Colin Clout's mournful Ditty for the death of Astrophel

Shepherds that wont on pipes of oaten reed
Ofttimes to plain your love's concealed smart,
And with your piteous lays have learnt to breed
Compassion in a country lass's heart:
Hearken, ye gentle shepherds, to my song,
And place my doleful plaint your plaints among.

To you alone I sing this mournful verse.
The mournfull'st verse that ever man heard tell;
To you whose soften 'd hearts it may impierce
With dolour's dart for death of Astrophel:
To you I sing, and to none other wight.
For, well I wot, my rhymes been rudely dight.

Yet as they been, if any nicer wit
Shall hap to hear or covet them to read,
Think he that such are for such ones most fit.
Made not to please the living but the dead:
And if in him found pity ever place,
Let him be moved to pity such a case.