CXVI

'N vain I haunt the cold and silver springs,

IN

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.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND

1585-1649

TRUS

CXVII

RUST not, sweet soul, those curlèd 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.

CXVIII

WILLIAM DRUMMOND 1585-1649

IF

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.

DEAR

CXIX

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.

CXX

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 set 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 passed pleasures double but new woe?

WILLIAM DRUMMOND

1585-1649

X

CXXI

WEET soul, which in the April of thy years

SWEE

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.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND 1585-1649

CXXII

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.

SWEE

CXXIII

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.

CXXIV

HUMAN FRAILTY.

A GOOD that never satisfies the mind,

A beauty fading like the April flowers,

A sweet with floods of gall that runs combined,
A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours,
A honour that more fickle is than wind,
A glory at opinion's frown that lowers,
A treasury which bankrupt time devours,
A knowledge than grave ignorance more blind,
A vain delight our equals to command,
A style of greatness, in effect a dream,
A fabulous thought of holding sea and land,
A servile lot, decked with a pompous name:
Are the strange ends we toil for here below,
Till wisest death make us our errors know.

CXXV

NO TRUST IN TIME.

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, passèd is thy morn,
And twice it is not given thee to be born.