CUDDIE. Ah for pity! will rank winter's rage These bitter blasts never gin t'assuage? The keen cold blows through my beaten hide, All as I were through the body gride: My ragged ronts all shiver and shake, As doen high towers in an earthquake: They wont in the wind wag their wriggle tails Perk as a peacock; but now it availes. THE. Lewdly complainest, thou lazy lad, Of winter's wrack for making thee sad. Must not the world wend in his common course, From good to bad, and from bad to worse, From worse unto that is worst of all, And then return to his former fall? Who will not suffer the stormy time, Where will he live till the lusty prime? Self have I worn out thrice thirty years, Some in much joy, many in many tears, Yet never complained of cold nor heat, Of summer's flame, nor of winter's threat, Ne ever was to Fortune foeman, But gently took that ungently came; And ever my flock was my chief care; Winter or summer they might well fare. CUD. No marvel, Thenot, if thou can bear Cheerfully the winter's wrathful cheer; For age and winter accord full nigh, This chill, that cold; this crooked, that wry; And as the louring weather looks down, So seemest thou like Good Friday[3] to frown: But my flow'ring youth is foe to frost, My ship unwont in storms to be tost. THE. The sovereign of seas he blames in vain, That, once sea-beat, will to sea again: So loit'ring live you little herdgrooms, Keeping your beasts in the budded brooms; And, when the shining sun laugheth once, You deemen, the spring is come at once; Then gin you, fond flies! the cold to scorn, And, crowing in pipes made of green corn, You thinken to be lords of the year; But eft, when ye count you freed from fear, Comes the breme Winter with chamfred brows, Full of wrinkles and frosty furrows, Drearily shooting his stormy dart, Which curdles the blood and pricks the heart: Then is your careless courage accoyed, Your careful herds with cold be annoyed: Then pay you the price of your surquedry, With weeping, and wailing, and misery. CUD. Ah! foolish old man! I scorn thy skill, That wouldst me my springing youth to spill: I deem thy brain emperished be Through rusty eld, that hath rotted thee; Or sicker thy head very totty is, So on thy corb shoulder it leans amiss. Now thyself hath lost both lop and top, Als my budding branch thou wouldest crop; But were thy years green, as now be mine, To other delights they would incline: Then wouldest thou learn to carol of love, And hery with hymns thy lass's glove; Then wouldest thou pipe of Phillis' praise; But Phillis is mine for many days; I won her with a girdle of gelt, Embost with bugle about the belt: Such an one shepheards would make full fain; Such an one would make thee young again. THE. Thou art a fon, of thy love to boast; All that is lent to love will be lost. CUD. Seest how brag yond bullock bears, So smirk, so smooth, his pricked ears? His horns be as broad as rainbow bent, His dewlap as lithe as lass of Kent: See how he venteth into the wind; Weenest of love is not his mind? Seemeth thy flock thy counsel can, So lustless be they, so weak, so wan; Clothed with cold, and hoary with frost, Thy flock's father his courage hath lost. Thy ewes, that wont to have blowen bags, Like wailful widows hangen their crags; The rather lambs be starved with cold, All for their master is lustless and old. THE. Cuddie, I wot thou kenst little good, So vainly to advance thy heedlesshood; For youth is a bubble blown up with breath, Whose wit is weakness, whose wage is death, Whose way is wilderness, whose inn penance, And stoop-gallant Age, the host of Grievance. But shall I tell thee a tale of truth, Which I cond of Tityrus in my youth, Keeping his sheep on the hills of Kent? CUD. To nought more, Thenot, my mind is bent Than to hear novels of his devise; They be so well thewed, and so wise, Whatever that good old man bespake. THE. Many meet tales of youth did he make, And some of love, and some of chivalry; But none fitter than this to apply. Now listen a while and hearken the end. "There grew an aged tree on the green, A goodly Oak sometime had it been, With arms full strong and largely display'd, But of their leaves they were disarray'd: The body big, and mightily pight, Throughly rooted, and of wondrous height; Whilome had been the king of the field, And mochell mast to the husband did yield, And with his nuts larded many swine: But now the gray moss marred his rine; His bared boughs were beaten with storms, His top was bald, and wasted with worms, His honour decayed, his branches sere.