Nor bird nor beast
Could make me wish for anything this day,
Being old, but that the old alone might die,
And that would be against God's Providence.
Let the young wish. But what has brought you here?
Never until this moment have we met
Where my goats browse on the scarce grass or leap
From stone to stone.
Shepherd
I am looking for strayed sheep;
Something has troubled me and in my trouble
I let them stray. I thought of rhyme alone,
For rhyme can beat a measure out of trouble
And make the daylight sweet once more; but when
I had driven every rhyme into its place
The sheep had gone from theirs.
Goatherd
I know right well
What turned so good a shepherd from his charge.
Shepherd
He that was best in every country sport
And every country craft, and of us all
Most courteous to slow age and hasty youth
Is dead.
Goatherd
The boy that brings my griddle cake
Brought the bare news.
Shepherd