A belt of straw and ivy-buds,
    With coral clasps and amber studs;
    And if these pleasures may thee move,
    Come live with me, and be my love.

    The shepherd-swains shall dance and sing
    For thy delight each May-morning: 
    If these delights thy mind may move,
    Then live with me, and be my love.

The popularity of this poem was testified by its widespread influence on the poets of the day. England’s Helicon contains ‘the Nymphs reply,’ commonly attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh, and also a long imitation; Donne wrote a piscatory version, and Herrick paid it the sincerest form of flattery, while less distinct reminiscences are common in the poetry of the time.  Yet Kit Marlowe’s verses stand unrivalled.

The pastoral influence in Shakespeare’s verse, both lyric and dramatic, is too obvious to need more than passing notice.  Every reader will recall ‘Who is Sylvia,’ from the Two Gentlemen, and ’It was a lover and his lass,’ the song of which, in Touchstone’s opinion, ’though there was no great matter in the ditty, yet the tune was very untuneable,’ or again the famous speech of the chidden king: 

    O God! methinks it were a happy life,
    To be no better than a homely swain;
          (3 Henry VI, II. v. 21.)

and Arthur’s exclamation: 

      By my christendom
    So I were out of prison and kept sheep,
    I should be as merry as the day is long.
          (K.  John, IV. i. 16.)

One poem, bearing a certain resemblance to verses of Barnfield’s already discussed, may be quoted here.  It was originally printed in the fourth act of Love’s Labour’s Lost in 1598, reappeared in the Passionate Pilgrim in 1599, and again in England’s Helicon in 1600.

    On a day—­alack the day!—­
    Love, whose month was ever May,
    Spied a blossom passing fair
    Playing in the wanton air. 
    Through the velvet leaves the wind
    All unseen gan passage find,
    That the shepherd, sick to death,
    Wish’d himself the heaven’s breath. 
    Air, quoth he, thy cheeks may blow;
    Air, would I might triumph so! 
    But, alas, my hand hath sworn
    Ne’er to pluck thee from thy thorn;
    Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,
    Youth is apt to pluck a sweet.
    [Do not call it sin in me
    That I am forsworn for thee;]
    Thou for whom Jove would swear
    Juno but an Ethiope were,
    And deny himself for Jove,
    Turning mortal for thy love.[131]

Lastly, England’s Helicon preserves two otherwise unknown poems of Drayton’s, one probably an early work, having little to recommend it beyond the pretty though not original conceit: 

    See where little Cupid lies
    Looking babies in her eyes!

the other similar in style to the eclogue first published in the collection of c. 1606.  About contemporary possibly is the anonymous ballad ‘Phillida flouts me,’ which in command alike of rhythm and language is remarkably reminiscent of some, and that some of the best, of Drayton’s work.