A pastoral lifestyle (see pastoralism) is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music that depicts such life in an idealized manner, typically for urban audiences. A pastoral is a work of this genre, also known as bucolic, from the Greek βουκολικόν, from βουκόλος, meaning a cowherd.
No silver saints, by dying misers giv'n, Here brib'd the rage of ill-requited heav'n; But such plain roofs as Piety could raise, And only vocal with the Maker's praise.
God never had a church but there, men say, The devil a chapel hath raised by some wiles, I doubted of this saw, till on a day I westward spied great Edinburgh's Saint Giles.
William Drummond of Hawthornden, Posthumous Poems, A Proverb.
