rough the grass a rivulet
From the hill was flowing,
Lively, with a pleasant sound
Garrulously going.

That the girls might suffer less
From the noon resplendent,
Near the stream a spreading pine
Rose with stem ascendant;
Crowned with boughs and leaves aloft,
O'er the fields impendent;
From all heat on every hand
Airily defendent.

On the sward the maidens sat,
Naught that seat surpasses;
Phyllis near the rivulet,
Flora 'mid the grasses;
Each into the chamber sweet
Of her own soul passes,
Love divides their thoughts, and wounds
With his shafts the lasses.

Love within the breast of each,
Hidden, unsuspected,
Lurks and draws forth sighs of grief
From their hearts dejected:
Soon their ruddy cheeks grow pale,
Conscious, love-affected;
Yet their passion tells no tale,
By soft shame protected.

Phyllis now doth overhear
Flora softly sighing:
Flora with like luck detects
Sigh to sigh replying.
Thus the girls exchange the game,
Each with other vying;
Till the truth leaps out at length,
Plain beyond denying.

Long this interchange did last
Of mute conversation;
All of love-sighs fond and fast
Was that dissertation.
Love was in their minds, and Love
Made their lips his station;
Phyllis then, while Flora smiled,
Opened her oration.

"Soldier brave, my love!" she said,
"Where is now my Paris?
Fights he in the field, or where
In the wide word tarries?
Oh, the soldier's life, I swear,
All life's glory carries;
Only valour clothed in arms
With Dame Venus marries!"

Phyllis thus opens the question whether a soldier or a scholar be the
fitter for love. Flora responds, and for some time they conduct the
dispute in true scholastic fashion. Being unable to settle it between
themselves, they resolve to seek out Love himself, and to refer the
matter to his judgment. One girl mounts a mule, the other a horse; and
these are no ordinary animals, for Neptune reared one beast as a
present to Venus, Vulcan forged the metal-work of bit and saddle,
Minerva embroidered the trappings, and so forth. After a short journey
they reach the Garden of Love, which is described with a truly
luxuriant wealth of imagery. It resembles some of the earlier
Renaissance pictures, esp