Astrophel
Shepherds that wont, on pipes of oaten reed,
Ofttimes to plain your love’s concealèd smart;
And with your piteous lays have learned to breed
Compassion in a country lass’s heart:
Hearken, ye gentle shepherds, to my song!
And place my doleful plaint, your plaints emong.
To you alone, I sing this mournful verse,
The mournful’st verse that ever man heard tell:
To you whose softened hearts it may empierce
With dolour’s dart, for death of Astrophel.
To you I sing, and to none other wight,
For well I wot my rhymes been rudely dight.
Yet as they been, if any nicer wit
Shall hap to hear, or covet them to read:
Think he, that such are for such ones most fit,
Made not to please the living but the dead:
And if in him, found pity ever place;
Let him be moved to pity such a case.