But if sad winter's wrath, and season chill, Accord not with thy Muse's merriment, To sadder times thou mayst attune thy quill, And sing of sorrow and death's dreariment; For dead is Dido,[19] dead, alas! and drent, Dido! the great shepheard his daughter sheen: The fairest may she was that ever went, Her like she has not left behind, I ween: And, if thou wilt bewail my woful teen, I shall thee give yond cosset for thy pain; And, if thy rhymes as round and rueful been As those that did thy Rosalind complain, Much greater gifts for guerdon thou shalt gain. Than kid or cosset, which I thee benempt: Then up, I say, thou jolly shepheard swain, Let not my small demand be so contempt. COL. Thenot, to that I chose thou dost me tempt; But ah! too well I wot my humble vein, And how my rhymes be rugged and unkempt; Yet, as I con, my conning I will strain. "Up, then, Melpomene! the mournful'st Muse of Nine, Such cause of mourning never hadst afore; Up, grisly ghosts! and up my rueful rhyme! Matter of mirth now shalt thou have no more; For dead she is, that mirth thee made of yore. Dido, my dear, alas! is dead, Dead, and lieth wrapt in lead. O heavy herse! Let streaming tears be poured out in store; O careful verse! "Shepheards, that by your flocks of Kentish downs abide, Wail ye this woful waste of Nature's wark; Wail we the wight, whose presence was our pride; Wail we the wight, whose absence is our cark; The sun of all the world is dim and dark; The earth now lacks her wonted light, And all we dwell in deadly night. O heavy herse! Break we our pipes, that shrill'd as loud as lark; O careful verse! "Why do we longer live, (ah! why live we so long?) Whose better days Death hath shut up in woe? The fairest flower our garland all among Is faded quite, and into dust ygo. Sing now, ye shepheards' daughters, sing no moe The songs that Colin made you in her praise, But into weeping turn your wanton lays. O heavy herse! Now is time to die: nay, time was long ago: O careful verse! "Whence is it, that the flowret of the field doth fade, And lieth buried long in Winter's bale; Yet, soon as Spring his mantle hath display'd, It flow'reth fresh, as it should never fail? But thing on earth that is of most avail, As virtue's branch and beauty's bud, Reliven not for any good. O heavy herse! The branch once dead, the bud eke needs must quail; O careful verse!