The Oxe now feeles no yoke, all labour sleepes,
    The soule unbent, this as her play-time keepes,
    And sports it selfe in fancies winding streames,
    Bathing his thoughts in thousand winged dreames ... 
    Only love waking rests and sleepe despises,
    Sets later then the sunne, and sooner rises. 
    With him the day as night, the night as day,
    All care, no rest, all worke, no holy-day. 
    How different from love is lovers guise! 
    He never opes, they never shut their eyes. (III. vi.)

Ten years at least, and probably more, intervened before the next pastoral that has survived appeared on the stage.  This is a somewhat wild production, of small merit, though of some historical interest, entitled The Careless Shepherdess. It was printed many years after its original production, namely in 1656, and then purported to be written by ’T.  G. Mr. of Arts,’ who was identified with Thomas Goffe by Kirkman; nor has this ascription ever been challenged.  Goffe was resident till 1620 at Oxford, where his classical tragedies were performed, after which he held the living of East Clandon in Surrey till his death in July, 1629.  It is probably to these later years that his attempt at pastoral belongs, but the actual date of composition must rest upon conjecture.  It was, we are informed on the title-page, performed before their majesties (at Whitehall, the prologue adds), and also publicly at Salisbury Court, the playhouse in the Strand, opened in 1629.  Consequently the ‘praeludium,’ the scene of which is laid in the new theatre, must belong to the last months of the author’s life[325].  The question of the date is interesting principally on account of certain lines which bear a somewhat striking resemblance to those which stand at the opening of Jonson’s Sad Shepherd: 

    This was her wonted place, on these green banks
    She sate her down, when first I heard her play
    Unto her lisning sheep; nor can she be
    Far from the spring she’s left behinde.  That Rose
    I saw not yesterday, nor did that Pinke
    Then court my eye; She must be here, or else
    That gracefull Marygold wo’d shure have clos’d
    Its beauty in her withered leaves, and that
    Violet too wo’d hang its velvet head
    To mourn the absence of her eyes[326]. (V. vii.)

The general poetic merit of the piece is, except for these lines, slight, while the songs and lyrical passages, which are rather freely interspersed, are almost all wooden and unmusical.  Such interest as the play possesses is dependent on the plot.  We have the conventional four characters:  Arismena, the careless shepherdess, her lover Philaritus, and Castarina, whose affections lean towards the last, though she does not object to hold out some hope to her lover Lariscus.  Philaritus is the son of Cleobulus, who is described as ‘a gentleman of Arcadia,’ and opposes his son’s marriage with the daughter