The Shepherds' Holiday.
[ACTUS I., SCENA I.]
Thyrsis, Montanus.
Thyr. Here in this grove I left her, here amongst
These poplars, laurels, and these sycamores,
Guilty of her sad loss: and yet behold
They do appear as fresh and full of verdure,
As when my love, clothed in her clearest looks,
Did give them grace and lustre. Why do we,
Poor silly men, bred up in cares and fear,
The nurse of our religion, stoop to Nature,
That only knows to form, not to preserve
What she has made; since, careless of her work,
She leaves to giddy Fortune the whole power
Of ruling us? These senseless trees stand still,
And flourish too, and in their pride upbraid
My loss to me; but my dear Sylvia being
Nature's best piece, made to excuse the rest
Of all her vulgar forms, ah me! was left
To desolation, till some horrid satyr,
Bred in these woods, and furious in his lusts,
Made her his prey; and now has carried her
Into his dark retirings, or some cave,
Where her poor Thyrsis never more shall see her.
But I will be reveng'd: this wood, that now
Is so bedeck'd with leaves and fresh array,
I'll level with the ground, until it be
As desolate as I.
Mon. Alas, poor shepherd! [Aside.
Thyr. It shall afford no shade to anything,
That hither us'd to come for its relief;
But henceforth be for ever infamous:
That, when some gentle shepherd passes by,
And sees this ground rent with the crooked plough:
Here, he may say, here 'twas that Sylvia
Was lost, and then shall turn another way.
Mon. Good Thyrsis, do not make so much of grief,
Y' have fed it with too many tears already;
Take comfort now.
Thyr. What has my present state
To do with comfort? If you see the trees
Widow'd of leaves, the earth grown hard, and spoil'd
Of the green mantles which she wont to wear,
You wonder not if winter then appear.
Mon. By these we know that season.