; a passion indulged on each side from the purest and most disinterested motives, surmounting the severest of all trials--the unexpected elevation of the lover to a rank which, according to the maxims of the world, would preclude the possibility of union; and crowned at length by the delightful and most unlooked for discovery, that this union is not only equal as to the condition of the parties, but is an act of retributive justice. In the anxious suspense, that precedes this discovery, the conflict of generous passions in the breasts of the two lovers is drawn with consummate art, and gives rise to a scene of the utmost tenderness, and the most pathetic interest. Cold indeed must be that heart, and dead to the finest sensibilities of our nature, which can read without emotion the interview between _Patie_ and _Peggy_, after the discovery of _Patie's_ elevated birth, which the following lines describe: PATIE. ----My Peggy, why in tears? Smile as ye wont, allow nae room for fears: Tho' I'm nae mair a shepherd, yet I'm thine. PEGGY. I dare not think sae high: I now repine At the unhappy chance, that made not me A gentle match, or still a herd kept thee. Wha can, withoutten pain, see frae the coast The ship that bears his all like to be lost? Like to be carry'd, by some rover's hand, Far frae his wishes, to some distant land? PATIE.