| MY flocks feed not, | |
| My ewes breed not, | |
| My rams speed not, | |
| All is amiss: | |
| Love ’s denying, | 5 |
| Faith ’s defying, | |
| Heart ’s renying, | |
| Causer of this. | |
| All my merry jigs are quite forgot, | |
| All my lady’s love is lost, God wot: | 10 |
| Where her faith was firmly fix’d in love, | |
| There a nay is plac’d without remove. | |
| One silly cross | |
| Wrought all my loss; | |
| O! frowning Fortune, cursed, fickle dame; | 15 |
| For now I see | |
| Inconstancy | |
| More in women than in men remain. | |
| In black mourn I, | |
| All fears scorn I, | 20 |
| Love hath forlorn me, | |
| Living in thrall: | |
| Heart is bleeding, | |
| All help needing, | |
| O! cruel speeding, | 25 |
| Fraughted with gall. | |
| My shepherd’s pipe can sound no deal, | |
| My wether’s bell rings doleful knell; | |
| My curtal dog, that wont to have play’d, | |
| Plays not at all, but seems afraid; | 30 |
| My sighs so deep | |
| Procures to weep, | |
| In howling wise, to see my doleful plight. | |
| How sighs resound | |
| Through heartless ground, | 35 |
| Like a thousand vanquish’d men in bloody fight! | |
| Clear well spring not, | |
| Sweet birds sing not, | |
| Green plants bring not | |
| Forth their dye; | 40 |
| Herds stand weeping, | |
| Flocks all sleeping, | |
| Nymphs back peeping | |
| Fearfully: | |
| All our pleasure known to us poor swains, | 45 |
| All our merry meetings on the plains, | |
| All our evening sport from us is fled, | |
| All our love is lost, for Love is dead. | |
| Farewell, sweet lass, | |
| Thy like ne’er was | 50 |
| For a sweet content, the cause of all my moan: | |
| Poor Corydon | |
| Must live alone; | |
| Other help for him I see that there is none. |