Summons to Love

       PHOEBUS, arise!

And paint the sable skies

With azure, white, and red:

Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bed

That she thy cáreer may with roses spread;

The nightingales thy coming each-where sing:

Make an eternal spring,

Give life to this dark world which lieth dead;

Spread forth thy golden hair

In larger locks than thou wast wont before,

And emperor-like decore

With diadem of pearl thy temples fair:

Chase hence the ugly night

Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light.

--This is that happy morn,

That day, long-wishèd day

Of all my life so dark,

(If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn

And fates my hopes betray),

An everlasting diamond should it mark.

This is the morn should bring unto this grove

My Love, to hear and recompense my love.

Fair King, who all preserves,

But show thy blushing beams,

And thou two sweeter eyes

Shalt see than those which by Peneüs' streams

Did once thy heart surprise.

Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise:

If that ye, winds, would hear

A voice surpassing far Amphion's lyre,

Your furious chiding stay;

Let Zephyr only breathe,

And with her tresses play.

--The winds all silent are,

And Phoebus in his chair

Ensaffroning sea and air

Makes vanish every star:

Night like a drunkard reels

Beyond the hills, to shun his flaming wheels:

The fields with flowers are deck'd in every hue,

The clouds with orient gold spangle their blue;

Here is the pleasant place--

And nothing wanting is, save She, alas!

William Drummond of Hawthronden

Sleep, Silence' Child, Sweet Father of Soft Rest

SLEEP, Silence' child, sweet father of soft rest,

Prince, whose approach peace to all mortals brings,

Indifferent host to shepherds and to kings,

Sole comforter of minds with grief oppressed;

Lo, by thy charming rod all breathing things

Lie slumb'ring, with forgetfulness possessed,

And yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy wings

Thou spar'st, alas! who cannot be thy guest.

Since I am thine, O come, but with that face

To inward light which thou art wont to show,

With feigned solace ease a true-felt woe;

Or if, deaf god, thou do deny that grace,

Come as thou wilt, and what thou wilt bequeath,

I long to kiss the image of my death.

William Drummond of Hawthornden

Thrice Happy He, Who By Some Shady Grove

THRICE happy he, who by some shady grove,

Far from the clamorous world, doth live his own;

Though solitary, who is not alone,

But doth converse with that eternal love.

O how more sweet is birds' harmonious moan,

Or the hoarse sobbings of the widowed dove,

Than those smooth whisperings near a prince's throne,

Which make good doubtful, do the evil approve!

O how more sweet is zephyr's wholesome breath,

And sighs embalmed, which new-born flow'rs unfold,

Than that applause vain honour doth bequeath!

How sweet are streams to poison drunk in gold!

The world is full of horrors, troubles, slights;

Woods' harmless shades have only true delights.

William Drummond of Hawthornden

I Know That All Beneath The Moon Decays

I KNOW that all beneath the moon decays,

And what by mortals in this world is brought,

In Time's great periods shall return to nought;

That fairest states have fatal nights and days;

I know how all the Muse's heavenly lays,

With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought,

As idle sounds, of none or few are sought,

And that nought lighter is than airy praise;

I know frail beauty like the purple flower,

To which one morn oft birth and death affords;

That love a jarring is of minds' accords,

Where sense and will invassal* reason's power:          *to make a slave of

Know what I list, this all cannot me move,

But that, O me! I both must write and love.

William Drummond of Hawthornden

Madrigal: "This Life Which Seems So Fair"

THIS life, which seems so fair,

Is like a bubble blown up in the air

By sporting children's breath,

Who chase it everywhere,

And strive who can most motion it bequeath:

And though it sometime seem of its own might,

Like to an eye of gold, to be fixed there,

And firm to hover in that empty height,

That only is because it is so light.

But in that pomp it doth not long appear;

For even when most admired, it in a thought,

As swelled from nothing, doth dissolve in nought.

William Drummond of Hawthornden

Look How The Flower

LOOK how the flower which lingeringly doth fade,

The morning's darling late, the summer's queen,

Spoiled of that juice which kept it fresh and green,

As high as it did raise, bows low the head;

Right so my life, contentments being dead,

Or in their contraries but only seen,

With swifter speed declines than erst it spread,

And, blasted, scarce now shows what it hath been.

As doth the pilgrim, therefore, whom the night

By darkness would imprison on his way,

Think on thy home, my soul, and think aright

Of what yet rests thee of life's wasting day.

Thy sun posts westward, passed is thy morn,

And twice it is not given thee to be born.

William Drummond of Hawthornden

For the Baptist

THE last and greatest herald of heaven's king,

Girt with rough skins, hies to the deserts wild,

Among that savage brood the woods forth bring,

Which he than man more harmless found and mild;

His food was locusts and what young doth spring,

With honey that from virgin hives distill'd;

Parch'd body, hollow eyes, some uncouth thing

Made him appear, long since from earth exil'd.

There burst he forth: "All ye whose hopes rely

On God, with me amidst these deserts mourn,

Repent, repent, and from old errors turn."

Who listen'd to his voice? obey'd his cry?

Only the echoes which he made relent,

Rung from their marble caves, "Repent, repent."

William Drummond of Hawthornden