The Poets Flocks. 251 



And when they meet they have but a slender stock of 

 intelligence to exchange, as in Herrick — 



" But say, what news 

 Stirs in our sheep-walk ? 

 None. Save that my ewes. 

 Wethers, and lamb?, and wanton kids are well, 

 Smooth, fair, and fat." 



Yet Faber would seem to be envious of such company — 



" That in mute company with the creatures. 

 And gazing in their patient features, 

 I might receive some sweet sense 

 Of our original innocence." 



There are, however, two varieties of the shepherd. The 

 first is the strictly poetical shepherd, " with his artless reed." 

 This is Mallet's " rural king amid his subject flocks," who 

 (Dyer) flutes to "charm his sheep" and (Otway) " pipeth to 

 his feeding sheep." Jean Ingelow has, in '• Gladys' Island," 



" A grassy down. 

 Where sheep and lambs were feeding, with a boy 

 To tend them. 'Twas the boy who wears that herb 

 Called heartsease in his bosom, and he sang 

 So sweetly to his flock, that she stole on 

 Nearer to listen," 



The other is the ordinary rustic, who lies about on the 

 grass, and, when he is awake, gazes at his sheep and the 

 landscape generally, and who has a dog to do all his work 

 for him. A pleasing sub-variety, however, is " the blooming 

 maid," who sometimes drives her flocks afield. Their 

 queen is surely Lovelace's Chloris — that 



" Chloris, the gentlest shepherdess 

 That ever lambs or lawns did bless." 



Country folk take omen and augury from so many beasts, 

 birds, and plants, that it would be strange if sheep were 

 exempt from prophetic functions, and not invested with 

 prognostic powers. 



