My beastes, a whyle your foode refraine,
And harke your herdmans sounde:
Whom spitefull love, alas! hath slaine,
Through-girt with many a wounde.

The ewe she hath by her the ramme :
The young cow hath the bull:
The calfe with many a lusty lambe
Do fede their hunger full.

75

But, wel-away! that nature wrought
The, Phylida, so faire:

For I may say that I have bought
Thy beauty all tò deare.

What reason is that crueltie

With beautie should have part? Or els that such great tyranny Should dwell in womans hart?

I see therefore to shape my death

She cruelly is prest;

To th' ende that I may want my breath:

My dayes been at the best.

O Cupide, graunt this my request,
And do not stoppe thine eares,
That she may feele within her brest
The paines of my dispaires :

80

85

90

Of Corin, 'who' is carèlesse,

That she may crave her fee:

As I have done in great distresse,
That loved her faithfully.

95

But since that I shal die her slave;
Her slave, and eke her thrall:

Write you, my frendes, upon my grave
This chaunce that is befall.

100

"Here lieth unhappy Harpalus

By cruell love now slaine: Whom Phylida unjustly thus Hath murdred with disdaine."

XIII.

Robin and Makyne.

AN ANCIENT SCOTTISH PASTORAL.

THE palm of pastoral poesy is here contested by a contemporary writer with the author of the foregoing. The critics will judge of their respective merits; but must make some allowance for the preceding ballad, which is given simply as it stands in the old editions: whereas this which follows has been revised and amended throughout by Allan Ramsay, from whose Ever-Green, vol. i., it is here chiefly printed. The curious reader may however compare it with the more original copy, printed among "Ancient Scottish Poems, from the MS. of George Bannatyne, 1568, Edinb. 1770, 12mo." Mr. Robert Henryson (to whom we are indebted for this poem) appears to so much advantage among the writers of eclogue, that we are sorry we can give little other account of him besides what is contained in the following eloge, written by W. Dunbar, a Scottish poet, who lived about the middle of the 16th century:

"In Dumferling, he [Death] hath tane Broun,

With gude Mr. Robert Henryson."

Indeed, some little further insight into the history of the Scottish bard is gained from the title prefixed to

some of his poems preserved in the British Museum; viz. "The morall Fabillis of Esop compylit be Maister Robert Henrisoun, scolmaister of Dumfermling, 1571." Harleian MSS. 3865, 1.

In Ramsay's Ever-Green, vol. i., whence the above distich is extracted, are preserved two other little Doric pieces by Henryson; the one entitled The Lyon and the Mouse; the other, The garment of gude Ladyis. Some other of his poems may be seen in the "Ancient Scottish Poems, printed from Bannatyne's MS." above referred to.

ROBIN sat on the gude grene hill,
Keipand a flock of fie,

Quhen mirry Makyne said him till,

"O Robin rew on me:

I haif thee luivt baith loud and still,

Thir towmonds twa or thre;

My dule in dern bot giff thou dill,
Doubtless but dreid Ill die."

Robin replied, Now by the rude,

5

Naithing of luve I knaw,

10

But keip my sheip undir yon wod:"

Lo quhair they raik on raw.

Quhat can have mart thee in thy mude,

Thou Makyne to me schaw;

Or quhat is luve, or to be lude?

Fain wald I leir that law.

15

"The law of luve gin thou wald leir,

Tak thair an A, B, C ;

Be heynd, courtas, and fair of feir,

Wyse, hardy, kind and frie,

Sae that nae danger do the deir,

Quhat dule in dern thou drie ;

Press ay to pleis, and blyth appeir,

Be patient and privie."

Robin, he answert her againe,
I wat not quhat is luve;

But I haif marvel in certaine

Quhat makes thee thus wanrufe.

The wedder is fair, and I am fain;
My sheep gais hail abuve;
And sould we pley us on the plain,
They wald us baith repruve.

20

25

30

Ver. 19, Bannatyne's MS. reads as above, heynd, not keynd, as in

the Edinb. edit. 1770.

natyne's MS.

V. 21. So that no danger. Ban