Tho' written perhaps near half a century before the Shepherd's Calendar,[380] this will be found far superior to any of those eclogues, in natural unaffected sentiments, in simplicity of style, in easy flow of versification, and all other beauties of pastoral poetry. Spenser ought to have profited more by so excellent a model.
[Warton describes this poem as "perhaps the first example in our language now remaining of the pure and unmixed pastoral, and in the erotic species for ease of numbers, elegance of rural allusion excelling everything of the kind in Spenser, who is erroneously ranked as our earliest English bucolic." He did not, however, take into account Robin and Makine, which follows Harpalus in this book, but was written more than half a century before it. Spenser-lovers also are not likely to agree with Percy's and Warton's summary judgments upon the Shepherd's Calendar.]
Phylida was a faire mayde,
As fresh as any flowre;
Whom Harpalus the herdman prayde
To be his paramour.
Harpalus, and eke Corin, 5
Were herdmen both yfere:[381]
And Phylida could twist and spinne,
And thereto sing full clere.
But Phylida was all tò coye,
For Harpalus to winne: 10
For Corin was her onely joye,
Who forst[382] her not a pinne.
How often would she flowers twine?
How often garlandes make
Of couslips and of colombine? 15
And al for Corin's sake.