To The Reader Of These Sonnets

"DORILVS in sorrowes deepe,         Autumne waxing olde and chill,         As he sate his Flocks to keepe         Vnderneath an easie hill:"

"You best discern'd of my interior eies,     And yet your graces outwardly diuine,     Whose deare remembrance in my bosome lies,     Too riche"

"Such was old Orpheus cunning,     That sencelesse things drew neere him,     And heards of beasts to heare him,     The stock, the stone, the O"

"To such as say thy love I overprize,     And do not stick to term my praises folly,     Against these folks that think themselves so wise,"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"