WILLIAM DRUMMOND 1585-1649
'LEEP, 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 opprest;
Lo, by thy charming-rod all breathing things
Lie slumbering, with forgetfulness possest,
And yet o'er me to spread thy drowsy wings
Thou spares, 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.
H! burning thoughts, now let me take some rest,
And your tumultuous broils awhile appease;
Is't not enough, stars, fortune, love molest
Me all at once, but ye must to displease?
Let hope, though false, yet lodge within my breast;
My high attempt, though dangerous, yet praise.
What though I trace not right heaven's steepy ways?
It doth suffice my fall shall make me blest.
I do not doat on days, nor fear not death :
So that my life be brave, what though not long?
Let me renowned live from the vulgar throng,
And when ye list, Heavens! take this borrowed breath.
Men but like visions are, Time all doth claim :
He lives who dies to win a lasting name.
N vain I haunt the cold and silver springs,
To quench the fever burning in my veins;
In vain, love's pilgrim, mountains, dales, and plains,
I overrun; vain help long absence brings:
In vain, my friends, your counsel me constrains
To fly, and place my thoughts on other things.
Ah! like the bird that firèd hath her wings,
The more I move, the greater are my pains.
Desire, alas! Desire, a Zeuxis new,
From Indies borrowing gold, from western skies
Most bright cinoper, sets before mine eyes
In every place, her hair, sweet look, and hue;
That fly, run, rest I, all doth prove but vain :
My life lies in those looks which have me slain.
RUST not, sweet soul, those curled waves of gold
With gentle tides which on your temples flow,
Nor temples spread with flakes of virgin snow,
Nor snow of cheeks with Tyrian grain enrolled;
Trust not those shining lights which wrought my woe,
When first I did their burning rays behold,
Nor voice, whose sounds more strange effects do show
Than of the Thracian harper have been told.
Look to this dying lily, fading rose,
Dark hyacinth, of late whose blushing beams
Made all the neighbouring herbs and grass rejoice,
And think how little is 'twixt life's extremes :
The cruel tyrant that did kill those flowers
Shall once, ay me! not spare that spring of yours.
WILLIAM DRUMMOND 1585-1649
F crost with all mishaps be my poor life,
If one short day I never spent in mirth,
If my spright with itself holds lasting strife,
If sorrow's death is but new sorrow's birth;
If this vain world be but a sable stage
Where slave-born man plays to the scoffing stars;
If youth be tossed with love, with weakness age,
If knowledge serve to hold our thoughts in wars;
If time can close the hundred mouths of fame,
And make what long since passed like that to be;
If virtue only be an idle name;
If I when I was born was born to die;
Why seek I to prolong these loathsome days?
The fairest rose in shortest time decays.
EAR wood, and you, sweet solitary place,
Where from the vulgar I estrangèd live,
Contented more with what your shades me give
Than if I had what Thetis doth embrace;
What snaky eye, grown jealous of my pace,
Now from your silent horrors would me drive,
When Sun, progressing in his glorious race
Beyond the Twins, doth near our pole arrive?
What sweet delight a quiet life affords,
And what it is to be of bondage free,
Far from the madding worldling's hoarse discords,
Sweet flowery place I first did learn of thee:
Ah! if I were mine own, your dear resorts
I would not change with princes' stately courts.
ALEXIS, here she stayed; among these pines,
Sweet hermitress, she did alone repair;
Here did she spread the treasure of her hair,
More rich than that brought from the Colchian mines;
She sat her by these muskèd eglantines-
The happy place the print seems yet to bear;
Her voice did sweeten here thy sugared lines,
To which winds, trees, beasts, birds, did lend their ear;
Me here she first perceived, and here a morn
Of bright carnations did o'erspread her face;
Here did she sigh, here first my hopes were born,
And I first got a pledge of promised grace;
But ah! what served it to be happy so
Sith passèd pleasures double but new woe?
WEET soul, which in the April of thy years
So to enrich the heaven mad'st poor this round,
And now with golden rays of glory crowned
Most blest abid'st above the sphere of spheres ;
If heavenly laws, alas! have not thee bound
From looking to this globe that all upbears,
If ruth and pity there above be found,
O deign to lend a look unto those tears.
Do not disdain, dear ghost, this sacrifice;
And though I raise not pillars to thy praise,
Mine offerings take; let this for me suffice:
My heart a living pyramid I raise;
And whilst kings' tombs with laurels flourish green,
Thine shall with myrtles and these flowers be seen.
MY lute, be as thou wast when thou didst grow
With thy green mother in some shady grove,
When immelodious winds but made thee move,
And birds on thee their ramage did bestow.
Sith that dear voice which did thy sounds approve,
Which used in such harmonious strains to flow,
Is reft from earth to tune those spheres above,
What art thou but a harbinger of woe?
Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more,
But orphan wailings to the fainting ear;
Each stop a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear;
Be therefore silent as in woods before:
Or if that any hand to touch thee deign,
Like widowed turtle still her loss complain.
WEET Spring, thou turn'st with all thy goodly train,
Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright with flowers;
The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain,
The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their showers :
Thou turn'st, sweet youth; but ah! my pleasant hours
And happy days with thee come not again :
The sad memorials only of my pain
Do with thee turn, which turn my sweets in sours.
Thou art the same which still thou wast before,
Delicious, wanton, amiable, fair;
But she, whose breath embalmed thy wholesome air,
Is gone; nor gold, nor gems her can restore.
Neglected Virtue! seasons go and come,
While thine, forgot, lie closed in a tomb.
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