My Flocks Feed Not. 
By Barnefield, Richard. 


My flocks feed not,
My ewes breed not,
My rams speed not,
All is amiss.
Love is dying,
Faith's defying,
Heart's denying,
Causer of this.

All our merry jigs are quite forgot,
All my lady's love is lost, God wot;
Where our faith was firmly fixed in love,
There annoy is placed without remove.

One silly cross
Wrought all my loss,
O frowning Fortune, cursed fickle dame!
For now I see
Inconstancy
More in women than in men remain.

In black mourn I,
All fear scorn I,
Love hath forlorn me,
Living in thrall.
Heart is bleeding,
All help needing,
O cruel speeding,
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 played
Plays not at all, but seems afraid.

My sighs so deep,
Procures to weep
With howling noise to see my doleful plight.
How sighs resound
Through harkless ground,
Like a thousand vanished men in bloody fight.

Clear wells spring not,
Sweet birds sing not,
Loud bells ring not
Cheerfully.
Herds stand weeping,
Flocks all sleeping,
Nymphs back creeping
Fearfully.

All our pleasures known to us poor swains,
All our merry meetings on the plains,
All our evening sports from us is fled,
All our loves are lost, for Love is dead.

Farewell sweet lass,
Thy like ne'er was
For a sweet content, the cause of all my woe.
Poor Corydon
Must live alone,
Other help for him I know there's none!