And fresh as any flowre:
Whom Harpalus the herdman prayed
To be his paramour.

Harpalus and eke Corin
Were herdmen both yfere:
And Phillida could twist and spin
And therto sing full clere.

But Phillida was all to coy
For Harpelus to winne.
For Corin was her onely joye,
Who forst her not a pynne.[82]

The relation of the early Italianizers to pastoral is rather strange.
Pastoral names, imagery and conventions are freely scattered throughout
their works, yet with the exception of the above there is scarcely a poem
to which the term pastoral can be properly applied. They borrowed from
their models a kind of pastoral diction merely, not their partiality for
the form: 'shepherd' is with them merely another word for lover or poet,
while almost any act of such may be described as 'folding his sheep' or
the like. Allegory has reduced itself to a few stock phrases. In this
fashion Surrey complains to his fair Geraldine, and a whole company of
unknown lovers celebrate the cruelty and beauty of their ladies. It is
rarely that we catch a note of fresher reminiscence or more spontaneous
song as in Wyatt's:

Ah, Robin!
Joly Robin!
Tell me how thy leman doth!