time > [her] term of apprenticeship shepherd > (Spenser's The Shepheardes Calender, a work of pastoral poetry, was published in 1579) weeds > clothes, garb
3 Am now enforced, a far unfitter task,
enforced > compelled [by the Muse]
4 For trumpets stern to change my oaten reeds,
stern > fierce oaten reeds > (Of which shepherds' pipes were supposedly made. Cf. SC, "October", 7-8)
5 And sing of knights' and ladies' gentle deeds;
gentle > noble; courteous, generous
6 Whose praises, having slept in silence long, 7 Me, all too mean, the sacred Muse areads
mean > unworthy, ignoble areads > counsels; instructs
8 To blazon broad amongst her learned throng: