The while they here liven at ease and leisure? For, when they be dead, their good is ygoe, They sleepen in rest, well as other moe: Then with them wends what they spent in cost, But what they left behind them is lost. Good is no good, but if it be spend; God giveth good for none other end. PIERS. Ah! Palinode, thou art a world's child: Who touches pitch, must needs be defil'd; But shepheards (as Algrind[7] used to say) Must not live alike as men of the lay. With them it sits to care for their heir, Enaunter their heritage do impair: They must provide for means of maintenance, And to continue their wont countenance: But shepheard must walk another way, Sike worldly sovenance he must for-say. The son of his loins why should he regard To leave enriched with that he hath spar'd? Should not thilk God, that gave him that good, Eke cherish his child, if in his ways he stood? For if he mislive in lewdness and lust, Little boots all the wealth, and the trust, That his father left by inheritance; All will be soon wasted with misgovernance: But through this, and other their miscreance, They maken many a wrong chevisance, Heaping up waves of wealth and woe, The floods whereof shall them overflow. Sike men's folly I cannot compare Better than to the ape's foolish care, That is so enamoured of her young one, (And yet, God wot, such cause had she none,) That with her hard hold, and strait embracing, She stoppeth the breath of her youngling. So oftentimes, whenas good is meant, Evil ensueth of wrong intent. The time was once, and may again retorn, (For ought may happen, that hath been beforn,) When shepheards had none inheritance, Ne of land nor fee in sufferance, But what might arise of the bare sheep, (Were it more or less) which they did keep. Well ywis was it with shepheards then: Nought having, nought feared they to forego; For Pan himself was their inheritance, And little them served for their maintenance. The shepheards' God so well them guided, That of nought they were unprovided; Butter enough, honey, milk, and whey, And their flocks' fleeces them to array: But tract of time, and long prosperity, (That nurse of vice, this of insolency,) Lulled the shepheards in such security, That, not content with loyal obeisance, Some gan to gape for greedy governance, And match them self with mighty potentates, Lovers of lordship, and troublers of states: Then gan shepheards' swains to look aloft, And leave to live hard, and learn to ligg soft: Then, under colour of shepheards, somewhile There crept in wolves, full of fraud and guile, That often devoured their own sheep, And often the shepheards that did them keep: This was the first source of shepheards' sorrow,