Quiet enclose her bed, thought fly her breast. 
Ah, gracious queen! though summer pine away,
Yet let thy flourishing stand at a stay. 
First droop this universal’s aged frame,
Ere any malady thy strength should tame. 
Heaven raise up pillars to uphold thy hand,
Peace may have still his temple in thy land. 
Lo!  I have said; this is the total sum. 
Autumn and Winter, on your faithfulness
For the performance I do firmly build. 
Farewell, my friends:  Summer bids you farewell! 
Archers and bowlers, all my followers,
Adieu, and dwell with desolation: 
Silence must be your master’s mansion. 
Slow marching, thus descend I to the fiends. 
Weep, heavens!—­mourn, earth! here Summer ends.

    [Here the Satyrs and wood-nymphs carry
    him out, singing as he came in.

The Song.

Autumn hath all the summer’s fruitful treasure;
Gone is our sport, fled is poor Croydon’s pleasure! 
Short days, sharp days, long nights come on apace: 
Ah! who shall hide us from the winter’s face? 
Cold doth increase, the sickness will not cease,
And here we lie, God knows, with little ease. 
  From winter, plague, and pestilence, good Lord, deliver us!

London doth mourn, Lambeth is quite forlorn;
Trades cry, woe worth that ever they were born! 
The want of term is town and city’s harm.[144]
Close chambers we do want to keep us warm. 
Long banished must we live from our friends: 
This low-built house will bring us to our ends. 
  From winter, plague, and pestilence, good Lord, deliver us_!

WILL SUM.  How is’t, how is’t? you that be of the graver sort, do you think these youths worthy of a plaudite for praying for the queen, and singing the litany?  They are poor fellows, I must needs say, and have bestowed great labour in sewing leaves, and grass, and straw, and moss upon cast suits.  You may do well to warm your hands with clapping before you go to bed, and send them to the tavern with merry hearts.

    Enter a little BOY with an Epilogue.

Here is a pretty boy comes with an Epilogue to get him audacity.  I pray you, sit still a little and hear him say his lesson without book.  It is a good boy:  be not afraid:  turn thy face to my lord.  Thou and I will play at pouch to-morrow morning for breakfast.  Come and sit on my knee, and I’ll dance thee, if thou canst not endure to stand.

THE EPILOGUE.

Ulysses, a dwarf, and the prolocutor for the Grecians, gave me leave, that am a pigmy, to do an embassage to you from the cranes.  Gentlemen (for kings are no better), certain humble animals, called our actors, commend them unto you; who, what offence they have committed I know not (except it be in purloining some hours out of Time’s treasury, that might have been better employed) but by me (the agent of