William Drummond, of Hawthornden

1585-1649

232   Invocation

     PHÆBUS, arise!
     And paint the sable skies
With azure, white, and red;
Rouse Memnon’s mother from her Tithon’s bed,
That she thy càareer 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 wishàed day
Of all my life so dark
(If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn
And fates not hope betray),
Which, only white, deserves
A diamond for ever should it mark:
This is the morn should bring into 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 Penàeus’ streams
Did once thy heart surprise:
Nay, suns, which shine as clear
As thou when two thou did to Rome appear.
Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise:
If that ye, winds, would hear
A voice surpassing far Amphion’s lyre,
Your stormy chiding stay;
Let zephyr only breathe
And with her tresses play,
Kissing sometimes these purple ports of death.
The winds all silent are;
And Phœbus 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 bespangle with bright gold their blue:
Here is the pleasant place—
And everything, save Her, who all should grace.

233   Madrigal

       LIKE the Idalian queen,
       Her hair about her eyne,
With neck and breast’s ripe apples to be seen,
     At first glance of the morn
In Cyprus’ gardens gathering those fair flow’rs
     Which of her blood were born,
I saw, but fainting saw, my paramours.¹
The Graces naked danced about the place,
     The winds and trees amazed
     With silence on her gazed,
The flowers did smile, like those upon her face;
And as their aspen stalks those fingers band,²
     That she might read my case,
A hyacinth I wish’d me in her hand.

234   Spring Bereaved1

     THAT zephyr every year
     So soon was heard to sigh in forests here,
It was for her: that wrapp’d in gowns of green
     Meads were so early seen,
That in the saddest months oft sung the merles,
It was for her; for her trees dropp’d forth pearls.
     That proud and stately courts
Did envy those our shades and calm resorts,
It was for her; and she is gone, O woe!
     Woods cut again do grow,
Bud doth the rose and daisy, winter done;
But we, once dead, no more do see the sun.

235   Spring Bereaved2

SWEET Spring, thou turn’st with all thy goodly train,
Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright with flow’rs.
The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain,
The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their show’rs.
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 embalm’d thy wholesome air,
Is gone—nor gold nor gems her can restore.
   Neglected virtue, seasons go and come,
   While thine forgot lie closàed in a tomb.

236   Spring Bereaved3

ALEXIS, here she stay’d; 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 muskàed eglantines,
—The happy place the print seems yet to bear:
Her voice did sweeten here thy sugar’d 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