And I of shepheards such a lustie crew As neuer Forrester the like yet knew, Who for their persons and their neate aray Shal be as fresh as is the moneth of May.

580 At last they chaunst to meete upon the way The Mule, all deckt in goodly rich aray, With bells and bosses that full lowdly rung, And costly trappings that to ground downe hung.

Now is my Love all ready forth to come: 110 Let all the virgins therefore well awayt, And ye fresh boyes, that tend upon her groome, Prepare your selves, for he is comming strayt. Set all your things in seemely good aray, Fit for so ioyfull day, 115 The ioyfulst day that ever sunne did see.

[** Moyle, defile.] Beginne from first, where he encradled was 225 In simple cratch*, wrapt in a wad of hay, Betweene the toylfull oxe and humble asse, And in what rags, and in how base aray, The glory of our heavenly riches lay, When him the silly shepheards came to see, 230 Whom greatest princes sought on lowest knee.

If we read aloud correctly such lines as these, we can scarcely fail to be impressed with their harmonious flow: "A teme of Dolphins raunged in aray Drew the smooth charett of sad Cymoent: They were all taught by Triton to obay To the long raynes at her commaundement: As swifte as swallowes on the waves they went.

For thei seyn, that in gode love scholde be no coverynge, that man scholde not love for the faire clothinge, ne for the riche aray, but only for the body, suche as God hathe made it, and for the gode vertues that the body is endowed with of nature; but only for fair clothinge, that is not of kyndely nature.

Vpon the right hand all the length of the court was a gallerie arched ouer, and borne vp with stone pillars, much like the Roiall Exchange, where stood most of his guard in rankes from the one end to the other in costly aray, with round head pieces on their heads of mettall and gilt ouer, with a great plume of fethers somewhat like a long brush standing vp before.

Hats moulded into different Cocks and Pinches, have long bid mutual Defiance; Patches have been set against Patches in Battel-aray; Stocks have risen or fallen in Proportion to Head-Dresses; and Peace or War been expected, as the White or the Red Hood hath prevailed.

Spenser duly celebrates, in his "Shepheard's Calender," Thilke mery moneth of May When love-lads masken in fresh aray, when "all is yclad with pleasaunce, the ground with grasse, the woods with greene leaves, and the bushes with bloosming buds.