PALINODE. Is not thilk the merry month of May, When love-lads masken in fresh array? How falls it, then, we no merrier bene, Alike as others, girt in gaudy green? Our bloncket liveries be all too sad For thilk same season, when all is yclad With pleasance; the ground with grass, the woods With green leaves, the bushes with blooming buds. Youth's folk now flocken in every where, To gather May-buskets and smelling brere; And home they hasten the posts to dight, And all the kirk-pillars ere day-light, With hawthorn buds, and sweet eglantine, And garlands of roses, and sops-in-wine. Such merrimake holy saints doth queme, But we here sitten as drown'd in dream. PIERS. For younkers, Palinode, such follies fit, But we tway be men of elder wit. PAL. Sicker this morrow, no longer ago, I saw a shoal of shepheards outgo With singing, and shouting, and jolly cheer: Before them yode a lusty tabrere, That to the many a horn-pipe play'd, Whereto they dancen each one with his maid. To see those folks make such jovisance, Made my heart after the pipe to dance: Then to the green wood they speeden them all, To fetchen home May with their musical; And home they bringen in a royal throne, Crowned as king; and his queen attone Was Lady Flora, on whom did attend A fair flock of faeries, and a fresh bend Of lovely nymphs. (O that I were there, To helpen the ladies their Maybush bear!) Ah! Piers, be not thy teeth on edge, to think How great sport they gainen with little swink? PIERS. Perdie, so far am I from envy, That their fondness inly I pity: Those faitours little regarden their charge, While they, letting their sheep run at large, Passen their time, that should be sparely spent, In lustihed and wanton merriment. Thilk same be shepheards for the devil's stead, That playen while their flocks be unfed: Well it is seen their sheep be not their own, That letten them run at random alone: But they be hired for little pay Of other, that caren as little as they, What fallen the flock, so they have the fleece, And get all the gain, paying but a piece. I muse, what account both these will make; The one for the hire, which he doth take, And th' other for leaving his Lord's task, When great Pan account of shepheards shall ask. PAL. Sicker, now I see thou speakest of spite, All for thou lackest somdele their delight. I (as I am) had rather be envied, All were it of my foe, than fonly pitied; And yet, if need were, pitied would be, Rather than other should scorn at me; For pitied is mishap that n'as remedy, But scorned be deeds of fond foolery. What shoulden shepheards other things tend, Than, sith their God his good does them send, Reapen the fruit thereof, that is pleasure, 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.