Then stay, Alcyon, gentle shepheard! stay,"
Quoth I, "till thou have to my trustie eare
Committed what thee dooth so ill apay*." 70
[* _Ill apay _, discontent, distress.]
"Cease, foolish man!" saide he halfe wrothfully,
"To seeke to heare that which cannot be told;
For the huge anguish, which doeth multiply
My dying paines, no tongue can well unfold;
Ne doo I care that any should bemone 75
My hard mishap, or any weepe that would,
But seeke alone to weepe, and dye alone."
"Then be it so," quoth I, "that thou are bent
To die alone, unpitied, unplained;
Yet, ere thou die, it were convenient 80
To tell the cause which thee thereto constrained,
Least that the world thee dead accuse of guilt,
And say, when thou of none shall be maintained,
That thou for secret crime thy blood hast spilt."
"Who life does loath, and longs to be unbound 85
From the strong shackles of fraile flesh," quoth he,
"Nought cares at all what they that live on ground
Deem the occasion of his death to bee;
Rather desires to be forgotten quight,
Than question made of his calamitie; 90
For harts deep sorrow hates both life and light.
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