WUSeS -IJBRflRY 
 
 
THE POEMS 
 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM DRUMMOND 
 
 VOL. I 
 
THE POEMS OF 
 
 WILLIAM DRUMMOND 
 
 OF HAWTHORNDEN 
 
 EDITED WITH A MEMOIR 
 
 AND NOTES BY 
 WM. C. WARD 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 LONDON 
 
 LAWRENCE AND SULLEN 
 
 16 HENRIETTA ST., W.C. 
 
 1894 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 CHAS. SCRIBNER S SONS 
 
 743 & 745 BROADWAY 
 1894 
 
V.I 
 
 Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. 
 At the Ballantyne Press 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OF THE FIRST VOLUME 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE . i x 
 
 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR .... xiii 
 TEARS ON THE DEATH OF MCELIADES. . i 
 POEMS THE FIRST PART . . . .17 
 POEMS THE SECOND PART . . . . 101 
 URANIA, OR SPIRITUAL POEMS . . .135 
 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS . . . .147 
 
 FORTH FEASTING 185 
 
 NOTES 203 
 
 vii 
 
 106145 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IN preparing the Notes to this edition of the 
 Poems of William Drummond of Hawthornden, 
 I have kept two objects especially in view : to 
 trace the particulars of Drummond s indebted 
 ness to other poets, and to illustrate the philo 
 sophical side of his character as it is exhibited 
 in his writings. It has been generally allowed 
 that Drummond was strongly influenced by the 
 Italian poets, of whom Petrarch and Guarini 
 have been named as his models beyond the 
 rest. Nevertheless, very few instances have 
 hitherto been adduced in which he has directly 
 borrowed from either of these masters. The 
 course of my reading, however, has not only 
 confirmed the general opinion, but has proved 
 that the extent of his indebtedness to the 
 Italians is very considerable indeed. It is not 
 improbable that further instances of this in- 
 
 ix 
 
x PREFACE 
 
 debtedness may yet be discovered ; meanwhile, 
 the Notes to the present edition contain above 
 fifty poems or fragments of poems by Italian 
 v authors, which Drummond has imitated or 
 paraphrased. Without undervaluing his obli 
 gations to Petrarch and Guarini, the reader 
 will observe that he has borrowed more largely 
 from Marino than from any other poet. 
 
 The influence of Sidney upon Drummond s 
 *" writings has been scarcely noticed by former 
 editors : it is very marked, nevertheless, and I 
 have pointed out various passages in his poems 
 in which it is unmistakable. And, lastly, our 
 author s Platonism, which I venture to regard 
 as an important feature in his character, is 
 illustrated at some length in the Notes, and in 
 the Introductory Memoir. 
 
 For the text of the present edition, I have 
 chiefly relied upon the Poems of 1616, the 
 second (enlarged) edition of Flowers of Sion, 
 1630, and the magnificent edition of Drum 
 mond s complete Poems, privately printed for 
 the Maitland Club in 1832. Other editions 
 have been consulted and frequently collated ; 
 especially, Edward Phillips s edition of 1656, 
 the Edinburgh Folio of 1711, and Mr. Laing s 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 Extracts from the Hawthornden MSS. in Ar- 
 chceologia Scotica, vol. iv. 
 
 The principal recent authority for the Life of 
 Drummond is Professor Masson s exhaustive 
 work Drummond of Hawthornden : the Story 
 of his Life and Writings : London, Macmillan 
 & Co., 1873. A few particulars which Pro 
 fessor Masson has omitted, and one or two 
 which have come to light since the publication 
 of his book, will be found in the Introductory 
 Memoir. Further authorities are cited in the 
 footnotes. 
 
 No really satisfactory portrait of Drummond 
 exists. The portrait engraved by Gaywood, for 
 the first edition of Drummond s History of Scot 
 land (London, 1655), is the most credible of 
 those that I have seen, and has been repro 
 duced as a frontispiece to the present volume. 
 
 WM. C. WARD. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 " THE sweetest names, and which carry a 
 perfume in the mention, are, Kit Marlowe, 
 Drayton, Drummond of Hawthornden, and 
 Cowley." Thus wrote one of the sweetest of 
 English essayists, not altogether fantastically, 
 as himself suggested, but induced by that fine 
 relish for the more recondite beauties of literary 
 art which left upon his own writings so de 
 lightful an impress. Of the four poets whom 
 Charles Lamb thus classes together, none but 
 Kit Marlowe stands higher than Drummond 
 of Hawthornden. Drayton is sweet indeed, 
 but over long-winded, and apt at times to lose 
 the poet in the chronicler : Cowley, the meta 
 physical Cowley, is subtle and fanciful, but too 
 often harsh or merely ingenious. But Drum 
 mond is sweeter than Drayton, and more pro 
 foundly metaphysical than Cowley, without the 
 harshness of the one, or the tediousness of the 
 other. Gifted by nature with exquisite taste, 
 imagination, and a contemplative disposition, 
 he assiduously improved his genius by the study 
 
 VOL. I. xv b 
 
xvi INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 of the best models ; learning the art of verse 
 from Petrarch and Philip Sidney ; drinking 
 deep draughts of philosophy, wherein perhaps 
 no other English poet of his time was equally 
 versed, from its fountain-head, the divine Plato. 
 Drummond s poetry has in full measure that 
 " element of sensuous beauty " which William 
 Morris affirms to be the essence of art* In 
 his sonnets he runs Sidney hard, if he do not 
 at times outstrip him. These, however, with 
 some of the madrigals, are the most perfect of 
 his poems, and it is even questionable if there 
 be any more beautiful sonnets in the English 
 language than the best of Drummond s. 
 
 I. 
 
 William Drummond of Hawthornden was 
 born of an ancient and distinguished Scottish 
 family. The founder of the house was one 
 Maurice, a Hungarian, who fled to Scotland 
 with Edgar Atheling, shortly after the Norman 
 conquest, and took service with the Scottish 
 king, Malcolm. His descendants gradually 
 spread into many branches Drummonds of 
 Stobhall, of Concraig, of Cargill, of Carnock, 
 
 * Preface to Ruskin s Nature of Gothic : Kelmscott 
 Press, 1892. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xvii 
 
 and the rest ; finally, Drummonds of Haw- 
 thornden. But about the middle of the four 
 teenth century the chief representative of the 
 family was Sir John Drummond of Stobhall, 
 who had four sons and four daughters. The 
 eldest daughter, Annabella, married Robert 
 Stuart, afterwards King of Scotland by the 
 title of Robert III., the second monarch of 
 the Stuart line. By him she became the mother 
 of the poet-king, James I., and thereby ances 
 tress of the royal house of Stuart. From Sir 
 Malcolm Drummond, the eldest son of Sir 
 John, were descended in a direct line the Lords 
 Drummond of Stobhall and the Earls of Perth, 
 the heads of the house of Drummond. The 
 third son of Sir John of Stobhall was Sir 
 William Drummond, who acquired the lands 
 of Carnock in Fifeshire by his marriage with 
 Elizabeth Airth, and founded the branch known 
 as Drummonds of Carnock. From this Sir 
 William the fourth in descent was Sir Robert 
 Drummond of Carnock, who had several sons. 
 The eldest, Patrick, succeeded in due course 
 to his father s title and estate ; the second be 
 came Sir John Drummond of Hawthornden, 
 the father of our poet* 
 
 * Douglas s Peerage of Scotland, and the Genealogy 
 of the House of Drummond, by William Drummond, 
 Viscount Strathallan : Edinburgh, 1831. 
 
xviii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 Concerning John Drummond of Hawthorn- 
 den little has been recorded. What manner of 
 man he was may be partly conjectured from his 
 portrait at Hawthornden, which presents him, 
 to quote Professor Masson s description, " as he 
 must have been in the first days of his gentle- 
 man-ushership to James VI. the face light- 
 complexioned, and very manly and handsome, 
 with the light hair tinged to red round the 
 mouth, and a most winning expression of sweet 
 temper."* He was born in 1553; married 
 Susanna Fowler ; and was appointed, not later 
 than 1 587, gentleman-usher to the King.t About 
 1590 his wife s brother, William Fowler, ob 
 tained the post of private secretary to Queen 
 Anne. William Fowler, it is interesting to note, 
 was a man of literary tastes, much addicted to 
 the making of anagrams, but a producer also of 
 sonnets and other miscellaneous verse, includ 
 ing some translations from Petrarch, which re 
 main unpublished. He was the author of one 
 of the commendatory sonnets prefixed to King 
 James s Essay es of a Prentise in the divine 
 Art of Poesie, published at Edinburgh in 1585. 
 Many of Fowler s papers were preserved by his 
 
 * Drummond of Hawthornden: London, 1873 : p. 453. 
 
 f He was certainly usher to the King in July 1587. 
 See Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, ed. Masson, 
 vol. iv. p. 199. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xix 
 
 nephew the poet, and are still extant among 
 the Hawthornden MSS. in possession of the 
 Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.* 
 
 By his acquisition of the Hawthornden estate, 
 some seven miles south-east of Edinburgh, 
 John Drummond became a laird, or landed 
 proprietor. There, in the old house of Haw 
 thornden, overlooking the romantic glen of the 
 North Esk, was born, on the I3th of December 
 1585, his eldest son, William. Three more 
 sons James, Alexander,t and John ; and three 
 daughters Anna, Jane, and Rebecca, followed. 
 
 * Two volumes of manuscript poetry by Fowler, in 
 cluding a translation of Petrarch s Triumphs, are in the 
 Edinburgh University Library, to which they were pre 
 sented by the poet Drummond in 1627. 
 
 f Mention is made of the poet s brother Alexander 
 in the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, ed. 
 Masson, vol. ix. p. 215. On the gth of July 1611, 
 Alexander Drummond and certain other gentlemen were 
 committed to prison by the Lords of the Council for 
 making "a verie grite trouble and commotioun " in the 
 High Street of Edinburgh, even to the pursuing one 
 another with drawn swords for their lives ! The disturb 
 ance originated in a feud between the Livingstons and 
 the Cockburns, Alexander Drummond taking part with 
 the former, of whose house the Earl of Linlithgow was 
 the head. A little later the chiefs of the two parties 
 and their friends, amongst whom Alexander Drummond 
 is again mentioned, appeared before the Council to 
 make a formal renunciation of their quarrel, having 
 choppit handis and imbraceit ane another " (Ibid. 
 p. 240). 
 
xx INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 The second son, James, alcne of the family, 
 survived the poet. Anna married a Mr. John 
 Scot, whom we shall know hereafter as Sir John 
 Scot of Scotstarvet ; Rebecca married a Mr. 
 William Douglas of Bonjedwart. 
 
 William Drummond received his education at 
 the Edinburgh High School, and subsequently 
 at the new University of Edinburgh, where he 
 took the degree of M.A., July 27, 1605. One 
 of his teachers at the university, the Professor 
 of Humanity, Mr. John Ray, was long after 
 wards commemorated by him in a sonnet 
 overflowing with grateful enthusiasm. " Bright 
 Ray of learning ! " he terms his old master, in 
 the punning fashion of the time. And Drum 
 mond was doubtless an apt pupil. Throughout 
 his life the love of books and study was strong 
 within him, and, as his earliest biographer 
 notes, "his greatest familiarity and conversa 
 tion was with the university men and men of 
 learning." * 
 
 But while Drummond was still pursuing his 
 studies at the university, all Scotland had been 
 agitated by a great political change. In 1603, 
 by the death of Queen Elizabeth, the King of 
 Scots had become also King of England, and 
 the Court had been in consequence removed 
 
 * Memoir by Bishop Sage, prefixed to the folio edi 
 tion of Drummond s Works: Edinburgh, 1711: p. vii. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxi 
 
 to London. With the Court went Drummond s 
 father and his uncle Fowler. John Drummond 
 was knighted at Whitehall on the 23rd of July 
 1603,* and probably passed much of the re 
 mainder of his life in attendance upon the King. 
 At all events, we find him with the Court at 
 Greenwich some three years later, when his 
 son William paid his first visit to London.t 
 The young man had completed his studies at 
 the university, and it had been decided that he 
 should enter the legal profession ; though one 
 may doubt whether Drummond himself re 
 garded that decision with unqualified approval. 
 Moreover, Edinburgh not affording at that time 
 sufficient advantages for the training of a lawyer, 
 it was settled that he should go to France to 
 study his profession. This scheme he accord 
 ingly carried out, though in somewhat leisurely 
 fashion ; proceeding by way of England, and 
 spending the summer of 1606 in London and 
 its vicinity on his way to the Continent 
 
 The period of his stay in London must 
 indeed have passed all too quickly. In this 
 new experience of life there would be much 
 to gratify the taste and captivate the fancy 
 
 * Nichols s Progresses of King James the First, vol. i. 
 p. 208. 
 
 f Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. vii. 
 p. 490. 
 
xxil INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 of a romantic young student, fresh from the 
 schools. Drummond had an artist s love of 
 pageantry and splendid spectacles, and he 
 could now indulge this liking to his heart s 
 content. His connections gave him the free 
 dom of the Court, and he would probably find 
 little difficulty in procuring some glimpses at 
 least of the literary circles of the metropolis. 
 Six letters written by him at this period to a 
 noble friend in Scotland have been published. ~ :: ~ 
 They contain a lively description of the revels 
 and festivities prepared to celebrate the visit 
 of the Queen s brother, King Christian of Den 
 mark. Some of the passages read almost like 
 pages from Amadis of Gaul. There is "the 
 challenge of the Errant Knights, proclaimed 
 with sound of trumpet before the palace gate 
 of Greenwich." The challengers offered to 
 maintain " by all the allowed ways of knightly 
 arguing," viz., by lance and sword, four " in 
 disputable propositions " in praise of Love and 
 Beauty. The tourney was to take place in the 
 valley of Mirefleur romantic for Greenwich 
 Park. One of the challengers, as Drummond 
 
 * Drummond s Works, folio, 1711 : pp. 231-233. 
 These six letters were written from Greenwich, where 
 the Court was. Drummond was doubtless staying with 
 his father, the King s gentleman-usher. The first letter 
 is dated June i, the last August 12, 1606. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxiii 
 
 would doubtless remark with interest, was Sir 
 Philip Sidney s nephew, William Herbert, Earl 
 of Pembroke, a man only less generally be 
 loved and admired than his glorious uncle. 
 A quarter of a century earlier Sidney himself 
 had taken part in a similar display, in the 
 presence of the Maiden Queen. It is not in 
 excusable, perhaps, to note even so trifling a 
 circumstance as this, which connects in some 
 way the names of Sidney and Drummond ; for 
 the resemblance between the two men was con 
 siderable. The same high-minded, chivalrous 
 disposition prevailed in both, although Sidney s 
 character had a practical side which was want 
 ing to the contemplative Drummond. This, 
 too, is certain : that Sidney s influence is more 
 strongly and unmistakably apparent in the 
 writings of Drummond than that of any other 
 English poet. But to return to our pageant. 
 
 Besides the tourney, the royal visitor was to 
 be regaled with "the marvellous adventures 
 of the Lucent Pillar," which were at length to 
 be revealed to the wonder of men, as Merlin 
 had prophesied of old. Possibly the period of 
 Merlin s prediction had not been correctly com 
 puted ; at all events, we hear nothing more 
 from Drummond of the Lucent Pillar. But 
 when the Danish King arrived, about the middle 
 of July, there were abundant splendours for his 
 
xxiv INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 delectation : " nothing to be heard at Court but 
 sounding of trumpets, hautboys, music, revel- 
 lings, and comedies." On the 5th of August, 
 moreover, there was tilting at Greenwich, where 
 King Christian, mounted on a dapple-gray, and 
 wearing sky-coloured armour spangled with 
 gold, with a bunch of blue and white plumes in 
 his helm, " broke some staves with a marvel 
 lous grace, and great applause of the people." 
 
 With all this chivalric display young Drum- 
 mond was evidently delighted. But alas for 
 the evanescence of earthly joys ! On the I2th 
 of August he writes : " None of our pleasures 
 are lasting ; they, as all human things, have 
 their end. The King of Denmark, the 9th of 
 this month, taking his leave of his sister and 
 His Majesty (who with tears in their eyes re 
 turned), went towards his ships to Gravesend" : 
 has departed, in fact, leaving "a general com 
 mendation in this island of his virtues." 
 
 A clearer insight into the tastes and disposi 
 tion of Drummond may be derived from the 
 lists of books which he read from 1606 to 1614 : 
 lists still extant at Edinburgh in his own hand 
 writing.* As might be anticipated, works of 
 
 * Printed among Mr. David Laing s Extracts from 
 the Hawthornden MSS. , in Transactions of the Society 
 of Antiquaries of Scotland (Archceologia Scotica], vol. 
 iv. pp. 73-76. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxv 
 
 poetry predominate. There is a good sprink 
 ling of romance, and a modest choice of mis 
 cellaneous literature, including some books of 
 history and theology. Among the books read 
 by Drummond in the year 1606, we note with 
 particular interest Shakespeare s Romeo, Love s 
 Labour s Lost, Midsummer Nighfs Dream, 
 Lucrece, and the Passionate Pilgrim; Knox s 
 Chronicles (i.e., History of the Reformation in 
 Scotland] ; Alexander s Aurora; Sidney s Ar 
 cadia; Lyly s Euphues ; and certain volumes 
 of Amadis and of the Diana of Montemayor. 
 Nor, even thus early, was Drummond s love 
 of poetry evinced in his reading alone. It is 
 beyond doubt that he was already in the habit 
 of scribbling verses ; among his posthumous 
 works are printed three or four little poems, or 
 fragments of poems, which date back in all 
 probability to his boyhood. 
 
 Drummond now proceeded to France, where 
 he appears to have remained for two or three 
 years, studying civil law at Bourges with 
 great diligence, according to Bishop Sage. More 
 congenial studies, however, were by no means 
 neglected. In his lists for the years 1607-1609 
 we note the names of Rabelais, of Ronsard, of 
 Du Bartas, Muret, and Pontus de Tyard ; of 
 Tasso and Sanazzaro (these in French transla 
 tions) ; the Orlando Furioso* also in French ; 
 
xxvi INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 Latin poems of Cardinal Bembo and other 
 Italian writers ; Amadis of Gautand the Diana, 
 in French ; the tragedies of Seneca ; and Oracula 
 Sibyllce, in Greek. In 1609 we again find Eng 
 lish books on the list : Sidney s Arcadia, for the 
 second time of reading ; the poems of Samuel 
 Daniel ; and Davison s Poetical Rhapsody, but 
 these Drummond probably read after his return 
 from the Continent. Only one work is included 
 which has even the most distant connection 
 with his intended profession the Institutes of 
 Justinian. 
 
 A long letter of Drummond s, dated Paris, 
 February 12, 1607, and addressed to his friend 
 Sir George Keith of Powburn, affords the only 
 picture which remains to us of his life abroad.* 
 This letter is in several respects highly charac 
 teristic of the writer. A stately diction, recall 
 ing the language of his favourite romances ; a 
 love of beauty, which peeps out in a hundred 
 picturesque touches in Drummond s verse ; a 
 fanciful vein of moralising : these are the 
 marked features of the young student s letter, 
 and not less of the maturer writings of the 
 poet. 
 
 * Printed in the folio edition of Drummond s Works, 
 pp. 139-141. The year is not given, but was supplied 
 by Mr. David Laing from the MS. (See Archceologia 
 Scotica, vol. iv. p. 98.) 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxvii 
 
 " Sir," he begins, " when, out of curiosity, 
 this last week I had entered those large and 
 spacious galleries in which the Fair of St. Ger- 
 mains is kept, and had viewed the diverse 
 merchandise and wares of the nations at that 
 mart, above the rest I was much taken with 
 the daintiness of the many portraits there to 
 be seen. The devices, posies, ideas, shapes, 
 and draughts of the artificers were various, 
 nice, and pleasant. Scarce could the wander 
 ing thought light upon any story, fable, or 
 gaiety which was not here represented to the 
 view. If Cebes, the Theban philosopher, made 
 a table hung in the temple of Saturn the argu 
 ment of his rare moralities ; and Jovius and 
 Marini, the portraits in their galleries and 
 libraries the subject of some books ; I was 
 brought to think I should not commit a great 
 fault if I sent you for a token, from this 
 mart, a scantling of this ware, which affordeth 
 a like contentment to the beholder and pos 
 sessor." 
 
 After enumerating various paintings, histori 
 cal or mythological, Drummond continues : 
 " The father of our fictions, Meonides himself, 
 was here represented, with closed eyes, and a 
 long beard of the colour of the night ; to whom 
 was the honour of Mantua adjoined, his head 
 wreathed with bays, his face was somewhat 
 
xxviii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 long, his cheeks scarce with a small down 
 descrying his sex. . . . The Cyprian goddess 
 was in diverse shapes represented. The first 
 was naked as she appeared on the hills of Ida, 
 or when she arose from her foamy mother ; but 
 that she should not blush, the painter had 
 limned her entering a green arbour, and look 
 ing over her shoulder, so that there were only 
 seen her back and face. . . . The third had 
 drawn her lying on a bed with stretched-out 
 arms ; in her hand she presented to a young 
 man (who was adoring her, and at whom little 
 Love was directing a dart) a fair face, which 
 with much ceremony he was receiving ; but on 
 the other side, which should have been the 
 hinder part of that head, was the image of 
 Death ; by which Mortality he surpassed the 
 others, more than they did him by Art. It 
 were to be wished this picture were still before 
 the eyes of doting lovers." 
 
 Further on he describes "the picture of a 
 young lady, whose hair drew near the colour 
 of amber, but with such a bright lustre that it 
 was above gold or amber ; her eyes were some 
 what green, her face round, where the roses 
 strove to surpass the lilies of her cheeks ; and 
 such an one she was limned as Apelles would 
 have made choice of for the beauty of Greece. 
 She was said to be the Astrea of the Marquis 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxix 
 
 D Urfe."* Bright amber hair, greenish eyes, 
 and cheeks of roses and lilies, remained, as 
 we find by his poems, Drummond s ideal of 
 feminine beauty. 
 
 The concluding paragraph of the letter is 
 this : " Now when I had considered all (for 
 these galleries were a little All, if you please), 
 casting mine eyes aside, I beheld on a fair table 
 the portraits of two, which drew my thoughts 
 to more seriousness than all the other. The 
 first, clothed in a sky-coloured mantle, bordered 
 with some red, was laughing, and held out his 
 finger, by way of demonstration, in scorn to 
 another, in a sable mantle, who held his arms 
 across, declined his head pitifully, and seemed 
 to shed tears. The one showed that he was 
 Democritus, the other that he was Heraclitus. 
 And truly considering all our actions, except 
 those which regard the service and adoration of 
 God Almighty, they are either to be lamented 
 or laughed at ; and man is always a fool, 
 except in misery, which is a whetstone of judg 
 ment." 
 
 Drummond returned to Scotland in 1609. 
 He seems, after all, to have made some pro- 
 
 * Astrde, D Urfe"s famous pastoral romance, was not 
 yet published, though it is evident from Drummond s 
 allusion, that it was already talked about. The first 
 volume appeared in 7610. 
 
xxx INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 gress in the study of the law, and "brought 
 home not only the dictates of the professors, 
 but also his own observations on them ; which 
 the worthy, learned, and judicious President 
 Lockhart seeing, said, that if our author had 
 followed the practice, he might have made the 
 best figure of any lawyer in his time."* But 
 the Fates had otherwise decreed. In 1610 
 Drummond again visited London. The same 
 year his father died, and was buried in the 
 Abbey of Holyrood. Whereupon the young 
 man renounced for ever all thoughts of a legal 
 career, to cultivate retired leisure and the Muse 
 in his quiet home at Hawthornden. 
 
 II. 
 
 The heroic age of Scottish poesy had passed 
 away when Drummond entered the field. To 
 the sturdy singers of the old school, the Dun- 
 bars and Lindsays, no successor had appeared. 
 Indeed, for many years the troubled condition 
 of the nation had been unfavourable to the 
 cultivation of poetry. More than all besides, 
 the stern Calvinism of the Scots, "as killing 
 as the canker to the rose," had contributed to 
 
 * Drummond s Works, folio, 1711 : Memoir, p. ii. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxxi 
 
 its decline. Here and there a scholar still 
 found occasional relaxation in the turning of 
 Latin verses, or a courtier wrote sonnets in 
 the vernacular of England, which was gradually 
 replacing the Scottish idiom as a means of 
 literary expression ; but as a national art, 
 Scottish poetry was practically extinct at the 
 beginning of the seventeenth century. The 
 most distinguished, perhaps the most meri 
 torious, Scottish poet of this time was William 
 Alexander of Menstrie, who wrote in English 
 as unprovincial as Sidney s own, and whose 
 style shows clearly the influence of Italian 
 models. Nor was Drummond, who was already 
 the admirer and soon to become the bosom 
 friend of Alexander, better qualified to aid in 
 the resuscitation of a national art. Endowed 
 by nature with a far richer vein of poetry than 
 Menstrie s, his Muse, like his friend s, was 
 completely exotic. It could not well be other 
 wise. Scotsman at heart, and true lover of his 
 country, as he was, he had few feelings in 
 common with the vast majority of his country 
 men. Their religious fanaticism, the breath of 
 their national life, was hateful to him, and as 
 his years increased the difference grew ever 
 wider and more hopeless. 
 
 But we anticipate. Drummond was now 
 established at his "sweet and solitary seat" of 
 
 VOL. I. c 
 
xxxii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 Hawthornden, studying the Greek and Latin 
 authors, as well as the Italian poets whose in 
 fluence upon his own writings was so marked. 
 Among the books which he read during the 
 years 1610-1612, we note the Rime of Petrarch, 
 the Pastor Fido of Guarini, Rime and Arcadia 
 of Sanazzaro, with various works of Tasso, 
 Bembo, Rinaldi, Contarini, and Coquinato. Of 
 English books read during the same period 
 the most noteworthy are Spenser s Faery 
 Queen, Amoretti, and Epiihalamium, poems of 
 Drayton and Alexander, Ben Jonson s Epi 
 grams, Bacon s Essays, and Puttenham s Art 
 of English Poesy. The Hawthornden MSS. 
 include lists, in Drummond s handwriting, 
 of the books which constituted his library 
 at Hawthornden in 1611. Of Italian books 
 there are 61 ; of Spanish, 8 ; of French, 120 ; 
 of English, 50 ; of Greek, 35 ; of Hebrew, n ; 
 of Latin, 164, comprising 31 of theology, 24 
 of law, 54 of philosophy, and 55 of poetry: 
 lastly, there is "an additional list, chiefly of 
 classics or miscellaneous Latin authors, con 
 taining 103 books."* A total of 552 books in 
 seven languages. 
 
 Drummond s love of retirement was certainly 
 unaffected. It is evinced not only by many 
 
 * Archceologia Scotica t vol. iv. p. 77. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxxiii 
 
 passages in his writings, but by the whole 
 tenor of his life. That Court preferment was 
 open to him, had he cared to accept it, can 
 hardly be doubted. His family connections, his 
 influential friends, his notorious royalism, his 
 fame as a poet, to say nothing of certain effusive 
 bits of adulatory verse addressed to King James 
 and King Charles, had surely made smooth for 
 him the path to worldly honours if he had 
 chosen to follow it. But he seems at no time 
 to have sought or desired such vain distinc 
 tions ; appraising them rather at their true 
 worth, as " gilded glories which decay." In 
 the sweet seclusion of Hawthornden, amid his 
 books and papers, he led a life contemplative 
 and studious, but, in these early years at least, 
 by no means gloomy. "He was not much 
 taken up," writes his old biographer, " with the 
 ordinary amusements of dancing, singing, play 
 ing, c., tho he had as much of them as a well- 
 bred gentleman should have ; and when his 
 spirits were too much bended by severe studies, 
 he unbended them by playing on his lute, which 
 he did to admiration. But the most part of his 
 time was spent in reading the best books, and 
 conversing with the learnedest men, which he 
 improved to great advantage." * And again : 
 
 * Drummond s Works, 1711 : Memoir, p. iii. 
 
xxxiv INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 " He never sought after riches and honours, but 
 rather declined them. ... He used always that 
 of Mirandola, in his free discourse, Meis libris, 
 meis oculis contentus^ a puero usque infra fortu- 
 nam vivere didici ; et quantum possum apud 
 me habitans, tiihil extra me aut suspiro aut 
 ambio"* 
 
 It was probably in the year 1612 that 
 Drummond became personally acquainted with 
 William Alexander of Menstrie, whose poems 
 he had long known and admired. Alexander 
 was some seventeen years the elder, having 
 been born about 1568. He was Sir William 
 now; knighted in 1609; and gentleman of the 
 chamber to the King s eldest son, Prince Henry. 
 Better than this, he was a poet of established 
 reputation, and of some real merit, albeit his 
 vein was not of the richest. Having Court 
 duties to fulfil, Sir William resided for the most 
 part in England ; but it so happened that he was 
 at his house of Menstrie, in Clackmannanshire, 
 at a time when fortune brought Drummond into 
 that neighbourhood. The story of their meet 
 ing is told by Drummond in a letter (undated) 
 to a friend. 
 
 " Fortune this last day was so favourable as 
 by plain blindness to acquaint me with that 
 
 * Drummond s Works, 1711 : Memoir, p. x. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxxv 
 
 most excellent spirit and rarest gem of our 
 north, S. W. A. [Sir W. Alexander]; for, 
 coming near his house, I had almost been a 
 Christian father to one of his children. He 
 accepted me so kindly, and made me so good 
 entertainment (which, whatsomever, with him 
 I could not have thought but good), that I can 
 not well show. Tables removed, after Homer s 
 fashion well satiate, he honoured me so much as 
 to show me his books and papers. This much I 
 will say, and perchance not without reason dare 
 say, if the heavens prolong his days to end his 
 Day, he hath done more in one Day than Tasso 
 did all his life, and Bartas in his two weeks, 
 though both the one and the other be most 
 praiseworthy. I esteemed of him before I was 
 acquaint with him, because of his works ; but I 
 protest henceforth I will esteem of his works 
 because of his own good, courteous, meek dis 
 position. He entreated me to have made longer 
 stay ; and, believe me, I was as sorry to depart 
 as a new-enamoured lover would be from his 
 mistress." * 
 
 * Archceologia Scotica, vol. iv. p. 83. The date of 
 this meeting is unknown, but it was certainly not later 
 than 1612. Professor Masson gives the year 1614, but 
 on the supposition that Alexander was knighted in that 
 year ; Drummond referring to him in the letter above 
 quoted as S[ir] W. A. It now appears, however, that 
 he was knighted in 1609 : see the article ALEXANDER, 
 
xxxvi INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 The words "hath done more in one Day" 
 refer to a poem entitled Doomsday, which 
 Alexander had evidently shown to Drummond 
 in the manuscript, and which he published in 
 1614. I am afraid no one will now be found 
 of Drummond s mind as to its merits. 
 
 The acquaintance thus happily begun soon 
 ripened into an intimacy which endured until 
 the death of Alexander. The two poets ad 
 dressed each other by the title of brother : 
 they wrote verses to one another under the 
 names of Alexis and Damon ; and when 
 Alexis obliged the world with the first edition 
 of his Doomsday^ Damon commended the per 
 formance in a sonnet in which he compared 
 his friend to Phcebus. 
 
 In 1613 Drummond made his first public 
 appearance as a poet. The occasion was an 
 event which cast a real gloom over the English 
 and Scottish nations the death, on the 6th of 
 
 by Dr. Grosart, in the Diet, of National Biography. 
 A commendatory sonnet by Alexander is prefixed to 
 the first edition of Drummond s Tears on the Death of 
 Mceliades, which must have been published early in 
 1613. In Arch. Scot. (iv. p. 84) is printed a letter from 
 Drummond to Alexander, which the editor, David 
 Laing, conjectures, with great probability, to have been 
 written shortly after the death of Prince Henry (Nov. 6, 
 1612) ; though the allusion is too vague to pronounce 
 positively upon. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxxvii 
 
 November 1612, of Henry, Prince of Wales ; a 
 gallant and promising youth, by all accounts, 
 who had not completed his nineteenth year. 
 The poets, as was then expected of them, 
 came forward in crowds, each with his bit 
 of memorial verse, and Drummond, almost as 
 a matter of course, added his tribute to the 
 rest. An Elegie on the Death of Prince Henrie, 
 by Sir William Alexander, was published about 
 the end of 1612 by the leading bookseller of 
 Edinburgh, Andro Hart. Alexander s concern 
 was indeed personal, for he had long been 
 intimately connected with the young Prince. 
 A little later appeared Drummond s contribu 
 tion to the national lamentation. It consisted 
 of a pastoral elegy, entitled Tears on the Death 
 of M&liadeS) and three shorter pieces. The 
 elegy was published by Andro Hart, "at his 
 shop on the north side of the High Street, a 
 little beneath the Cross," in 1613, and was 
 generally admired, a second edition being 
 issued the same year, and a third in 1614. 
 
 Nor was the general admiration ill deserved. 
 In Tears on the Death of M (shades the fervour 
 of a poet is combined with the skill of an 
 accomplished artist. The versification is flow 
 ing and melodious, but without monotony ; 
 the words are nicely adapted to the sense, 
 now heavy with lamentation, now echoing the 
 
xxxviii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 clangour of " shrill-sounding trumpets " and the 
 confused clash of arms, and again pulsing in 
 solemn cadence as the poet sings of that un- 
 imagined world where the freed spirit is at 
 rest. Especially beautiful are the last two para 
 graphs, where Drummond s religious sentiment 
 finds noble expression, and where, too, we may 
 recognise a premonition of that philosophic 
 strain of thought which holds so prominent 
 a place in some of his later writings. 
 
 The poems which Drummond next produced 
 were written upon a subject nearer to his heart. 
 Apart from such intimations as his verses afford, 
 all that we know of the story of his love is 
 contained in the following extract from the 
 memoir prefixed to the folio edition of his 
 works : " Notwithstanding his close retirement 
 and serious application to his studies, Love 
 stole in upon him, and did entirely captivate 
 his heart ; for he was on a sudden highly 
 enamoured of a fine, beautiful young lady, 
 daughter to Cunningham of Barns, an ancient 
 and honourable family. He met with suitable 
 returns of chaste love from her, and fully gained 
 her affections ; but when the day for the mar 
 riage was appointed, and all things ready for 
 the solemnisation of it, she took a fever, and 
 was suddenly snatched away by it, to his great 
 grief and sorrow." 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xxxix 
 
 Barns, the scat of the young lady s father, 
 lies on the north coast of the Firth of Forth, 
 between Crail and Kilrenny, in the eastern 
 part of Fife. Drummond s brother-in-law, 
 John Scot, with his wife and family, resided in 
 the same county, at no great distance from the 
 Cunninghams. In the autumn of 1611, John 
 Scot, then a young lawyer of five and twenty, 
 and Director of the Scottish Chancery, had 
 acquired considerable landed property in Fife, 
 including the barony of Tarvet, near Cupar, 
 from which he gave the general name of Scots- 
 tarvet to the whole of his Fifeshire estates. 
 He was a man of education and literary pro 
 pensities,* shrewd and thrifty withal, and in 
 many respects unlike Drummond, though be 
 tween them there subsisted a mutual regard 
 and some community of tastes. A part of 
 Scotstarvet s estate lay in the immediate vicinity 
 of Barns, and it is likely enough that Drummond 
 was on a visit to his brother-in-law when he 
 
 * Still remembered as the author of Scot of Scotstarvet s 
 Staggering State of Scots Statesmen : "a Homily on 
 Life s Nothingness, enforced by examples ; gives in brief 
 compass, not without a rude laconic geniality, the cream 
 of Scotch Biographic History in that age, and uncon 
 sciously a curious self-portrait of the writer withal" 
 (Carlyle s Cromwell, vol. i. p. 315, note; ed. 1857). 
 Some Latin poems by Scot of Scotstarvet are printed in 
 Delitice Poetarum Scotorum : Amsterdam, 1637. 
 
xl INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 made the acquaintance of the beautiful Miss 
 Cunningham. The lady, if we may trust a 
 poet s description of his mistress, had just such 
 golden hair and greenish eyes as had charmed 
 him, years before, in the Astrea of the St. 
 Germains gallery. Seldom has lady fair been 
 celebrated by her servant in sweeter and more 
 musical verse than that which Drummond 
 penned to perpetuate her beauty and his pas 
 sion. There is yet extant a letter of his, sent 
 to some lady with an offering of verse a letter 
 undated and unaddressed, which nevertheless 
 I refer with confidence to Miss Cunningham 
 of Barns. " Here," he writes, " you have the 
 poems, the first fruits your beauty and many, 
 many good parts did bring forth in me. Though 
 they be not much worth, yet (I hope) ye will, 
 for your own dear self s sake, deign them some 
 favour, for whom only they were done, and 
 whom only I wish should see them. Keep 
 them, that hereafter, when Time, that changeth 
 everything, shall make wither those fair roses 
 of your youth, among the other toys of your 
 cabinet they may serve for a memorial of what 
 once was, being so much better than little 
 pictures, as they are like to be more lasting ; 
 and in them are the excellent virtues of your 
 rare mind limned, though, I must confess, as 
 painters do angels and the celestial world, 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xli 
 
 which represent them no ways as they are, 
 but in mortal shapes and shadows." * 
 
 A short year or two of happiness, and then 
 the blow fell, and the lover s life was shadowed 
 with a lasting gloom. Probably in 1615, Miss 
 Cunningham died.t Drummond continued to 
 write, immortalising his sorrow as he had im 
 mortalised his hopes. In the little volume of 
 verse which he published with Andro Hart in 
 1616, the principal place is given to a sequence 
 of poems sonnets, songs, and madrigals 
 divided, as Petrarch had divided the story of 
 
 * Archceologia Scotica, vol. iv. p. 83. 
 
 f The only positive intelligence which we have of 
 Drummond in 1615 is contained in the following extract 
 from the Register of the Privy Council of Scotland 
 (vol. x. p. 831), dated Edinburgh, March 2, 1615: 
 " The Lordis of Secreit Counsaill, for ressonable causis 
 moving thame, hes gevin and grantit, and be thir 
 presentis gevis and grantis, licence and libertie to Mr. 
 Johnne Scott of Scottistarvatt, Director of his Majes- 
 teis Chancellarie, and to Mr. William Drummond of 
 Hathorndaill, to eatt fleshe at all times quhen they sail 
 think expedient during this forbiddin time of Lentroun, 
 fra the xxi day of Februer lastbipast to the feist of 
 Pasche nixttocum" [next to come!]. The editor, 
 Professor Masson, conjectures from this that Scot and 
 Drummond were spending Lent together, and wished 
 to enjoy themselves without the drawback of Lenten 
 fare. Accepting this conjecture, I should be inclined to 
 put the death of Miss Cunningham later in the year. 
 Drummond s uncle, William Fowler, had died in the 
 preceding year, 1614. 
 
xlii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 his love and grief, into two parts ; in the first 
 of which the poet sings the praises of his living 
 mistress, in the second laments her untimely 
 death. These poems include many of the 
 ripest and most finished productions of Drum- 
 mond s Muse. His studies in Italian poetry 
 had borne good fruit. Not only is his verse 
 cast in an Italian mould, but it is largely im 
 pregnated with Italian sentiment. He follows 
 Petrarch both in the general arrangement and 
 in particular instances. Nor does he restrict 
 himself to imitation, but often translates directly 
 from the Italian, especially from the poems 
 of Petrarch, Tasso, Marino, Sanazzaro, and 
 Guarini. From the frequency of his transla 
 tions from Marino, it appears that the latter 
 was an especial favourite with him ; partly, I 
 believe, on account of a certain metaphysical 
 tendency which finds expression in some of 
 Marino s pieces, and which was nearly akin to 
 Drummond s own way of thinking. It is some 
 what remarkable, by the way, that Drummond 
 scarcely ever adopts the true Italian form of 
 the sonnet, preferring to end with a rhymed 
 couplet, as Shakespeare and Sidney had done 
 before him. He says of himself "that he was 
 the first in the Isle that did celebrate a mistress 
 dead, and Englished the madrigal." * 
 
 * Folio, 1711 : Memoir, p. v. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xliii 
 
 I have already adverted to the fact that 
 Drummond was influenced by Sidney, who, 
 like himself, owed much to the Italians. Upon 
 the whole, Drummond s poems to his mistress 
 bear a closer resemblance, both in manner and 
 matter, to the splendid sequence of sonnets 
 which has immortalised the names of Astrophel 
 and Stella, than to any other production of an 
 English poet. It were perhaps rash to assert 
 that Sidney is the only English poet to whom 
 Drummond, in a literary point of view, was 
 seriously indebted ; but I find in his writings 
 few traces of the influence of others. On two or 
 three occasions he has borrowed from Shake 
 speare, and a curious search may reveal some 
 kindred touches in Daniel s Sonnets to Delia. 
 He had long known Alexander s Aurora: a 
 series of Petrarchan sonnets, &c., addressed 
 to a lady whom the poet had loved and lost ; 
 not indeed by death, but through her prefer 
 ence for another. But Alexander s Aurora, 
 though Drummond admired the poetry and 
 loved the poet, was hardly a source from 
 whence his own far stronger Muse could derive 
 much inspiration. His models, then, were 
 Sidney and the Italians. At times he would 
 take Sidney s very phrases, as his wont was 
 with his favourite poets, and weave them cun 
 ningly into the web of his own verse. In a 
 
xliv INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 more general way, his affinity to Sidney is 
 often strikingly displayed in the style and 
 matter of his poems : some of his sonnets 
 would not seem at all out of place among those 
 sonnets to Stella. 
 
 But with all these influences and imitations, 
 the term plagiarist, in a derogatory sense, can 
 not with justice be applied to Drummond. If 
 he sometimes deck himself in borrowed plum 
 age, he wears it with a grace which is altogether 
 his own. In the closest of his translations he 
 never allows us to forget that the translator 
 also is a poet. The many productions of his 
 pen which are wholly original, afford ample 
 proof that it was not from poverty of invention 
 that he became a borrower. His was the full 
 equipment of the poet, and what he took from 
 others he had made already his own by sym 
 pathy and delight. In one respect he was 
 greater than his models, if not as a poet, yet 
 as a thinker. Certain pieces in the volume of 
 1616 especially the beautiful "Song" in which 
 he describes the apparition of his mistress after 
 her death already show a depth of philosophic 
 thought unusual among poets of any age, perhaps 
 unique as regards those of his own time. At a 
 later period this characteristic of Drummond 
 was more fully developed. It found, perhaps, 
 its completest expression in his prose essay, 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xlv 
 
 A Cypress Grove, which proves him to have 
 been deeply influenced by the philosophy of 
 Plato. It is shown, too, in several of the poems 
 in his Flowers of Ston, though always coloured 
 to some extent, as was indeed inevitable, by the 
 Christianity in which he was a devout, though 
 for his time a singularly open-minded believer. 
 Drummond had in him, in fact, the making of 
 a Platonic philosopher ; but, as Sir Thomas 
 Browne would have said, he " Christianised his 
 notions." 
 
 Besides the poems on his mistress, the little 
 quarto of 1616 contains a reprint of Tears on the 
 Death of Mceliades, with a sonnet and a " pyra 
 midal " epitaph on the same subject ; a few 
 religious or philosophical pieces under the title 
 of Urania, or Spiritual Poems ; and a collection 
 of Madrigals and Epigrams. The Madrigals 
 and Epigrams are probably, for the most part, 
 of an earlier date than the rest of the book : 
 many of them are translations from the Italian. 
 The poems latest written I should judge to be 
 the Urania, in which Drummond s Christianity 
 is for the first time in his writings clearly pro 
 nounced. But to this subject we shall revert 
 hereafter. 
 
 On page 226 of the folio edition of his works 
 is printed, under the title of A Character of 
 Several Authors, a fragment of criticism by 
 
xlvi INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 Drummond, some extracts from which will not 
 be without interest to the reader. It appears 
 from internal evidence to have been written 
 after the publication of the first part of Dray- 
 ton s Polyolbion in 1612, and before the death 
 of Shakespeare in 1616. Drummond writes : 
 " The authors I have seen on the subject of 
 Love are the Earl of Surrey, Sir Thomas Wyat 
 (whom, because of their antiquity, I will not 
 match with our better times), Sidney, Daniel, 
 Dray ton, and Spenser. He who writeth The 
 Art of English Poesy* praiseth much Raleigh 
 and Dyer ; but their works are so few that have 
 come to my hands, I cannot well say anything 
 of them. The last we have are Sir William 
 Alexander and Shakespeare, who have lately 
 published their works. . . . The best and most 
 exquisite poet of this subject, by consent of the 
 whole senate of poets, is Petrarch. S. W. R.,t 
 in an epitaph on Sidney, calleth him our English 
 Petrarch ; and Daniel regrets he was not a 
 
 * Attributed to George Puttenham. 
 
 f Sir Walter Raleigh, whose epitaph on Sidney is 
 printed on pp. 5-7 of the Aldine edition of his poems, 
 London, 1875. The expression alluded to by Drum 
 mond occurs in the last stanza, which is as follows : 
 
 " That day their Hannibal died, our Scipio fell, 
 Scipio, Cicero, and Petrarch of our time ; 
 Whose virtues, wounded by my worthless rhyme, 
 Let angels speak, and heaven thy praises tell." 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xlvii 
 
 Petrarch, though his Delia be a Laura.* . 
 The French have also set him before them as 
 a paragon ; whereof we still find that those of 
 our English poets who have approached nearest 
 to him are the most exquisite on this subject 
 [Love]. When I say approach him, I mean 
 not in following his invention, but in forging 
 as good ; and when one matter cometh to them 
 all at once, who quintessenceth it in the finest 
 substance. 
 
 "Among our English poets Petrarch is imi 
 tated, nay surpassed in some things, in matter 
 and manner : in matter, none approach him 
 to Sidney, who hath songs and sonnets inter 
 mingled : in manner, the nearest I find to him 
 is W. Alexander, who, insisting in these same 
 steps, hath sextains, madrigals and songs, 
 echoes and equivoques, which he [Petrarch] 
 hath not ; whereby, as the one hath surpassed 
 him in matter, so the other in manner of writing, 
 or form. . . . After which two, next, methinks, 
 followed! Daniel, for sweetness in rhyming 
 second to none. Drayton seemeth rather to 
 have loved his Muse than his mistress, by I 
 know not what artificial similes ; this showeth 
 well his mind, but not the passion. . . . Donne, 
 among the Anacreontic lyrics, is second to none, 
 
 * In the fortieth of his Sonnets to Delia 
 VOL. i. d 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 and far from all second ; but as Anacreon doth 
 not approach Callimachus, though he excels in 
 his own kind, nor Horace to Virgil, no more 
 can I be brought to think him to excel either 
 Alexander s or Sidney s verses. They can 
 hardly be compared together, treading diverse 
 paths ; the one flying swift, but low ; the other ; 
 like the eagle, surpassing the clouds. I think, 
 if he would, he [Donne] might easily be the 
 best epigrammatist we have found in English ; 
 of which I have not yet seen any come near 
 the ancients. . . . Dray ton s Polyolbion is one 
 of the smoothest pieces I have seen in English, 
 poetical and well prosecuted ; there are some 
 pieces in him I dare compare with the best 
 transmarine poems. ... I find in him, which 
 is in most part of my compatriots, too great an 
 admiration of their country ; on the history of 
 which whilst they muse, they forget sometimes 
 to be good poets." 
 
 III. 
 
 In May 1617, King James visited Scotland 
 for the first time since his departure to assume 
 the crown of England. Among the memorials of 
 his visit is a poem by Drummond, published the 
 same year by Andro Hart, under the title of 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xlix 
 
 Forth Feasting: a Panegyric to the King s most 
 excellent Majesty. It is in the form of an ad 
 dress to the King, supposed to be spoken by the 
 river Forth, and the beauty of the verse is ex 
 ceeded only by the rankness of the adulation. 
 Professor Masson is of opinion that Drummond 
 " need not be thought of as even smilingly dis 
 honest " on this occasion,* but I am unable to 
 take quite so lenient a view of the matter. The 
 evil custom of the time may fairly be pleaded in 
 palliation, but it is not an excuse. Drummond s 
 royalism, always intense and chivalrous, would 
 naturally incline him to elevate his sovereign, 
 even against his reason, into a sort of Divus 
 Jacobus. Moreover, James, disreputable as he 
 was, had some redeeming qualities : he was a 
 man of letters for one thing, and he undoubtedly 
 possessed a good deal of shrewd sense, which 
 might, without very gross flattery, be dignified 
 by the name of wisdom. Perhaps, too, the 
 ancient alliance between the houses of Drum 
 mond and Stuart, of which our Scottish poet 
 was by no means unmindful, may have influ 
 enced him in some slight measure. On the 
 other hand, it is to be feared that Drummond 
 understood only too well the character of the 
 man whom he was belauding as the pattern of 
 
 * Drummond of Hawthornden, p. 59. 
 
1 INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 all perfections. Among his posthumous poems 
 is a little piece called The Five Senses* in which 
 the most secret vices of poor King James are 
 mercilessly exposed. In any case, it is strange 
 that so retiring a man as Drummond, who really 
 seems neither to have expected nor desired any 
 favour from James, as he certainly received none, 
 should have condescended to such outrageous 
 flattery. One small incident of the King s visit 
 to Scotland is not without interest for us. Drum- 
 mond s brother-in-law was knighted, and ap 
 pointed a member of the Scottish Privy Council : 
 Sir John Scot of Scotstarvet henceforward. 
 
 I have before cited Drummond s favourable 
 opinion of the poetical works of his contempo 
 rary, Michael Drayton. In the year 1618 he 
 was visited at Hawthornden by one Joseph 
 Davis, bringing an introduction from Drayton, 
 who already knew him well by report, through 
 their common friend Sir William Alexander, and 
 was doubtless acquainted with his poems. Drum 
 mond s pleasure in this opening intercourse is 
 vividly expressed in the following letter : 
 
 " To the Right Worshipful Mr. Michael Dray 
 ton, Esq. 
 
 " SIR, I have understood by Mr. Davis the 
 direction he received from you to salute me 
 
 * I am not fully convinced of its authenticity, however. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR li 
 
 here ; which undeserved favour I value above 
 the commendations of the greatest and mightiest 
 in this Isle. Though I have not had the for 
 tune to see you (which sight is but like the near 
 view of pictures in tapestry), yet, almost ever 
 since I could know any, ye have been to me 
 known and beloved. Long since your amorous 
 (and truly Heroical) Epistles did ravish me ; 
 and lately your most happy Albion \Poly olbion] 
 put me into a new trance : works (most excel 
 lent portraits of a rarely endued mind) which, if 
 one may conjecture of what is to come, shall be 
 read, in spite of envy, so long as men read books. 
 Of your great love, courtesy, and generous dis 
 position, I have been informed by more than 
 one of the worthiest of this country ; but what 
 before was only known to me by fame I have 
 now found by experience : your goodness pre 
 venting me in that duty which a strange bash- 
 fulness, or bashful strangeness, hindered me to 
 offer unto you. You have the first advantage : 
 the next should be mine ; and hereafter you 
 shall excuse my boldness if, when I write to 
 your matchless friend Sir W. Alexander, I now 
 and then salute you, and in that claim, though 
 unknown, to be Your loving and assured 
 friend " W. D." * 
 
 * Folio of 1711, pp. 233, 234. 
 
lii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 The two poets were never to meet in this life ; 
 but a lasting friendship was established between 
 them, and a correspondence by letter, which 
 continued to the last year of Drayton s life. 
 " My dear noble Drummond," writes Drayton, 
 in a letter dated London, November 9, 1618, 
 " your letters were as welcome to me as if they 
 had come from my mistress ; which I think is 
 one of the fairest and worthiest living" [the 
 good Drayton was then fifty-five years old]. 
 " Little did you think how oft that noble friend 
 of yours, Sir William Alexander (that man of 
 men), and I have remembered you before we 
 trafficked in friendship. Love me as much as 
 you can, and so I will you : I can never hear 
 of you too oft, and I will ever mention you 
 with, much respect of your deserved worth."* 
 " Joseph Davis is in love with you," he adds in 
 a postscript. Drummond, not to be outdone in 
 politeness, replies on the 2oth of December : 
 "If my letters were so welcome to you, what 
 may you think yours were to me, which must 
 be so much more welcome in that the conquest 
 I make is more than that of yours ? They who 
 by some strange means have had conference 
 with some of the old heroes, can only judge 
 that delight I had in reading them ; for they 
 
 * Folio of 1711, p. 153. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR liii 
 
 were to me as if they had come from Virgil, 
 Ovid, or the father of our sonnets, Petrarch." * 
 
 Drayton was just then " in terms," to use his 
 own phrase, which means rather " out of terms," 
 with the London booksellers : " a company of 
 base knaves," he calls them, "whom I both 
 scorn and kick at." He was entertaining, in 
 consequence, a project of getting the second 
 part of his Polyolbion published at Edinburgh 
 by Andro Hart, and wrote repeatedly to Drum- 
 mond upon the subject ; Drummond, of course, 
 doing gladly all in his power to further the 
 business. " How would I be overjoyed to see 
 our north once honoured with your works, as 
 before it was with Sidney s ! " he writes to 
 Drayton, alluding to an edition of the Arcadia 
 published at Edinburgh in 1599. The project, 
 however, came to nothing : the second part of 
 Polyolbion was published at London, by one of 
 those same "base knaves," in the year 1622. 
 
 Of Drayton the little that remains to be told 
 may perhaps most conveniently be told at 
 once. The correspondence between him and 
 Drummond continued on the same friendly 
 terms, though with occasional long intervals of 
 silence, partly due, it would seem, to Drum- 
 mond s visits to the Continent. The last extant 
 
 * Folio of 1711, p. 234. 
 
liv INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 letter of Drayton to his " most worthy and ever 
 honoured friend, Mr. William Drummond," is 
 dated July 14, 1631.* In December of the same 
 year he died. Drummond writes of him in a 
 letter to Alexander, then Viscount Stirling : 
 " The death of M. D., your great friend, hath 
 been very grievous to all those which love the 
 Muses here. ... Of all the good race of poets 
 who wrote in the time of Queen Elizabeth, your 
 Lordship now alone remains. Daniel, Sylvester, 
 King James, Donne [are gone and now Dray- 
 ton ; who, besides his love and kindly observance 
 of your Lordship, hath made twice honourable 
 mention in his works of your Lordship : long 
 since in his Odes, and lately in his Elegies. 
 ... If the date of a picture of his be just, he 
 hath lived three score and eight years, but shall 
 live, by all likelihood, so long as men speak 
 English, after his death. I, who never saw 
 him save by his letters and poesy, scarce be 
 lieve he is yet dead, and would fain misbelieve 
 verity if it were possible." t 
 
 In the same year in which his correspon 
 dence with Drayton commenced, Drummond 
 made the personal acquaintance of a still more 
 famous English poet. The story of Ben Jon- 
 son s visit to Hawthornden is familiar to every 
 
 * Printed in the Folio of 1711, p. 154. 
 f Archceologia Scotica, vol. iv. p. 93. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR lv 
 
 reader. The old tradition, however, that the 
 great dramatist undertook his Scottish journey 
 for the express purpose of visiting Drummond 
 has been long since discredited. That visit of 
 one or two weeks was but a brief episode of 
 a tour which, from Jonson s departure from 
 London to his return thither, lasted some ten 
 months in all, six of which were passed in 
 Scotland ; and of those six months, five, or 
 nearly five, had elapsed before he became 
 Drummond s guest. Nevertheless, we can 
 hardly doubt that to Jonson himself his sojourn 
 with the Scottish poet must have been one of 
 the most memorable incidents of his tour. To 
 us, indeed, it is the one incident which makes 
 that tour at all memorable ; for Drummond 
 profited by the great man s presence beneath 
 his roof to take notes of his conversation, 
 * which notes," says Professor Masson, " since 
 their recovery and publication in complete form 
 by Mr. David Laing, have been known to all 
 literary antiquaries as the richest repertory of 
 English literary gossip and tradition that has 
 come down to us concerning the reigns of 
 Elizabeth and James, and also the most valu 
 able of all extant contributions to the biography 
 of Ben Jonson." * 
 
 * " Ben Jonson in Edinburgh," by David Masson, in 
 Black-woods Magazine for December 1893, where the 
 
Ivi INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 About the end of June 1618, Jonson set out 
 on foot from London, and probably arrived in 
 Scotland by the beginning of August. We 
 have scarcely any information as to what 
 he was doing during the months of August 
 and September. He certainly visited Loch 
 Lomond ; possibly St. Andrews ; but at the 
 end of September he was residing at Leith, 
 in the house of " one Master John Stuart," 
 and there, or in that neighbourhood, he con 
 tinued, much honoured and entertained by 
 the Edinburgh folk, until he started for Eng 
 land again. At Leith or in Edinburgh, there 
 can be no doubt, he first made Drummond s 
 acquaintance, and accepted his invitation to 
 pass a few quiet days with him at Hawthorn- 
 den. To Hawthornden, accordingly, about 
 the end of December, Ben Jonson repaired, 
 and gossiped freely about himself, his con 
 temporaries, and his predecessors in English 
 poesy, during his stay there. His contem- 
 
 reader will find some new and interesting information 
 concerning Ben Jonson s journey to Scotland. An ab 
 stract of Drummond s Notes appeared in the Folio of 
 1711, pp. 224-227. They were first published in com 
 plete form by Mr. Laing, from a manuscript copy in 
 the handwriting of Sir Robert Sibbald, in Archczol. Scot. , 
 vol. iv. pp. 241-270 ; and have since been reprinted, as 
 a separate volume, for the Shakespeare Society, London, 
 1842 ; 8vo. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR Ivii 
 
 poraries and predecessors, indeed, appear to 
 have been but a poor lot, even the best of 
 them, in Ben s estimation. Spenser pleased 
 him not ; Sidney did not keep a decorum ; 
 Shakespeare wanted art ; Daniel was a good, 
 honest man, but no poet ; and so forth. Alto 
 gether, though Drummond surely felt both 
 honoured and interested in entertaining under 
 his roof the most famous of living English 
 poets, his esteem for Ben Jonson was not 
 much increased by this visit. The two men 
 indeed were as ill adapted to one another 
 as two men of genius could well be. As 
 poets, they had little in common : the eminent 
 qualities of the one were usually those in 
 which the other was deficient. As indivi 
 duals, they were even wider apart. This loud, 
 blustering, hard-drinking Englishman, with all 
 his solid worth and real magnanimity, was 
 not a man to attract the gentle, studious, 
 retiring, and perhaps fastidious poet of Haw- 
 thornden. The impressions of Ben Jonson s 
 character which Drummond committed to 
 paper are unfavourable and one-sided ; but 
 this must have been largely Ben s own fault, 
 for we may be certain that Drummond was 
 not consciously unjust. 
 
 A letter written by Drummond to Ben 
 Jonson, which bears the date of January 17, 
 
Iviii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 1619, proves that the latter had then quitted 
 Hawthornden. He set out from Leith on his 
 homeward journey on the 25th of that month. 
 For a little while after his return to London 
 the two poets corresponded in the most friendly 
 terms, the last letter which is extant of those 
 that passed between them being written by 
 Drummond, and dated July i, 1619. No 
 further correspondence between them is re 
 corded, and I doubt if there were much more 
 to record.* As a man, and probably also as 
 a poet, the sweet-minded Drayton was more 
 congenial to Drummond than this dogmatising 
 Ben. From Drummond s Notes I extract the 
 following sentences, containing Ben Jonson s 
 criticisms upon Drummond s own poetry : 
 
 " His censure of my verses was that they 
 were all good, especially my Epitaph of the 
 Prince \Mceliades\ save that they smelled 
 too much of the schools, and were not after 
 the fancy of the time ; for a child, says he, 
 may write after the fashion of the Greek and 
 Latin verses in running : yet that he wished, 
 to please the King, that piece of Forth Feasting 
 had been his own. 
 
 * Their correspondence is printed in the folio edition 
 of Drummond s Works, pp. 137, 154, 155, and Archceo- 
 logia Scotica, vol. iv. p. 86 ; and reprinted, almost entire, 
 in Masson s Drummond of Hawthornden, pp. ios-rio. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR lix 
 
 " He recommended to my reading Quin- 
 tilian, who, he said, would tell me the faults 
 of my verses as if he lived with me ; and 
 Horace, Plinius Secundus Epistles, Tacitus, 
 Juvenal, Martial, whose epigram Vitam qua; 
 faciunt beatiorem, &c., he hath translated. 
 
 "He said to me, that I was too good and 
 simple, and that oft a man s modesty made a 
 fool of his wit. 
 
 " He dissuaded me from poetry, for that she 
 beggared him, when he might have been a 
 rich lawyer, physician, or merchant." 
 
 One or two incidents of the year 1620 may be 
 briefly noticed. Among Drummond s friends 
 at Court, Sir Robert Kerr of Ancrum, who was 
 himself a poet in a small way, held a high 
 place in his esteem. Early in 1620 this gentle 
 man had the misfortune to kill his man in a duel. 
 His antagonist appears to have been a worth 
 less fellow ; but Kerr found it necessary to with 
 draw for a time to Holland. The following 
 passage from one of Drummond s letters to 
 him on this occasion is so characteristic of the 
 writer s philosophic way of looking at things, 
 that I, cannot refrain from transcribing it. 
 
 "However Fortune turn her wheel, I find 
 you still yourself, and so ballasted with your 
 own worth that you may outdare any storm. 
 
Ix INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 This is that jewel which neither change of 
 Court nor climates can rob you of; of what is 
 yours you have lost nothing. By this quadrant 
 I have ever measured your height ; neither 
 here could the vapours of Court make me err. 
 Long since I learned not to esteem of any 
 golden butterflies there but as of counters, 
 whose places give them only worth." * 
 
 At a later date Drummond writes to the 
 same friend : " Brave minds, like lamps, are 
 discerned when they are canopied with the 
 night of affliction, and, like rubies, give the 
 fairest lustre when they are rubbed. The 
 sight of so many stately towns and differ 
 ing manners of men, the conquest of such 
 friends abroad, and trial of those at home, the 
 leaving of your remembrance so honourable 
 to after times, have made you more happy in 
 your distress than if, like another Endymion, 
 you had slept away that swift course of days 
 in the embracements of your Mistress the 
 Court." t 
 
 A still dearer friend of Drummond s, Sir 
 William Alexander, was even now sleeping 
 away his days, with much discontent, in the 
 embracements of the Court. Honours and high 
 political preferment awaited him in the future ; 
 
 * Folio, 1711, p. 141. 
 f Ibid. p. 142. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR Ixi 
 
 but as yet his greatness had not ripened, and 
 his most important duty was to assist King 
 James in translating the Psalms. In the spring 
 of 1620, Alexander made an attempt to engage 
 Drummond in the same work, no doubt, as 
 Professor Masson suggests, with the view of 
 doing his friend a good turn by introducing 
 him to the King s notice. The attempt failed 
 signally ; probably not at all to Drummond s 
 regret. He did, however, translate a Psalm, 
 and sent his version to Alexander, from whom 
 he received the following reply : 
 
 " BROTHER, I received your last letter, 
 with the Psalm you sent ; which I think very 
 well done. I had done the same long before 
 it came, but he [the King] prefers his own to 
 all else, though perchance, when you see it, 
 you will think it the worst of the three. No 
 man must meddle with that subject, and there 
 fore I advise you to take no more pains therein ; 
 but I, as I have ever wished you, would have 
 you to make choice of some new subject, worthy 
 of your pains, which I should be glad to see. 
 I love the Muses as well as ever I did, but 
 can seldom have the occasion to frequent 
 them. All my works are written over in one 
 book, ready for the press ; but I want leisure 
 to print them. So, referring all further to our 
 
Ixii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 old friend, Sir Archibald Acheson, who is 
 coming home, I continue Your loving friend, 
 
 "W. ALEXANDER.* 
 " LONDON, April 18, 1620." 
 
 The same year Alexander was seriously ill 
 of tertian ague. Drummond s letters to him 
 upon his recovery bear eloquent testimony both 
 to the sincerity of his friendship and the de- 
 voutness of his disposition. Had Alexander 
 died, he writes, " how miserable had the estate 
 of so many been, w r hich all love your life ; for, 
 none being so well loved, this grief had been 
 universal." t And again : " That ye are relieved 
 of your tertian ague et tibi et mihi gratulor. 
 Ye should not despair of your fortunes. He 
 who drew you there and fixed me here contrary 
 to our resolutions, He only from all danger 
 may vindicate our fortunes, and make us sure. 
 He to this time hath brought me in the world 
 to be, without riches, rich ; and then most 
 happily did it fall out with me when I had no 
 hope in man left me ; and this came to me 
 because on Him, and not on man, my hopes 
 relied. And therefore, that now I live, that I 
 enjoy a dear idleness, sweet solitariness, I have 
 it of Him, and not from man. Trust in Him ; 
 
 * Folio, 1711, p. 151. 
 
 f Archccologia Scotica, vol. iv. p. 89. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR Ixiii 
 
 prefer not to certainties uncertain hopes. Con- 
 spiravit in dolores nostros h<zc tzstas : sola dies 
 poterit tantum lenire dolorem ; for we have 
 what to plain and regret together, and I what 
 alone I must lament." * 
 
 In the autumn Drummond himself was pro 
 strated by long illness. In a letter to Alex 
 ander, dated November 1620, he complains of 
 the ignorance of his physicians : " My disease 
 being a pain of the side, they cannot tell to 
 what to ascribe the cause, nor how to help me. 
 If it shall happen me now to die, ye have lost 
 a great admirer of your worth ; and the greatest 
 conquest I have made on earth is that I am 
 assured ye love my remembrance." t About 
 this time he wrote the beautiful and touching 
 sonnet to Alexander, which ends with the Her- 
 rick-like couplet 
 
 " Here Damon lies, whose songs did sometime grace 
 The murmuring Esk : may roses shade the place ! " 
 
 The next two or three years present nothing 
 that needs be recorded. Drummond was living 
 quietly at Hawthornden, preparing for publica 
 tion a new volume of poems. In 1623 the new 
 work appeared : a small quarto volume en 
 titled Flowers of Sion, published at Edinburgh 
 
 * Archceologia Scotica, vol. iv. p. 89. 
 f Ibid. p. 87. 
 
 VOL. I. ! 
 
Ixiv INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 by John Hart, the son and successor of old 
 Andro Hart, who had died in December 1621. 
 Nearly all the pieces in this volume appear to 
 be original : a very few translations from the 
 Italian of Marino are in perfect consent with 
 the prevailing tone of the book. Most of the 
 poems which Drummond had formerly pub 
 lished under the title of Urania were here in 
 cluded, with certain alterations : the rest of the 
 collection was new. 
 
 The whole book is an expression of the most 
 serious and exalted mood of its author. Drum 
 mond here reveals himself as a profoundly 
 religious man, a Christian in the truest sense of 
 the word. To his gentle and tolerant nature the 
 hard bigotry of Scottish Calvinism was utterly 
 repugnant. In the great religious struggle of 
 his time he sided with the bishops ; partly, of 
 course, from his loyalty to the King ; partly 
 also because he thought, and thought justly, 
 that the prelatists, with all their zeal for out 
 ward conformity, threatened less real danger 
 to liberty of conscience than the prying Presby 
 terians. But he was no lover of priestcraft, 
 of whatever complexion, as he subsequently 
 proved very plainly. The reader will not fail 
 to be struck by the freedom from narrow dog 
 matism which characterises Flowers of Ston, 
 especially if he regard the time and place of 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR Ixv 
 
 its production. It appeals, upon the whole, 
 to Christians of all shades of opinion ; more 
 particularly, perhaps, to Christians of a meta 
 physical turn ; and much of it should appeal to 
 non-Christians also. It treats of the sublimest 
 themes divine love and mercy, the beauty of 
 virtue, the vanity of earthly things, the exalta 
 tion of the soul to God. One theme there is 
 which, more than all the rest, kindles the poet s 
 enthusiasm ; and a considerable portion of the 
 book is, in fact, a sermon, in sweet and fervid 
 verse, upon the text, " God is Love." 
 
 But there is something more to be noted. 
 Drummond s mind was enlarged, and his re 
 ligious views were certainly modified, by the 
 study of Plato. In many places of these 
 Flowers of Sion his philosophic bent is mani 
 fest. The beautiful Hymn of the Fairest Fair, 
 "for example, is the production of a Christian as 
 suredly, but of a singularly Platonic Christian : 
 indeed, from certain passages in this poem it 
 appears to me probable that Drummond was 
 acquainted with the writings of Plotinus, "that 
 new Plato, in whom the mystical element in 
 the Platonic philosophy had been worked out 
 to the utmost limit of vision and ecstasy," 
 as Mr. Pater finely says.* Drummond s philo- 
 
 The Renaissance, second edition, p. 40. 
 
Ixvi INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 sophy finds, however, its fullest expression in 
 his prose essay, A Cypress Grove, which was 
 appended to flowers of Sion. Simply as a 
 piece of literary work this essay deserves high 
 praise : Professor Masson likens its stately and 
 melodious style to that of Sir Thomas Browne 
 "in the finest parts of his Urn-Burial" But 
 if as a master of style Drummond was not far 
 inferior to the Norwich physician, as a thinker 
 he was perhaps his superior. A Cypress Grove 
 is a treatise upon Death, which the author con 
 siders both as it appears to be and as it really 
 is. Tried by the test of philosophy, its fictitious 
 terrors vanish ; it is " a piece of the order of 
 this All, a part of the life of this World." 
 
 His reflections are noble, and often profound. 
 Here, for instance, is part of arvaddress to the 
 soul, instinct with the true spirit of Platonism : 
 " Thou seemest a world in thyself, containing 
 heaven, stars, seas, earth, floods, mountains, 
 forests, and all that lives ; yet rests thou not 
 satiate with what is in thyself, nor with all in 
 the wide universe, until thou raise thyself to 
 the contemplation of that first illuminating in 
 telligence, far above time, and even reaching 
 eternity itself, into which thou art transformed." 
 Here, as elsewhere, he scruples not to borrow 
 when it suits his purpose. Witness the follow- 
 i/jg passage : " God containeth all in Him, as 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR Ixvii 
 
 the beginning of all ; man containeth all in him, 
 as the midst of all ; inferior things be in man 
 more nobly than they exist, superior things 
 more meanly ; celestial things favour him, 
 earthly things are vassalled unto him ; he is 
 the knot and band of both." * This, again, is a 
 pregnant sentence which he has upon riches : 
 "They are like to thorns, which, laid on an 
 open hand, are easily blown away, and wound 
 the closing and hard-gripping." 
 
 But it is needless to multiply quotations. 
 These few sentences it seemed desirable to 
 introduce by way of illustrating Drummond s 
 character and philosophic turn of mind ; but 
 the reader will find a reprint of the entire 
 essay in the second volume. I cannot help 
 thinking that Sterne, who was notoriously a lover 
 of out-of-the-way books, had certain passages 
 of this Cypress Grove in his mind when he wrote 
 Mr. Shandy s oration upon the death of his son. 
 
 IV. 
 
 A sonnet which Drummond wrote upon the 
 death of King James, in March 1625, is in the 
 old strain of panegyric ; not to be read without 
 
 * Translated, almost literally, from the Heptaplus of 
 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, book v. c. 6 and 7. 
 
Ixviii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 regret, though we doubt not Drummond s dis 
 interestedness. During the first year or two of 
 Charles s reign, he seems to have been absent 
 from Scotland. His next appearance is in 
 a very unexpected character. On the 29th 
 of September 1626 letters patent "to Mr. 
 William Drmnmond for the making of military 
 machines" were issued at Hampton Court; 
 and the patent was sealed at Holyrood on the 
 24th of December 1627.* After premising that 
 "our faithful subject, Mr. William Drmnmond 
 of Hawthornden, has expended very much 
 time, labour, and money in the devising and 
 fabricating of various machines, which may be 
 of use and profit to the State in the affairs both 
 of peace and war," the patent proceeds to 
 recount the particulars of the various inven 
 tions. There are fifteen in all, each distin 
 guished by a long Greek appellation, as well 
 as an English name for common use. Some 
 of the " warlike engines " look alarming enough 
 upon paper. Number Nine, for example, is "a 
 new kind of vessel, which will be able, without 
 check from any strength of chains, bars, or 
 batteries, to enter any harbours, and either 
 
 * The original Latin text of this curious document is 
 printed in the folio edition of Drummond s Works, pp. 
 2 35> 2 36. I quote from Professor Masson s translation 
 (Drummond of Hawthornden, pp. 156-161). 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR kix 
 
 destroy all the shipping by fire, or capture them 
 by force ; which vessel, from its truly stupen 
 dous and terrible effect, and its dreadful de- 
 structiveness to ships and harbours, deserves 
 to be called AifievoXodpcvTTjs [///. destroyer of 
 harbours], vulgarly Leviathan." Number Seven 
 is an adaptation to modern warfare of the 
 ancient Helepolis, under the name of the Ele 
 phant or the Cavalier Errant. The Box-Pistol, 
 Pike-Arquebuss, Fiery Waggon, Open Ordnance, 
 Flat-Scourer, and Cutter, are the vulgar appel 
 lations of the other military machines. Besides 
 these, the patent includes an instrument for 
 observing the strength of winds ; a new kind of 
 light craft, to be called, from its swiftness, the 
 Sea-Postilion; an instrument for reckoning the 
 longitude ; an instrument for converting salt 
 water into fresh ; a set of burning glasses, to 
 be called Glasses of Archimedes j a kind of 
 telescope, called Lynxes Eyes; and lastly, a 
 machine for producing, "from a natural and 
 never wearied cause," perpetual motion. The 
 patent secures to Mr. William Drummond and 
 his assigns the sole right of making and selling 
 these various machines for the space of twenty- 
 one years, " inasmuch as the said Mr. William 
 Drummond has, with singular industry, and no 
 common ingenuity, thought out these, and not 
 a few inventions besides, and justice and right 
 
hex INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 demand that each one shall enjoy the rewards 
 of his own virtue." The final paragraph, how 
 ever, provides that the patent shall be of no 
 force with regard to any of the machines which 
 shall not have been reduced to practice within 
 three years of its date. There is no reason 
 to believe that any one of the machines was 
 reduced to practice within three years, or at 
 any subsequent period. Our ingenious poet 
 had evidently a turn for theoretical mechanics, 
 but the history of his inventions begins and 
 ends with the letters patent. 
 
 In 1627, Drummond bestowed a handsome gift 
 upon his Alma Mater, the University of Edin 
 burgh, in the form of a collection of some five hun 
 dred books and manuscripts, which are still kept 
 in a separate cabinet of the library. A catalogue 
 of this collection was published the same year by 
 John Hart, with an excellent little dissertation 
 on libraries by Drummond, by way of preface. 
 
 He was again absent from home, and pro 
 bably on the Continent, during the years 1628 
 and 1629, and we hear no more of him until 
 the spring of 1630, when he writes from Haw- 
 thornden to a kinsman at Court one Sir 
 Maurice Drummond, gentleman-usher to the 
 Queen.* It is likely that he visited Barns in 
 
 * Letter printed in the Folio of 1711, pp. 145, 146. It 
 is dated May 12, 1630, and contains some characteristic 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR Ixxi 
 
 the following winter. At all events, he speaks 
 of the prospect of such a visit in a letter dated 
 December 1630, "to his loving friend A. Cun 
 ningham, Laird of Barns ; " probably a brother 
 of the young lady whom he had hoped to wed. 
 She had been dead now fifteen years, and 
 Drummond was still a bachelor, though not 
 much longer to remain so. The following, 
 from the Memoir prefixed to the Folio of 1711, 
 is what brief account we have of his marriage, 
 which took place in the year 1632* "By acci 
 dent he saw one Elizabeth Logan, grandchild 
 of Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig, a great and. 
 ancient family in this place, and fancying she 
 had a great resemblance of his first mistress 
 (whose idea had been deeply impressed, and 
 stuck long in his mind), he fell in love with 
 her, and married her after he was forty-five 
 [read, forty-six] years of age." 
 
 There is some uncertainty, nevertheless, re 
 garding the extraction of Elizabeth Logan, 
 although it seems probable that the above 
 account is correct. The Memoirs of Father 
 Augustin Hay, Canon of Ste. Gdnevieve, Paris, 
 
 advice. Drummond tells his kinsman that he is too 
 honest for preferment at Court, and recommends him to 
 return to his native country. 
 
 * The date from Douglas s Baronage of Scotland, Art. 
 DRUMMOND OF HAWTHORNDEN. 
 
 I UNIVERSITY! 
 
 ^^?4/ /r/^ovuSk. J 
 
Ixxii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 contain some interesting particulars as to the 
 family of our poet interesting, at least, if they 
 may be relied upon ; but they appear set down 
 in so malicious a spirit that they deserve to be 
 received with great circumspection.* Here, 
 however, to be taken for what it is worth, is 
 Father Hay s account of Drummond s marriage. 
 "Att 45 years of adge, he married unexpectedly 
 Elisabeth Logan, a minister s daughter of Edlis- 
 ton [Eddleston in Peeblesshire], which church 
 is within a quarter of a mile of Darnhill [Darn- 
 hall], principal dwelling-house to Blackbarrony. 
 Her mother was a shepherd s daughter. The 
 family of Hawthornden pretends that she was 
 daughter to the Laird of Cottfeild, and grand 
 child to Sir Robert Logan of Restalrig : but no 
 sutch matter." 
 
 Drummond s career as a poet was now well- 
 nigh at an end. It is true he continued occa 
 sionally to produce verses to the last year of 
 his life, and was yet to publish one or two such 
 productions, of little importance ; but Flowers 
 of Sion^ of which a second edition had appeared 
 in 1630, was his last poetical publication of real 
 value. Not that his literary productivity was 
 less than heretofore, but from this time onward 
 
 * See the extracts from these Memoirs (1700) printed 
 in Appendix II. to the Genealogy of the House of Drum- 
 mond : Edinburgh, 1831. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 it was chiefly exercised in prose, and in works 
 of a political or historical character. With the 
 exception of A Cypress Grove, none of Drum- 
 mond s prose works was printed during his 
 lifetime, although certain of his political pieces 
 appear to have circulated to some extent in 
 manuscript. 
 
 His earliest incursion into the distressful 
 region of politics was made soon after his mar 
 riage. In December 1632 he wrote a short 
 paper, entitled Considerations to the King* 
 and evidently designed for Charles s perusal. 
 The subject is not of much present interest, 
 and may be dismissed in a few sentences. 
 William Graham, Earl of Menteith, had put 
 forward a claim to the long-disused title of Earl 
 of Stratherne, on the ground of his descent from 
 David Stuart, Earl of Stratherne, a son of 
 Robert II. of Scotland; and the claim having 
 been made good, the title was duly granted by 
 the King. The mischief lay in this : that the 
 revival of the ancient earldom of Stratherne 
 opened the way to a revival of an ancient con 
 troversy concerning the pretended illegitimacy 
 of Robert III., and the prior right to the throne 
 of his half-brother David, the Earl of Stratherne 
 aforesaid. Robert s illegitimacy being estab 
 lished, it would follow that not he alone, but all 
 
 * Printed in the Folio of 1711, pp. 129-131. 
 
Ixxiv INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 the succeeding Scottish monarchs were no 
 better than usurpers, and that the true right to 
 the crown of Scotland rested with the descen 
 dants of David Stuart, at that time represented 
 by the Earl of Menteith. Such pretensions 
 were no doubt far enough from Menteith s 
 mind, but he had been heard to speak indis 
 creetly upon the subject. Now the poet of 
 Hawthornden was keenly alive to anything 
 affecting the honour of Annabella Drummond s 
 posterity, and his paper of Considerations con 
 tains a serious expostulation with the King upon 
 the impolicy of admitting Menteith s claim. 
 Whether the paper was shown to Charles, we 
 know not ; but by some means his jealousy was 
 aroused, and the unfortunate descendant of 
 David Stuart found himself deprived, not only 
 of his new title, but of his earldom of Menteith 
 into the bargain. 
 
 In the summer of 1633, King Charles, long 
 expected, came to Scotland to be crowned. His 
 entry into Edinburgh, on the I5th of June, was 
 graced with a pageant of surpassing magnifi 
 cence, prepared by George Jamesone, the most 
 distinguished Scottish painter of the day. The 
 speeches for the pageant were written by Drum- 
 mond, and published the same year in a little 
 volume entitled The Entertainment of the High 
 and Mighty Monarch Charles, King of Great 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR Ixxv 
 
 Britain, France, and Ireland, into his ancient 
 and royal city of Edinburgh. There is still 
 something of the old melody in Drummond s 
 verses, but the Entertainment falls far short of 
 the beautiful Forth Feasting in every respect 
 but that of adulation. The coronation over 
 (June 1 8), the King opened his Scottish Parlia 
 ment in person ; got certain acts relating to 
 Church matters carried, though not without 
 strong opposition ; and the next month departed 
 for England, in a very ill humour at the obsti 
 nate Presbyterianism of his Scottish subjects. 
 He had distributed honours pretty freely during 
 this visit ; to two of Drummond s friends, among 
 the rest. One of these was Sir Robert Kerr, 
 now created Earl of Ancrum ; the other deserves 
 a paragraph to himself. 
 
 As far back as the year 1620 we left Sir 
 William Alexander grumbling about his pros 
 pects, and versifying Psalms with King James. 
 His prospects had since considerably bright 
 ened ; had become indeed no longer prospects 
 merely, but accomplished facts. The star of 
 his worldly fortunes had been in the ascendant 
 from 1621, when he obtained a grant, by royal 
 charter, of the territory of New Scotland, com 
 prising not only the present Nova Scotia, but 
 an immense tract of the mainland north of New 
 England. Upon the accession of Charles this 
 
Ixxvi INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 charter was confirmed, and although, by the 
 treaty of peace in 1629, most of the territory 
 was ceded to France, which indeed had a prior 
 claim to it, Sir William s efforts to colonise 
 were thought to have added considerably to 
 his wealth. In January 1626 he was appointed 
 principal Secretary of State for Scotland, which 
 office he held during the remainder of his 
 life. In 1630 he was created Lord Alexander 
 of Tullibody and Viscount Stirling ; and lastly, 
 on the occasion of Charles s coronation at Edin 
 burgh, he was further dignified by the titles of 
 Earl of Stirling and Viscount Canada. His 
 "works," which were so long since "written 
 over in one book, ready for the press," were not 
 yet published : to be published, however, in 
 1637, under the title of Recreations ivith the 
 Muses j the volume containing little of impor 
 tance which had not previously appeared. 
 
 The Entertainment of King Charles was not 
 the only literary work upon which Drummond 
 was this year engaged. By far the longest of 
 his productions, a History of Scotland from the 
 year 1423 until the year 1542 z>., from the 
 accession of King James I. to the death of 
 King James V. was begun in 1633, during a 
 visit, it is said, to his brother-in-law, Scot of 
 Scotstarvet. It was completed some ten or 
 eleven years later, and dedicated by the author 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR kxvii 
 
 to the Earl of Perth ; but was not published 
 until 1655, more than five years after Drum- 
 mond s death. For the student of history 
 Drummond s narrative has little value, but it is 
 pleasantly written, and may still be read with 
 some interest. Following the example of Livy, 
 he introduces imaginary orations, in which he 
 sometimes takes occasion to air his own views, 
 especially upon the questions of submission to 
 the sovereign and religious toleration. A privy 
 councillor of James V., for example, is made to 
 declare, in the course of a long speech to his 
 master, that "religion cannot be preached by 
 arms," and that "force and compulsion may 
 bring forth hypocrites, not true Christians." 
 
 It was probably also in 1633 that our poet 
 compiled a genealogical table of the house of 
 Drummond, which he sent to the Earl of Perth. 
 A few sentences from the letter which accom 
 panied it may be quoted. "My noble Lord," it 
 begins, "though, as Glaucus says to Diomed in 
 Homer 
 
 Like the race of leaves 
 The race of man is, that deserves no question ; nor 
 
 receives 
 
 Hisbeingany other breath. The wind in autumn strows 
 The earth with old leaves, then the spring the woods 
 with new endows ; * 
 
 * From Chapman s translation of the Iliad, book vi. 
 11. 141-144. 
 
Ixxviii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 yet I have ever thought the knowledge of 
 kindred, and the genealogies of the ancient 
 families of a country, a matter so far from con 
 tempt that it deserveth highest praise. Herein 
 consisteth a part of the knowledge of a man s 
 own self. It is a great spur to virtue to look 
 back on the worth of our line. . . . This moved 
 me to essay this Table of your Lordship s 
 House ; which is not inferior to the best and 
 greatest in this isle. It is but roughly (I confess) 
 hewn, nakedly limned, and, after better infor 
 mations, to be amended." * The amendment of 
 this Table was, in fact, one of the poet s occupa 
 tions during the last year of his life.t 
 
 Royalist and anti-Presbyterian as Drummond 
 was, it is odd that his first intervention in the 
 growing dispute between Charles and his 
 Scottish subjects should have taken the form 
 of a remonstrance against the policy of the 
 King. Certain lords and gentlemen of the 
 Presbyterian party (the Earl of Rothes at 
 their head), who had been zealous in opposi 
 tion to the Kirk Acts which Charles had 
 
 * Letter printed in the Folio of 1711, p. 136. 
 
 f Drummond s Table, with later interpolations, is 
 printed, under the title of a History of the Family of 
 Perth, as Appendix I. to the Genealogy of the House of 
 Drummond, by William Drummond, Viscount Strath- 
 allan : Edinburgh, 1831. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR Ixxix 
 
 forced through the Scottish Parliament imme 
 diately after his coronation, had drawn up a 
 " Supplication," which they purposed to present 
 to His Majesty. Herein they apologised for 
 their resistance of the King s measures, pro 
 tested their good affection, hinted at various 
 grievances, and finally implored the King not 
 to insist upon introducing into the Scottish 
 Church innovations which did not stand with 
 the conscience of the Scottish people. The 
 tone of the paper was throughout loyal and 
 respectful. Upon second thoughts, however, 
 the petitioners decided not to present it, and 
 nothing would have been heard of the matter 
 had not one of them, Lord Balmerino, un 
 luckily preserved a copy. Through some 
 carelessness this fact became known, and a 
 copy of the document found its way to the 
 hands of John Spotswood, Archbishop of St. 
 Andrews, the head of the Anglican party 
 in Scotland. The Archbishop at once com 
 municated his discovery to the King, and 
 the result was, briefly, that in June 1634, 
 Lord Balmerino was arrested and thrown into 
 prison, to await there his trial on the capital 
 charge of possessing and being concerned in 
 an Infamous Libel against the King s govern 
 ment. The trial did not take place until the 
 8th of March 1635, when Lord Balmerino was 
 
 VOL. I. f 
 
Ixxx INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 convicted by the casting vote of the chairman 
 of the jury, the Earl of Traquair. 
 
 Now Drummond, as we know, had not the 
 slightest sympathy with Balmerino and his 
 party. But if he disliked Presbyterianism, he 
 detested tyranny. Therefore he wrote a paper, 
 which is published among his works under 
 the title of An Apologetical Letter* and is 
 dated March 2, 1635, six days before the trial. 
 This paper he addressed to his friend Kerr, 
 Earl of Ancrum, that the latter might com 
 municate its contents to the King if he deemed 
 it advisable. And as Professor Masson observes, 
 "there was real courage in this, inasmuch as 
 the paper is a ten times sharper and more out 
 spoken remonstrance with His Majesty than the 
 Infamous Libel which is the subject of it." t 
 
 Drummond has nothing to say in favour of 
 the libel : " an idle piece of paper," he calls 
 it ; " such a paper should have been answered 
 by a pen, not by an axe." But he has much 
 to say in favour of the right to freedom of 
 speech, and adduces many historical examples 
 of the ill effects of interfering with that right. 
 It is wiser in a prince, and more fitting his 
 fame, to slight and contemn libels, than to 
 be too curious in searching out the authors. 
 
 * Folio, 1711, pp. 132-134. 
 
 f Drummond of Hawthornden, p. 237. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 Besides, " if they be presented by way of sup 
 plications for redressing of errors in the state, 
 it is a question whether they be libels or not." 
 "No prince, how great soever, can abolish 
 pens ; nor will the memorials of ages be ex 
 tinguished by present power." Upon "errors 
 in the state " of Scotland he writes in a strain 
 to which King Charles was as yet little accus 
 tomed. "There is none in all his kingdom 
 here can reckon himself lord of his own goods 
 amongst so many taxes and taillages, so much 
 pilling and polling." " It hath often been found 
 that nothing hath sooner armed a people than 
 poverty, and poverty hath never so often been 
 brought upon a nation by the unfruitfulness 
 of the earth, by disasters of seas, and other 
 human accidents, as by the avarice of the 
 officers and favourites of princes ; who are 
 brought foolishly to believe that by tearing 
 off the skins of the flock, they shall turn the 
 shepherd rich. It is no property of a good 
 shepherd to shear often his flock, and ever to 
 milk them. Nor is it of a prince to gall and 
 perpetually afflict a people by a terrible ex 
 chequer. Brutorum se regemfatit qui premit 
 suos? He concludes with this noble sentence : 
 "A prince should be such towards his subjects 
 as he would have God Eternal towards him, 
 who, full of mercy, spareth peopled cities, and 
 
Ixxxii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 darteth His thunders amongst the vast and 
 wild mountains." 
 
 Balmerino was ultimately released, though 
 not until more than four months after his trial. 
 But the glaring iniquity of proceeding to the 
 death-penalty for such an offence was too 
 much for the King s advisers, especially in view 
 of the state of popular feeling in Scotland ; and 
 even Laud was now on the side of mercy. 
 
 V. 
 
 The year 1637 brought matters in Scotland 
 to a crisis. Laud s attempt to introduce the 
 new liturgy failed ignominiously, and the riots 
 in Edinburgh were the signal for universal 
 revolt. It seemed at first as if the obstinacy 
 of the King would keep pace with the resolution 
 of his subjects. Their protests were answered 
 by menaces and royal proclamations, until in 
 March 1638 the Scottish people solemnly 
 banded themselves together by a renewal of 
 the Covenant to defend their national religion, 
 and resist innovations to the utmost of their 
 power. Charles hungered for war, but for war 
 he was not prepared, and the only alternative 
 was to treat with the Covenanters. He accord 
 ingly despatched the Marquis of Hamilton to 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR Ixxxiii 
 
 Scotland to make what minimum of concession 
 was absolutely unavoidable, and this minimum 
 proved to be a full acceptance of the Scottish 
 terms, announced by the King s proclamation 
 of September 22. The obnoxious innovations 
 were abolished, the new liturgy was revoked ; 
 the King consented to a limitation of episco 
 pacy, and to the summoning of a General 
 Assembly at Glasgow in the month of Novem 
 ber following. 
 
 Upon this occasion Drummond produced 
 one of the longest and most important of his 
 prose treatises. It is entitled " Irene [Peace]. 
 A Remonstrance for Concord, Amity and Love, 
 amongst his Majesty s Subjects; written after 
 his Declaration publish d at Edinburgh, 2.2nd 
 of September 1638 ;"* and it is in substance a 
 very eloquent and earnest appeal to the author s 
 countrymen of all classes, to forget their differ 
 ences, and unite in a general reconciliation 
 upon the basis of His Majesty s gracious con 
 cessions. But Drummond can hardly have 
 been very sanguine as to the event of his 
 appeal. Had the King s concessions been made 
 in good faith, or had the Covenanters been 
 content with the liberty of worshipping their 
 
 * Irene was not published until 1711. It is in the 
 folio edition of Drummond s Works, pp. 163-173, and 
 has never been reprinted. 
 
Ixxxiv INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 God after their own fashion, a settlement might 
 have been hoped for. But the facts were far 
 otherwise. Charles had simply yielded for the 
 moment to superior force, while to the Cove 
 nanters the right to liberty of conscience was 
 a thankless gift, unless it were joined with the 
 right to deny that liberty of conscience to 
 every one besides. 
 
 Irene begins in Drummond s most picturesque 
 manner : " As pilgrims, wandering in the night 
 by the inconstant glances of the moon, when 
 they behold the morning gleams ; as mariners, 
 after tempests on the seas, at their arrival in 
 safe harbours ; as men that are perplexed and 
 taken with some ugly visions and afrrightments 
 in their slumbers, when they are awaked and 
 calmly roused up ; so did this kingdom, state, 
 nay, the whole isle, amidst those suspicions, 
 jealousies, surmises, misrepresentations, terrors 
 more than panic, after the late declaration of 
 the King s Majesty find themselves surprised 
 and over-reached with unexpected and inex 
 pressible joys. Religion was mourning, Justice 
 wandering, Peace seeking whither to fly ; a 
 strange, hideous, grim, and pale shadow of a 
 government was begun to crawl abroad, put 
 ting up a hundred heads. Men s courages 
 were growing hot, their hatred kindled, all 
 either drawing their swords or laying hands 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR Ixxxv 
 
 upon them. The enemy was the country ; the 
 quarrel, differences of opinions. Towns were 
 pestered with guards of armed citizens, the 
 country and villages thralled with dormant 
 musters ; the danger seemed great, the fear 
 greater : all expected the prince would enter 
 the lists. And so he did ! Mean things must 
 yield unto the more noble ; mat amor patriot; 
 that same wind which gathered the clouds did 
 dissipate them. He not only giveth way to our 
 zeal, graciously assenting to all our desires, but 
 condescendeth, nay commandeth, that our own 
 writ should be current, and embraced by all his 
 subjects. To human eyes a perfect conclusion 
 of our wretched distractions." 
 
 " The quarrel, differences of opinions," says 
 Drummond, and truly ; but there was another 
 question involved : was the country to be ruled 
 by the will of the people, or by that of the King? 
 On this point Drummond is perfectly clear. He 
 stands for the principle of unconditional submis 
 sion to the will of the sovereign. " Obedience 
 being the strongest pedestal of concord, and 
 concord the principal pillar of state, we should 
 always embrace and follow her if we would 
 enjoy a . civil happiness." If there be that 
 which displeases us in the edicts of the prince, 
 "let us apply the remedies of patience and 
 obedience." " It is not lawful for a subject to 
 
Ixxxvi INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 be a syndic of the actions of his prince in 
 matters of state, being for the most part 
 ignorant of the secret causes and motives upon 
 which they are grounded ; it belonging only to 
 God Almighty, the searcher of all hearts, to 
 censure and judge the actions of princes, from 
 whom alone they have their royal power and 
 sovereignty." 
 
 There is much more to the same effect, all, 
 doubtless, very mistaken ; yet the loyal poet 
 was not wholly without apology. If he pre 
 ferred the despotism of one man to the tyranny 
 of a multitude, we ought to consider, before 
 condemning him, the character of the multitude 
 which he had in view, and what kind of tyranny 
 theirs was likely to prove. The Scottish Presby 
 terians did not stand, as the English Indepen 
 dents, for liberty of conscience, but for a hierarchy 
 far more oppressive than that of Laud. Never, 
 in the days of her worst despotism, had the 
 Church of Rome exercised a more arbitrary 
 control over the words and actions of her 
 subjects than was now claimed by the Presby 
 terian Kirk of Scotland. Drummond knew 
 already the truth which Milton afterwards ex 
 pressed that new Presbyter was but old Priest 
 writ large. Perhaps, too, he had seen that the 
 influence of Calvinism upon the lives of the 
 people was not such as to afford a very strong 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR Ixxxvii 
 
 argument in its favour. Here is a curious little 
 bit of evidence on this point, from an unbiassed 
 witness: "I thought I, should have found in 
 Scotland," wrote Oliver Cromwell in 1650, "a con 
 scientious people and a barren country : about 
 Edinburgh, it is as fertile for corn as any part 
 of England ; but the people generally are so 
 given to the most impudent lying, and frequent 
 swearing, as is incredible to be believed."* 
 
 In Irene Drummond charged the Covenanting 
 nobles, and certainly not without some know 
 ledge of the matter, with using religion as a 
 cloak to cover worldly ends. He warned them 
 that in warring against monarchy they were 
 compassing their own destruction: "Ye may 
 one day expect a Sicilian evensong." The 
 common people he regarded as imposed upon 
 by their leaders ; but his keenest satire and 
 invective were levelled against the Presbyterian 
 clergy. I purpose to quote a few more sen 
 tences from Irene: meanwhile, to finish Drum- 
 mond s apology, let us take notice that there 
 was a wide difference in the position of affairs 
 in Scotland and in England. In England 
 there was actually a party which professed, 
 as Cromwell nobly said, " in things of the mind 
 to look for no compulsion but that of light and 
 
 * Carlyle s Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 218 : ed. 1857. 
 
Ixxxviii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 reason." Not that Drummond could have been 
 other than a royalist, had he been an English 
 man ; his royalism was far too deeply rooted. 
 But in Scotland he had no choice but of two 
 evils. There was no middle way between the 
 King and the Covenant, and considering all 
 that the Covenant implied, we cannot wonder, 
 nor greatly blame him, if he preferred the King. 
 
 The address to the clergy in Irene contains 
 some home-truths capable of a wide applica 
 tion. Drummond apostrophises them in a tone 
 of the bitterest irony. " Ye lights of the world, 
 examples of holiness and all virtues, you living 
 libraries of knowledge, sanctuaries of goodness, 
 look upon the fragility of mankind ! . . . Pity 
 the human race, spare the blood of man ; the 
 earth is drunk with it, the waters empurpled, 
 the air empoisoned ; and all by you. ... By 
 you kingdom hath been raised against kingdom, 
 citizens against themselves, subjects against 
 their sovereigns. . . . Our God left duty for a 
 law ; ye teach cruelty for God s service. Your 
 cruelty, many hundred years since, moved a 
 heathen to write, that no savage beasts were 
 so noisome and hurtful to men as Christians 
 were to themselves." 
 
 Not the Presbyterian clergy alone were in 
 Drummond s thoughts when he thus addressed 
 them. But further : " Sacred race ! have you 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR Ixxxix 
 
 no remorse when ye enter into the cabinets of 
 your own hearts, and there, for arras and por 
 traits, find millions of Christians represented 
 unto you disfigured, massacred, butchered, and 
 made havoc of in all the fashions the imagina 
 tions of wicked mankind could devise, for the 
 maintaining of those opinions and problems 
 which ye are conscious to yourselves are but 
 Centaurs children, the imaginations and fancies 
 of your own brains, concerning which ye would 
 argue with and chide one another, but never 
 shed one ounce of your blood ? . . . Our Master 
 said, He sent out His disciples as sheep amongst 
 wolves ; but now of many churchmen it may 
 be said, they come out as wolves in the midst 
 of sheep, that for bread they have given stones 
 to their children, and for fishes serpents. With 
 what countenances can ye look upon your 
 Master, at whose nativity angels proclaimed 
 the joyful embassy of peace unto men and 
 glory to God ; whose last will was love and 
 peace ; who so often recommended patience 
 and suffering; whose example in all His actions 
 ever crieth peace? But ye have transformed 
 truth into rhetoric, by your commentaries de 
 stroyed the texts ; the shadows have deprived 
 us of the bodies." 
 
 He gives them excellent advice. " Compound 
 your differences arid controversies ; study unity 
 
xc INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 and not distractions ; seek not so much cun 
 ningly to make men know what goodness is, 
 as to make them embrace and cheerfully follow 
 it. A little practice of goodness is many degrees 
 above abstract contemplations, disputes, and 
 your learned orations ! ... Of the diversity 
 and variety which is in this world ariseth that 
 beauty so wonderful and amazing to our eyes. 
 We find not two persons of one and the same 
 shape, figure, and lineaments of the face, 
 much less of the same conditions, qualities, 
 and humours, though they be of the self-same 
 parents ; and why do we seek to find men all 
 of one thought and one opinion in formalities 
 and matters disputable ? Why should we only 
 honour and respect those of our opinions as 
 our friends, and carry ourselves towards others 
 as if they were beasts and trees, nay, as our 
 enemies ? Were it not more seemly and meet 
 to make a difference between men according 
 to their vice or virtue ? There be many wicked 
 men of our profession, and a great number of 
 good and civil men of other professions. Sua - 
 denda est religio, non imperanda. The con 
 sciences of men neither should nor will be 
 forced by the violence of iron and fire ; nor 
 will souls be compelled to believe that which 
 they believe not : they are not drawn nor sub 
 dued but by evidence and demonstrations." 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xci 
 
 In conclusion, Drummond addresses the King 
 himself in words of warning as well as of 
 entreaty. He tells him it was not religion 
 alone which occasioned these troubles : they 
 were partly due to misgovernment. Above 
 all things, he cautions him not to attempt the 
 subduement of his people by force of arms. 
 " If you should, Sir, you shall make your power 
 odious every way .... The drawing of your 
 sword against them shall be the drawing of 
 it against yourself." Clemency is with kings a 
 kind of justice. If his subjects have lost any 
 thing of what they feign to be liberty, let the 
 King restore it to them ; let him "change their 
 troubles into rest, their miseries into prosperity, 
 their dissensions into concord and peace." 
 
 It had been well for Charles if he could have 
 taken to heart some such advice as this ; but 
 on both sides Drummond was casting his 
 pearls before persons incapable of perceiving 
 their value. The Glasgow Assembly met on 
 the 2 ist of November 1638, and it was quickly 
 evident that the breach was widening instead 
 of closing. Not satisfied with the limitation 
 of episcopacy to which Charles had already 
 consented, the Assembly determined upon its 
 total extirpation, and summoned the bishops 
 to appear before its tribunal. Thereupon the 
 Marquis of Hamilton, acting for the King, 
 
xcii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 pronounced the Assembly dissolved ; and the 
 Assembly, continuing to sit in defiance of the 
 Marquis, deposed and excommunicated the 
 Scottish bishops, abolished the Episcopal Church, 
 and established Presbyterianism as the national 
 form of religion. There could be no doubt as 
 to the event of these proceedings, and the Scots 
 accordingly prepared for war. Castles were 
 seized and garrisoned, an army was raised, and 
 the command was entrusted to Field-Marshal 
 Lesley, an officer who had served with dis 
 tinction in Germany under the King of Sweden, 
 the famous Gustavus Adolphus. 
 
 It was during this year that Drummond 
 completed the rebuilding, or partial rebuild 
 ing, of his house at Hawthornden. "The 
 mansion of Hawthornden which tourists now 
 admire, peaked so picturesquely on its high 
 rock in the romantic glen of the Esk, is not 
 the identical house which Ben Jonson saw, 
 and in which he and Drummond had their 
 immortal colloquies, but Drummond s enlarged 
 edifice of 1638, preserving in it one hardly 
 knows what fragments of the older building."* 
 Above the doorway of the new house the poet 
 caused the following inscription to be carved : 
 Divino munere Gulielmus Drummondus ab 
 
 * Masson s Drummond of Hawthornden, p. 289. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xciif 
 
 Hawthornden,Joannis, Equitis Aurati, Filius, 
 ut honesto otio quiesceret, sibi et successoribus 
 instauravit, 1638. 
 
 Ut honesto otio qtdesceret ! Alas, poor 
 Drummond ! 
 
 There is no need to dwell here upon the 
 details of the first Bishops War. All the 
 histories tell how Charles, with great difficulty, 
 assembled an army in the spring of 1639, and 
 came northward to chastise his rebellious sub 
 jects ; how the Scottish general marched his 
 forces to the border, and encamped on Dunse 
 Law ; and how, after all, the King would not 
 venture to attack the Scots, but consented to a 
 treaty (June 18), which left them masters of the 
 situation. But what was Drummond doing 
 the while? He had been taxed, with the rest 
 of Scotland, for the maintenance of the army, 
 and had received orders from the Covenanting 
 Committee to proceed to the border with a 
 party of gentlemen, to resist the English ; 
 which orders, as we gather from a letter of his 
 to the Marquis of Douglas,* he thought fit to 
 disobey. He was compelled, however, to sign 
 the Covenant, probably in the spring of 1639, 
 and we may reasonably suppose that he owed 
 
 * Printed in Archceologia Scotica, voL iv. pp. 97, 98. 
 
xciv INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 his exemption from severer treatment to the 
 good offices of his old friend Ancrum s son, 
 the Earl of Lothian, who was a leading man 
 among the Covenanters, and a near neighbour 
 of Drummond s. Meanwhile he relieved his 
 feelings by the composition of various bits of 
 satirical epigram in verse, and three or four 
 longer pieces in prose. 
 
 The Magical Mirror j or, a Declaration upon 
 the Rising of the Noblemen, Barons, Gentlemen, 
 and Burgesses, in Arms, April I, 1639,* is the 
 title of the first of these prose pieces, and its 
 authorship being considered, a very singular 
 production it is ! A temperate and candid 
 defence of the people for taking up arms in 
 behalf of their religion, without the least ap 
 parent irony, is not precisely the kind of paper 
 we should have expected from Drummond ; 
 yet this is an exact description of The Magical 
 Mirror. There is an appendix, however, en 
 titled Queries of State,\ which explains the 
 riddle. Drummond s design was, to bring 
 together all the arguments which could be 
 adduced in support of the popular cause, and to 
 present them as fairly and forcibly as possible ; 
 trusting to his appended queries to indicate 
 their weak points and insufficiency. But on 
 
 * Printed in the Folio of 1711, pp. 174-176. 
 f Ibid. pp. 177, 178. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xcv 
 
 this occasion he certainly overshot the mark. 
 The case for the Covenanters is so impartially 
 stated and so admirably argued, as scarcely to 
 be shaken by the brief and inadequate queries 
 which follow. 
 
 The second paper is more in the old vein. 
 This is entitled A Speech to the Noblemen, 
 Barons, Gentlemen, &c., who have leagued 
 themselves for the Defence of the Religion and 
 Liberty of Scotland, and is dated May 2, 1639.* 
 It contains an eloquent protest against the 
 war, and a setting -forth of the miseries likely 
 to ensue upon it. A third paper, called The 
 Idea,\ is unfinished, and was perhaps never 
 intended for anything more serious than the 
 fanciful speculation of an idle hour. The 
 "idea" was, that the divisions and disorders 
 in Great Britain were directly due to foreign 
 intrigue, having been excited and fomented by 
 French and Imperialist emissaries. The fourth 
 and last of these prose pieces is called The 
 Load Star, or Directory to the New World 
 and Trans formations.^ It consists of a series 
 of satirical directions for the widening of the 
 breach between Charles and the Scottish 
 people. The irony, however, is not always 
 
 * Printed in the Folio of 171-1, pp. 179-182. 
 f Ibid. pp. 220, 221. 
 + Ibid. pp. 183, 184. 
 VOL. I. 
 
xcvi INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 very obvious, and some of the directions are 
 such as any Presbyterian might have written in 
 good earnest. 
 
 On the 1 2th of August 1639 a new General 
 Assembly, and shortly afterwards a new Par 
 liament, met in Edinburgh, according to the 
 terms of the treaty. The acts of the Glasgow 
 Assembly were confirmed, and the signing of 
 the Covenant was now made obligatory upon 
 all Scotsmen. Again Drummond indulged his 
 satirical bent in the writing of a paper entitled 
 Considerations to the Parliament, September 
 1639.* This paper consists of a long series of 
 proposed enactments, conceived in a spirit of 
 rather clumsy humour. Drummond s satire is 
 usually biting in proportion to its seriousness : 
 of the lighter kind, which he here attempts, he 
 was not a master. Two or three of the more 
 humorous of the Considerations may, however, 
 be given as specimens. 
 
 " That it shall be lawful, in time of trouble 
 and necessity, for the Provost of Edinburgh to 
 offer up his prayers in the Cathedral Church 
 by shot of pistols, which are more, conform to 
 the times than organs. 
 
 " That, in time of war, it shall be lawful, for 
 the weal of the kingdom, to the noblemen, 
 
 * Folio of 1711, pp. 185-187. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xcvii 
 
 barons, &c., to choose a Dictator, providing he 
 can neither read nor write.* 
 
 "That no man stand bare-headed in the 
 Presence Chamber or Parliament House of 
 Scotland, or before any chair of state, since 
 hereby open idolatry is committed, and a wor 
 ship of Lions and Unicorns. 
 
 " That no man swear the Oath of Supremacy, 
 except in England ; yet it shall be lawful for 
 any man to swear it to his wife, if he please." 
 
 VI. 
 
 Early in the next year (February 12, 1640) 
 died Drummond s old and attached friend, 
 Alexander, Earl of Stirling. His honours had 
 not brought him much happiness. Private 
 griefs and his increasing unpopularity with his 
 countrymen had embittered his last years. His 
 wealth, too, had melted away, and it appears 
 that he died insolvent. In the spring of 1638 
 he had lost his eldest son, Lord Alexander, a 
 young man of great promise ; and his second 
 son, Sir Anthony, had died but a few months 
 earlier. The latter was commemorated by 
 Drummond in a Pastoral Elegy, the last poem 
 
 * This, says Professor Masson, was a hit at Lesley, 
 who- was rather illiterate. . 
 
xcviii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 which he gave to the public. Stirling had con 
 tinued to reside generally in London, in the 
 capacity of Scottish Secretary. Of the manner 
 in which he fulfilled the duties of that office 
 Dr. Grosart speaks in terms of high, and pro 
 bably not wholly undeserved, eulogy, and we 
 may agree with him that the secret of Stirling s 
 unpopularity "is to be found in his width of 
 view and fine impartiality." * But as a royalist 
 and anti- Presbyterian, how could Stirling be 
 other than unpopular in Scotland ? " Old and 
 extremely hated," wrote Baillie the Covenanter 
 of him, at the time of his eldest son s death. 
 And now Stirling himself was dead, and there 
 were no signs of that universal grief of which 
 Drummond had so affectionately assured him 
 twenty years before. Among Drummond s 
 papers were found a few brief notes for an 
 intended poem in memory of his friend ; but 
 the intention was never carried out. The times 
 were too out of joint for the writing even of 
 Pastoral Elegies. 
 
 In 1640 occurred the second Bishops War, 
 still more disastrous to the King than the first 
 had been. For now the Scots took the offen 
 sive ; crossed the Tweed (August 20), and 
 meeting with little resistance, for the very 
 
 * Diet, of National Biography, art. ALEXANDER. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR xcix 
 
 soldiers of the King had no heart in the quarrel, 
 gradually established themselves in the northern 
 counties, with Newcastle for their headquarters. 
 There for about a year they remained, no 
 longer as enemies, but as allies to the Parlia 
 ment and people of England. "The whole 
 body of English Puritans looked upon them as 
 their saviours." * 
 
 In this war, also, we find Drummond acting, 
 or refusing to act, under orders from the 
 Covenanting government. The following letter 
 to his kinsman the Earl of Perth is dated 
 Hawthornden, December i, 1640 : 
 
 "MY NOBLE LORD, In this storm of the 
 state I had resolved to set my affairs in order, 
 exposing all to the hazard of what might fall 
 forth, and fly to the shadow of your Lordship ; 
 finding, at this time, that not to prove true, 
 Minima parvitate sud tuta sunt ; for the 
 humility of my fortune, and my retired and 
 harmless form of living, could not save me from 
 being employed to serve here the ambition of 
 the great masters of the state. As if I had no 
 more to do with time, I was appointed to spend 
 it in attending the Committee of the Shire ; at 
 my first initiation, charged to be at that fatal 
 
 * Carlyle s Cromwell, vol. i. p. 84. 
 
c INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 service and horrible execution of Dunglass,* 
 they directed me to ravage and plunder the 
 more peaceable neighbours about. This Trojan 
 Horse laboured to give me a command over 
 horses. All which employments, being contrary 
 to my education and estate, knowing that pareil 
 sur pareil a mtlle puissance, and that they were 
 not my lawful masters, I shunned, and per 
 formed no more than pleased me,; which ac 
 quired me no small spite. If the Parliament of 
 England, and matters since fallen forth, had 
 not a little cooled this fervency or frenzy, I 
 knew not where to have found sanctuary, save 
 with your Lordship ; nor know I what thanks to 
 render your Lordship for your gracious pro 
 tection and many courtesies offered me. If I 
 should sacrifice my fortunes, liberty, and life, I 
 would rather lose them for your Lordship than 
 for any democracy. Your Lordship s favours 
 shall ever be remembered, and sought to be 
 deserved in what is within the compass of per 
 forming and the power of Your Lordship s 
 Humble Servant, W. DRUMMOND." t 
 
 * This refers to the blowing-up (August 30), whether 
 by accident or design, of Dunglass Castle in Hadding- 
 tonshire, where the Covenanters had a garrison, com 
 manded by the Earl of Haddington. Many persons, 
 among them the Earl himself, perished in the ex 
 plosion. 
 
 t Folio of 1711, p. 147. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR c i 
 
 Of King Charles s conciliatory visit to Edin 
 burgh in the autumn of 1641, and of the " Inci 
 dent " which disturbed it, nothing need here be 
 said. Drummond wrote a prose Speech for 
 Edinburgh 1o 1he King on this occasion, but 
 very certainly did not make it public.* It is 
 in the old, rather pathetic strain of hoping 
 against hope. "A fatal necessity, contrary to 
 our minds, did force us unto many things. . . . 
 Doubts now are resolved, all damps and mists 
 cleared, and we hope that saying shall prove 
 true, Amantium irce amoris redintegration 
 
 The English civil war was the cause of fresh 
 dissensions in Scotland. The aid of the Scots 
 was sought both by the King and Parliament 
 of England, and Charles having now conceded 
 all the demands of the Covenanters, there were 
 not wanting those among them who were in 
 clined to support a King of their own nation 
 against the English rebels : nevertheless, the 
 great majority of the Scots favoured the Parlia 
 ment. Shortly after the battle of Edgehill the 
 English Lords and Commons concurred in a 
 Declaration to their brethren of Scotland, in 
 viting their assistance towards the prosecution 
 of the war. A little later the King, having 
 perused this Declaration of the two Houses, 
 
 * Printed in the Folio of 1711, pp. 216, 217. 
 
cii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 sent, he also, a Declaration to the Scots, setting 
 forth his own views upon the matter, and 
 assuring them that he had been compelled to 
 take up arms "for the defence of his person 
 and safety of his life ; for the maintenance of 
 the true Protestant religion ; for the preserva 
 tion of the laws, liberties, and constitution of 
 the kingdom, and for the just privileges of 
 Parliament" !* He desired that this Declara 
 tion might be communicated to his Scottish 
 subjects, and it was accordingly published, not 
 without much debate, by the Scottish Privy 
 Council. Thereupon ensued a great commo 
 tion, and petitions against the King s message 
 were presented both to the Lords of the Coun 
 cil and to the Commission for the Conservation 
 of the Peace. On the other side, a "cross- 
 petition" in favour of the King, promoted by 
 the Marquis of Hamilton and other gentlemen 
 of the royalist party, was also presented to the 
 Council. But this was not to be tolerated. 
 The great Presbyterian governing bodies, the 
 Commissions for the Conservation of the Peace 
 and for the Affairs of the Kirk, issued, on the 
 1 8th of January 1643, an emphatic declaration 
 against the cross-petition, which they charac 
 terised as " nothing else but a secret plot, and 
 
 * Clarendon s History of the Rebellion, Oxford, 1705, 
 &c. : vol. ii. p. 87. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR ciii 
 
 subtle undermining of all the present designs 
 of this Kirk and Kingdom for unity of religion, 
 and of all the work of God in this land." 
 
 To this declaration of the ruling bodies Drum- 
 mond replied, in the longest, and perhaps 
 the most vehement, of his political treatises ; 
 although the fact that he still remained at 
 liberty makes it doubtful whether the paper 
 was seen by any of the party against which it 
 was directed. It is entitled 2/Kta/zaxia [Fighting 
 about Shadows] ; or a Defence of a Petition 
 tendered to the Lords of the Council of Scotland 
 by certain Noblemen and Gentlemen, January 
 1643.* The Greek title is borrowed from Plato. 
 The reader will recall that wonderful allegory 
 in the seventh book of the Republic, wherein 
 the philosopher likens the state of mankind to 
 that of men fettered in a cave, having behind 
 them a great light. But between them and the 
 light there are many objects, of which they see 
 the shadows cast upon the opposite wall of the 
 cave. And seeing nought but shadows, since 
 their fetters hinder them from turning their 
 faces, they believe these shadows to be real 
 objects, and indeed the only leality. And 
 thus, says he, "most cities are at present 
 
 * Printed in the Folio of 1711, pp. 190-205. The 
 declaration of the Commissioners against the cross-peti 
 tion is there appended to Skiamachia, pp. 206-211. 
 
civ INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 inhabited by such as both fight with one an 
 other about shadows [o-Kia/xa^ouz/rcoi/], and raise 
 sedition about governing, as if it were some 
 mighty good." * 
 
 So to our philosophic Drummond all this 
 bitter contention of Kirk against Church, of 
 Presbyter against Prelate, was simply Skia- 
 machia, a fighting about* shadows. His trea 
 tise is, above all things, a protest against the 
 tyranny of the clergy. It is aimed, of course, 
 Especially at the Presbyterian ministers and 
 the Commissioners for the Affairs of the Kirk, 
 whom he compares with the Spanish inquisjtors 
 " Have we rejected the High Commission, to 
 set over us men more rigid, supercilious, and 
 severe than the Spanish inquisitors themselves?" 
 And he warns them, " Where by blood ye shall 
 make three proselytes, ye shall make a hundred 
 hypocrites." But here, as in Irene, Drummond 
 does not confine his censures to the clergy of 
 his own time and country. The following 
 extract must suffice. 
 
 " Presumptuous churchmen in most parts of 
 the kingdoms of Europe have proven worse 
 than the foxes of Samson.t They but burnt 
 
 * Thomas Taylor s translation : Works of Plato, vol. 
 i. p. 365. 
 
 t In the declaration against the cross-petition this 
 comparison is used of the petitioners : "It will be ob- 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cv 
 
 the corns when the fields were white for the 
 harvest ; but these have burnt whole towns, 
 male and female, children and old men, guilty 
 or not guilty, holy or profane, turning all under 
 the law of their spoil and licentiousness ; dyed 
 the white fields in blood ; turned them into a 
 Golgotha, as in our own country that one battle 
 of Pinkie can testify, where a churchman was 
 both the loss of the field and commonwealth. 
 They are firebrands of strife, trumpets of sedi 
 tion, the Red Horses whose sitters have taken 
 peace from the earth. There is no Christian 
 country which hath not by their devices been 
 wrapped in wars ; they carry the common 
 people, like hawks, hooded, into dangers and 
 destruction ; make them believe the mountains 
 shake when the moles do cast up ; imposing 
 upon their credulity with vain shadows." 
 
 The negotiations between the Parliament 
 and the Scots terminated successfully on the 
 25th of September 1643, when the Commons, 
 in a body, subscribed the Solemn League and 
 Covenant, which pledged the two nations to 
 mutual assistance, and to an endeavour to bring 
 
 served, that they who were of late at distance amongst 
 themselves are now at agreement, and that, like Sam 
 son s foxes, they turn tail to tail, with firebrands in the 
 midst, to burn \ip the husbandry of God, when now the 
 fields are white for the harvest." 
 
cvi INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 about uniformity in matters of religion, t.e.j 
 Presbyterianism after the Scottish model. Sub 
 scription to this Covenant was enjoined by the 
 governing bodies upon every inhabitant of the 
 two kingdoms. Again Drummond took up his 
 pen. A short paper, entitled Remoras [Delays] 
 for the National League between Scotland and 
 England, is published among his works,* but 
 we need not quote from it here. In the follow 
 ing January a Scottish army of 21,000 men, 
 under their old general, Lesley, now Earl of 
 Leven, marched into England. They joined 
 Fairfax in the siege of York, took part in the 
 decisive battle of Marston Moor (July 2, 1644), 
 carried Newcastle by storm in October, and 
 then lapsed into inactivity, and increasing dis 
 gust with their allies. For there was a party in 
 England which stood for that principle which 
 to the Presbyterian mind meant the mere 
 abomination of desolation the principle of 
 liberty of conscience ; and this party was daily 
 gaining ground, especially in the army. By 
 the end of 1644 the Independents had power 
 enough in the House of Commons to carry 
 their Self-denying Ordinance, of which one of 
 the clauses provided that men might serve in 
 the army without taking the Covenant. And 
 
 * Folio of 1711, pp. 188, 189. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cvii 
 
 in proportion as the party of tolerance, with 
 Cromwell at its head, took more and more the 
 lead, so did the zeal of the Scottish Presbyterians 
 cool towards the English alliance. 
 
 Although Drummond had carried his outward 
 conformity to the extent of subscribing both 
 Covenants, and although he had friends among 
 the Covenanters the Earl of Lothian for one, 
 and his own brother-in-law, Scotstarvet, for 
 another it was not to be expected that he 
 should remain altogether unmolested. " Being 
 a reputed Malignant," says his old biographer, 
 " he was extremely harassed by the prevailing 
 party, and, for his verses and discourses, fre 
 quently summoned before their Circular Tables 
 [the Covenanting Committees], as we may see 
 by a discourse which he designed to have 
 spoken to them." * This discourse is still ex 
 tant in print ; t but that it remained unspoken 
 there can be no possible doubt. Drummond 
 there shows his mind as plainly as ever, and 
 in a manner apologises for his outward submis 
 sion to the Covenanters, making use of a meta 
 phor which, though exceedingly apt, was hardly 
 calculated to commend itself or its author to 
 the good graces of the Committee. " Should I," 
 says he, " meet a number of madmen, and they 
 
 * Memoir prefixed to the Folio of 1711, P- x. 
 f Folio of 1711, pp. 218, 219. 
 
cviii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 were to have me to dance with them, I were 
 the occasion of my own destruction if I opposed 
 them." In this paper he alludes to his History 
 of Scotland, his Irene, and " some other pieces 
 of state," in terms which prove that, although 
 these works were still unprinted, their contents 
 must have been somewhat widely known, either 
 from perusal or report. But the political papers 
 of Drummond s which we now possess do not 
 represent the whole of his labours in that kind. 
 Says the biographer above quoted, " I am in 
 formed that there were a great many particular 
 papers, wrote against the chief ringleaders of 
 the rebellion, which, after his death, in those 
 very severe times, were thought fit to be de 
 stroyed, for fear of doing harm to his friends 
 or family." 
 
 The years 1644 and 1645 were those of the 
 Marquis of Montrose s counter-revolution in 
 favour of King Charles. To Drummond and 
 the Scottish royalists it must have seemed that 
 the tide had turned at last, for, by the summer of 
 1645, Montrose, after a series of unexampled suc 
 cesses, had reduced almost the entire kingdom 
 of Scotland. With Drummond Montrose was 
 doubtless already acquainted, and it has been 
 reasonably conjectured that the anonymous 
 nobleman to whom the poet sent a copy of his 
 Irene, together with a letter which is still extant, 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cix 
 
 was no other than this brilliant young Marquis, 
 at that time Earl of Montrose, and a leading 
 man among the Covenanters.* Two letters 
 which passed between them at the period of 
 Montrose s triumph have been printed.t The 
 Marquis had sent Drummond a " protection," for 
 his better security, dated from " our leaguer at 
 Both well, the 28th of August 1645," and com 
 manding all soldiers in his service not to " trouble 
 or molest Mr. William Drummond of Haw- 
 thornden," or anything that was his, as they 
 should answer the contrary at their highest 
 peril. Drummond hereupon writes to Montrose, 
 suggesting that " since, by the mercy of God on 
 your Excellency s victorious arms, the golden 
 age is returned," it may be a fitting time for the 
 publication of Irene, " if that piece can do any 
 service " ; and there is a brief note from Mon 
 trose in reply, requesting Drummond to bring 
 the papers to him at Bothwell, that he may give 
 order for the printing of them. But the star 
 which shone so brightly proved to be but a 
 meteor. A fortnight after this note was written 
 Montrose was a fugitive. His forces had been 
 surprised at Philiphaugh (September 13) by a 
 
 * See Masson s Drummond of Hawthornden, p. 346, 
 and p. 273 for Drummond s letter. The letter was first 
 printed in Archaologia Scotica, vol. iv. p. 95. 
 
 f Folio of 1711, p. 157. 
 
ex INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 detachment from the army in England, and 
 completely shattered. For about a year longer 
 he remained in Scotland, endeavouring, though 
 in vain, to retrieve his lost fortunes. Meanwhile 
 the King surrendered himself to the Scots, and 
 the war was brought to an end. Montrose was 
 one of the last to submit, but he, too, at length 
 laid down his arms, and went abroad, with leave 
 from the Presbyterian government. A little 
 before his departure from Scotland he wrote 
 the following letter to Drummond : 
 
 " SIR, Having the occasion of this so trusty 
 a bearer, I could not but remember to you all 
 my best respects, and acknowledge your good 
 affection, and all your friendly favours. For 
 which, and your so constant loyalty towards his 
 Sacred Majesty and his service, besides your 
 own so much personal deserving, I must entreat 
 you to believe that, in all times and fortunes, 
 you shall find me ever, Sir, Your most affection 
 ate and faithful friend, 
 
 " MONTROSE.* 
 
 " MONTROSE, August igth, 1646." 
 
 Bishop Sage s Memoir of Drummond con 
 tains an anecdote which I here transcribe, as it 
 
 * Folio of 1711, p. 158. 
 
TNTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cxi 
 
 illustrates a side of Drummond s character of 
 which we have seen very little. 
 
 "In the year 1645, when the plague was 
 raging in Scotland, our author came accident 
 ally to Forfar, but was not allowed to enter any 
 house, or to get lodging in the town, tho it was 
 very late. He went some two miles farther to 
 Kirrimuir, where he was well received and 
 kindly entertained. Being informed that the 
 towns of Forfar and Kirrimuir had a contest 
 about a piece of ground, called the Muirmoss, 
 he wrote a letter to the Provost of Forfar, to be 
 communicated to the town council in haste. 
 It was imagined this letter came from the 
 Estates, who were then sitting at St. Andrews : 
 so the common council was called with all ex 
 pedition, and the minister sent for, to pray for 
 direction and assistance in answering the letter, 
 which was opened in a solemn manner. It 
 contained the following lines : 
 
 The Kirrimorians and Forfarians met at Muirmoss, 
 The Kirrimorians beat the Forfarians back to the 
 
 Cross. 
 
 Sutors ye are, and sutors ye ll be ; 
 F upon Forfar, Kirrimuir bears the gree. " * 
 
 The war over, men s minds in Scotland were 
 sorely exercised upon the question of sur- 
 
 * Folio of 1711 : Memoir, p. ix. 
 VOL, i. j. 
 
cxii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 rendering the King to the English. Would His 
 Majesty but take the Covenant, and consent to 
 the establishment of Presbyterianism as the 
 exclusive form of religion for the two kingdoms, 
 the Scots would stand by him to the last. But 
 His Majesty would do neither of these things, 
 and finally, in January 1647, he was handed 
 over to the Parliamentary Commissioners. 
 Drummond, of course, had not been idle upon 
 this occasion. The paper which he wrote is 
 entitled Objections against the Scots answered? 
 and is in the form of a reply to certain charges 
 brought against the Scots by the English Par 
 liament ; but its particular purpose was, to 
 prevail with his countrymen to reject the Par 
 liament s demand for the surrender of the King. 
 With much violence to his own feelings, he 
 wrote as from the point of view of an orthodox 
 Presbyterian ; but, had he otherwise written, 
 he knew well that his pleading must have been 
 even worse than useless. 
 
 From his confinement in the Isle of Wight 
 the King did at length concede one of the 
 points insisted on by the Scots. He accepted 
 the Presbyterian establishment, though even 
 now he was firm in refusing the Covenant. In 
 Scotland opinions were sharply divided. Many 
 
 * Printed in the Folio of 1711, pp. 212-215. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cxiii 
 
 held that, since the King had so far pledged 
 himself to the Presbyterian cause, it was their 
 duty to support him against the English Inde 
 pendents : others maintained that the conces 
 sion was inadequate, that the King was not to 
 be trusted, and that it was no part of honest 
 Presbyterians to ally themselves with Prelatists 
 and Papists, as must necessarily be the case 
 did they resolve to restore the King by force of 
 arms. The King s party, however, prevailed. 
 An army was raised, and sent into England in 
 the summer of 1648, under the command of our 
 old acquaintance the Marquis, now Duke of 
 Hamilton ; with good hopes, and the sympathy 
 of many among the English Presbyterians. 
 Drummond s last political paper A Vindica 
 tion of the Hamiltons* was written in answer 
 to a pamphlet published about this time, in 
 which the Duke was charged with treasonable 
 aims. Whether the Vindication was ever circu 
 lated is doubtful, for the Duke s much chequered 
 career had now come to a sudden close. On 
 the 1 7th of August, CromwelL burst upon him 
 near Preston, and scattered his army to the 
 four winds. Duke Hamilton himself was soon 
 afterwards captured ; consigned to an English 
 prison, and, finally, to the scaffold as a traitor 
 
 * Printed in the Folio of 1711, pp. 237-240. 
 
cxiv INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 being a peer of England as well as of Scot 
 land. 
 
 The news of King Charles s execution, in 
 January 1649, came as a terrible shock to 
 Drummond, already "much weakened with 
 close studying and diseases." He lived on, 
 through the remaining months of the year, 
 writing occasionally a bit of sad epitaphian 
 verse, or revising his old Genealogy of the 
 Drummonds. On the 4th of December 1649 
 he died ; " to the great grief and loss of all 
 learned and good men : and was honourably 
 buried in his own aisle in the church of Lass- 
 wade, near to his house of Hawthornden." * 
 
 " The church and churchyard of Lasswade," 
 writes Professor Masson, " are on a height over 
 looking the village, and about two miles and a 
 half from Hawthornden. The present church 
 was built about a hundred years ago ; t but in 
 a portion of the well kept churchyard, railed in 
 separately from the rest, as more select and 
 important, there is the fragmentary outline of 
 the smaller old church, with some of the se 
 pulchral monuments that belonged to it. Drum- 
 mond s own aisle, abutting from one part of the 
 ruined wall, is still perfect, a small arched space 
 
 * Memoir in the Folio of 1711, p. x. 
 f In 1793, according to Lewis s Topographical Diet, 
 of Scotland : London, 1846. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cxv 
 
 of stone-work, with a roofing of strong stone 
 slabs, and a grating of iron for doorway. With 
 in this small arched space Drummond s ashes 
 certainly lie, though there is no inscription to 
 mark the precise spot as distinct from the graves 
 of some of his latest descendants who are also 
 buried there." * 
 
 Until 1893 the little aisle was Drummond s 
 only monument. In October of that year a 
 memorial tablet was fixed to the outer wall of 
 the aisle, above the iron grating. It consists of 
 a bronze medallion of the poet s head, set in a 
 tablet of freestone, with the arms of his family, 
 and, by way of epitaph, the last two lines of the 
 beautiful sonnet which he sent to Alexander in 
 1 620. Roses have been planted there, in graceful 
 recognition of the wish expressed in the epitaph : 
 
 " Here Damon lies, whose songs did sometime grace 
 The murmuring Esk : may roses shade the place ! " 
 
 The widow, Elizabeth Logan, and three 
 children survived the poet. Nine children 
 in all had been born to them, but six had 
 died young, the survivors being William, the 
 second son ; Robert, the third son ; and Eliza 
 beth, the eldest daughter, t By his will, which 
 
 * Drummond of Hawthornden, p. 456. 
 
 t The names of Drummond s children were these : 
 John, William, Robert, Richard, and James; Elizabeth, 
 Margaret, Annabella, and Jane. 
 
cxvi INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 is dated September i, 1643, Drummond be 
 queathed ^1000 apiece to his sons Robert and 
 James, and 500 marks, with his " moveables," 
 as a portion to his daughter Elizabeth : the 
 rest of the estate would go to the eldest sur 
 viving son, William. The charge of the chil 
 dren was left to their mother, with whom were 
 conjoined Drummond s kinsman, John Stirling 
 of Birnay, and Richard Maitland ; but in 
 the event of Elizabeth Logan s marrying or 
 departing this life in the nonage of her chil 
 dren, the charge was to devolve upon Lord 
 Drummond, George Preston of Craigmillar, 
 and William Drummond of Riccarton, with 
 the two gentlemen aforesaid.* 
 
 William Drummond, the poet s heir, was 
 knighted by Charles II., and died in 1713* 
 aged about seventy-five years. He got the 
 title of justice of peace by Lord Lauderdale s 
 favour, but was fitter, says malicious Father 
 Hay, in the Memoirs already cited, "to ex 
 amine the condition of a pot of ale than the 
 circumstances of any debate that comes before 
 him." Professor Masson, with greater pro 
 bability, represents him in his last years as 
 * a very respectable old Scottish gentleman," 
 without any portion of his father s genius. 
 
 * See the abstract of Drummond s will in Archceologia 
 Scotica, vol. iv. p. 229. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cxvii 
 
 Robert, the second surviving son, married Anna 
 Maxwell, sister to the Laird of Hills ; " died 
 [about 1687] Roman Catholick, left noe childer- 
 ing," says our malicious friend, who adds that 
 Robert also "was mutch given to drinke." The 
 daughter Elizabeth married Dr. Henry Hen 
 derson, a physician of Edinburgh, and died 
 long before 1711. The last lineal descendant 
 of the poet was Barbara Mary Drummond, 
 great-granddaughter of Sir William. She 
 died in 1789, having been twice married : her 
 only child, a daughter by her second husband, 
 died at the age of thirteen, in 1777. This 
 second husband of Barbara Drummond was 
 Dr. William Abernethy, who, after his marriage, 
 added the surname of Drummond to his own. 
 He is noteworthy to us here on one account. 
 In 1782, Dr. Abernethy Drummond presented 
 to the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland the 
 whole of the poet s manuscripts at Hawthorn- 
 den, consisting of transcripts of his poems and 
 prose writings ; letters ; extracts from other 
 authors, both in prose and verse, in Drum- 
 mond s handwriting ; poems and fragments 
 by Drummond s uncle, William Fowler ; and 
 miscellaneous papers. Forty-five years later 
 these manuscripts were carefully examined, 
 and arranged in fifteen bound volumes, by 
 Mr. David Laing, and the most interesting 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 of the contents previously unpublished were 
 printed, with annotations by Mr. Laing, in 
 the fourth volume of Archtzologia Scotica; or, 
 Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of 
 Scotland; Edinburgh, 1831. 
 
 The following is a list, chronologically arranged, 
 of the previous editions of Drummond s 
 Works : 
 
 TEARES ON THE DEATH OF MELIADES. 
 Edinbvrgh, printed by Andro Hart, and are to 
 bee sold at his shop on the north side of the 
 high streete, a litle beneath the Crosse. 1613. 
 4to. Contains (i) the Sonnet to the Author by 
 Alexander; (2) Tears on the Death of Meliades ; 
 (3) the "pyramid" in verse; (4) the epitaph be 
 ginning, " Stay, passenger." A copy of this first 
 edition, presented by Drummond, is in the Uni 
 versity Library at Edinburgh : there is none in 
 the British Museum. Of the second edition of 
 " Meliades " no copy is known to exist. 
 
 MAUSOLEVM, or, The choisest Flowres of the 
 Epitaphs, written on the Death of the neuer-too- 
 much lamented Prince Henrie. Edinbvrgh, 
 printed by Andro Hart. Anno Dom. 1613. 4to. 
 Three of the poems in this volume are by Drum- 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cxix 
 
 mond, viz., the "pyramid" and the epitaph from 
 " Meliades" and the sonnet beginning, " A pass 
 ing glance," here first printed. " There is little 
 doubt tJiat the present small tract was collected 
 and sent forth by Drummond, . . . and was 
 probably published at the same time with the 
 preceding work? * It was reprinted in " Fugi 
 tive Scottish Poetry of tJie Seventeenth Century" 
 Edinburgh^ 1825. 
 
 TEARES ON THE DEATH OF MCELIADES. 
 By William Drummond of Hawthornden. The 
 third Edition. Edinbvrgh, printed by Andro 
 Hart. 1614. 4to. 
 
 POEMS : Amorous, Funerall, Divine, Pas- 
 torall, in Sonnets, Songs, Sextains, Madrigals. 
 By W. D. the Author of the Teares on the 
 Death of Mceliades. Edinbvrgh, printed by 
 Andro Hart. 1616. 4to. Contains ( i ) Sonnet to 
 the Author, by Parthenius ; (2) Poems. The 
 First Part; (3) Poems. The Second Part; (4) 
 Sonnet to the Author of " Moeliades? reprinted ; 
 
 (5) Tears on the Death of Mceliades ; reprinted; 
 
 (6) Sonnet^ " A passing glance," reprinted; (7) 
 a pyramid in verse, reprinted ; (8) Urania, or 
 Spiritual Poems (9) Sonnet to the Author, by 
 
 * Corset s Collectanea Anglo- Poetica, vol. iii. p. 313. 
 
cxx INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 Sir D. Murray j (10) Madrigals and Epigrams, 
 with a Sonnet, at the end, by Sir W. Alexander, 
 headed " Alexis to Damon" 
 
 POEMS : By William Drvmmond of Haw- 
 thorne-denne. The second Impression. Edin- 
 bvrgh, printed by Andro Hart. 1616. 4to. 
 Typographically identical with the preceding, 
 and apparently no "second impression" at all, 
 but a reissue of the original impression with a 
 new title-page. 
 
 FORTH FEASTING. A Panegyricke to the 
 Kings Most Excellent Majestic. Edinbvrgh, 
 printed by Andro Hart. 1617. 4to. This was 
 reprinted in " The Muses Welcome to King 
 James? Edinburgh, 1618, with the prefixed 
 sonnet by Drummond, which does not appear in 
 the original edition. 
 
 FLOWRES OF SIGN. By William Drummond 
 of Hawthorne-denne. To which is adjoyned his 
 Cypresse Grove. Printed 1623. 4to. Contains 
 (i) Flowres of Sion ; (2) A Cypresse Grove; (3) 
 44 On the Report of the Death of the Author? by 
 Sir W. Alexander; (4) Sonnet, " To S. W. A."j 
 (5) To the memory of Jane, Countess of Perth. 
 
 FLOWRES OF SION ; By William Drummond 
 of Hawthorne-denne, To which is adjoyned 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cxxi 
 
 his Cypresse Grove. Edenbovrgh, printed by 
 John Hart. 1630. Besides all the pieces in the 
 preceding edition, this contains four new poems, 
 viz., "An Hymn of the Ascension" ; a Sonnet, 
 " Death! s Last Will"; "The Shadow of the 
 Judgment "/ and a Sonnet to the Obsequies of 
 King James. It contains also, at the end of the 
 volume, " A Table of the Hymnes and Sonnets, 
 with their Argumentes" i.e. the headings of the 
 poems, which are not given with the text, as in 
 later editions. In some copies of this second 
 edition the title-page bears the imprint, " Printed 
 at Eden-Bourgh, by the Heires of Andro Hart. 
 Anno 1630." 
 
 THE ENTERTAINMENT of the high and 
 mighty Monarch Charles, King of Great Britaine, 
 France, and Ireland, into his auncient and royall 
 citie of Edinbvrgh, the fifteenth of June, 1633. 
 Printed at Edinbvrgh by John Wreittoun. 1633. 
 4to. In addition to the description of the page 
 ant, and Drummond s Speeches, &c., in prose 
 and verse, this volume contains a Panegyric on 
 King Charles, in verse, by Walter Forbes, which 
 I have not -included in the present edition. 
 
 To THE EXEQUIES OF THE HONOVRABLE 
 SR. ANTONYE ALEXANDER, Knight, &c. A 
 pastorall Elegie. Edinbvrgh, printed in King 
 
cxxii INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 James his College, by George Anderson. 1638. 
 4to. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF SCOTLAND, from the year 
 1423 until the year 1542, containing the Lives 
 and Reigns of James the I, the II, the III, 
 the IV, the V. With several Memorials of 
 State during the Reigns of James VI and 
 Charles I. By William Drummond of Haw- 
 thornden. With a Prefatory Introduction by 
 Mr. Hall, of Grays-Inn. London, printed by 
 Henry Hills for Rich. Tomlins and himself, 
 and are to be sold at their houses near Py- 
 Corner. MDCLV. fol. The "Memorials of 
 State " are the two papers entitled " Considera 
 tions to the King" and "An Apologetical 
 Letter? with "An Intended Speech at the 
 West gate of Edinburgh to King James " (read 
 "King Charles"\ i.e. the prose speech published 
 in the "Entertainment of King Charles? The 
 volume contains also a selection of twenty-two 
 " Fajniliar Epistles " of Drummond .y, and his 
 essay, "A Cypress Grove" There is a second 
 edition of this volume^ London, 1681. 
 
 POEMS, By that most famous Wit, William 
 Drummond of Hawthornden. London: Printed 
 for Richard Tomlins, at the Sun and Bible, 
 neare Pye- Corner. 1656. 8vo. With a preface 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cxxiii 
 
 by Edward Phillips, Miltoris nephew. It con 
 tains most of the poems previously published, 
 and about sixty new poems, two of which are 
 certainly not by Drummond. Some copies have 
 the imprint " London, printed by W. H. and 
 aretobesoldin the Company of Stationers, 1656." 
 Scot of Scotstarvet was concerned in the publica 
 tion of this volume of 16 56, and of the preced 
 ing volume of prose : there exist copies of both 
 volumes bearing a dedication to Scotstarvet. 
 
 THE MOST ELEGANT AND ELABOVRATE 
 POEMS of that great Court- Wit, Mr. William 
 Drummond. Whose Labours, both in Verse 
 and Prose, being heretofore so Precious to 
 Prince Henry and to K. Charles, shall live and 
 flourish in all Ages whiles there are men to 
 read them, or Art and Judgment to approve 
 them. London, printed for William Rands, 
 Bookseller, at his House over against the Beare 
 Taverne in Fleet-street. 1659. 8vo. Not a new 
 edition at all, but the remnant of the edition of 
 1656, with a new and absurd title-page. A 
 copy in the British Museum has both title-pages 
 ofi6$6 and 1659. 
 
 THE WORKS OF WILLIAM DRUMMOND, of 
 Hawthornden. Consisting of Those which were 
 formerly Printed, and Those which were de- 
 
cxxiv INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR 
 
 sign d for the Press. Now Published from the 
 Author s Original Copies. Edinburgh : printed 
 by James Watson, in Craig s-Closs, 1711. fol. 
 Edited by Bishop John Sage and Thomas 
 Ruddiman. Contains all the pieces, both in 
 prose and verse, which had appeared in pre 
 vious editions j about forty additional poems, 
 many of them of very doubtful authenticity; 
 the various prose tracts mentioned in the course 
 of our " Introductory Memoir" and one or two 
 other prose papers; a further selection from 
 DrummoncPs correspondence; and a Memoir 
 by Bishop Sage, which is the principal early 
 authority for the life of Drummond. 
 
 THE POEMS OF WILLIAM DRUMMOND, OF 
 HAWTHORNDEN. London, printed for E. 
 Jeffery, Pall Mall. MDCCXCI. 8vo. In Cor- 
 ser*s " Collectanea " is catalogued a copy of this 
 edition which bears the imprint " London, 
 printed for J. Jeffery, Pall Mall. MDCCXC." 
 
 THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM DRUM 
 MOND, Esq. Edinburgh, 1793. 8vo. Forming 
 part of the fourth volume of Anderson s " Works 
 of the British Poets? pp. 619-698. 
 
 THE POEMS OF WILLIAM DRUMMOND. 
 London, 1810. 8vo. In Chalmers s " Works of 
 the English Poets, vol. v. pp. 637-712. 
 
INTRODUCTORY MEMOIR cxxv 
 
 THE POEMS OF WILLIAM DRUMMOND OF 
 HAWTHORNDEN. Printed at Edinburgh : 
 MDCCCXXXII. 410. Privately printed for the 
 Maitland Club. A magnificent volume, edited 
 with extreme care from the original editions. 
 Besides all the poems which had appeared in 
 previous editions^ and " A Cypress Grove," this 
 volume contains certain Commendatory Verses 
 by Drummond now first collected from the 
 volumes to which they were prefixed; a con 
 siderable number of poems from the Haw- 
 thornden MSS., reprinted from " Archceologia 
 Scotica"; " Lines on the Bishops? from a MS. 
 in the Advocates Library. 
 
 THE POEMS OF WILLIAM DRUMMOND, OF 
 HAWTHORNDEN : with Life, by Peter Cunning 
 ham. London, 1833. 8vo. Another edition, 
 Edinburgh, 1852. 
 
 THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM DRUM- 
 MOND OF HAWTHORNDEN. Edited by William 
 B. Turnbull. London, 1856. 8vo. Reissued, 
 London, 1890. 
 
TEARS ON THE DEATH OF 
 MGELIADES 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
TO THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 TEARS ON THE DEATH OF 
 MCELIADES 
 
 In waves of woe thy sighs my soul do toss, 
 And do biirst up the conduits of my tears, 
 Whose rankling wound no soothing balm long bears 
 But freshly bleeds when aught upbraids my loss. 
 Then thou so sweetly sorrow makes to sing, 
 And troubled passions dost so well accord, 
 That more delight thine anguish doth afford, 
 Than others 1 joys can satisfaction bring. 
 What sacred wits, when ravish? d, do affect, 
 To force affections, metamorphose minds, 
 Whilst numbrous power the soul in secret binds 
 Thou hast performed, transforming in effect: 
 For never plaints did greater pity move, 
 The best applause that can such notes approve. 
 
 10 
 
 SIR W. ALEXANDER. 
 
TEARS ON THE DEATH OF 
 MOELIADES 
 
 O HEAVENS ! then is it true that thou art gone, 
 
 And left this woful isle her loss to moan, 
 
 Mceliades,* bright day-star of the west, 
 
 A comet, blazing terror to the east ; 
 
 And neither that thy spright so heavenly wise, 5 
 
 Nor body, though of earth, more pure than skies, 
 
 Nor royal stem, nor thy sweet tender age, 
 
 Of adamantine Fates could quench the rage ? 
 
 O fading hopes ! O short- while-lasting joy 
 
 Of earth-born man, which one hour can destroy ! 10 
 
 Then even of virtue s spoils death trophies rears, 
 
 As if he gloried most in many tears. 
 
 Forc d by grim Destines, Heavens neglect our cries, 
 
 Stars seem set only to act tragedies : 
 
 And let them do their worst, since thou art gone, 15 
 
 Raise whom they list to thrones, enthron d dethrone ; 
 
 * The name which in these verses is given to Prince 
 Henry, is that which he himself, in the challenges of his 
 martial sports and masquerades, was wont to use, 
 MCELIADES, PRINCE OF THE ISLES, which, in anagram, 
 maketh MILES A DEO. [Note by the author.} 
 
6 TEARS ON THE 
 
 Stain princely bowers with blood, and, even to 
 
 Gange, 
 
 In cypress sad glad Hymen s torches change. 
 Ah ! thou hast left to live, and in the time 
 When scarce thou blossom d in thy pleasant prime : 20 
 So falls by northern blast a virgin rose, 
 At half that doth her bashful bosom close ; 
 So a sweet flourish languishing decays, 
 That late did blush when kiss d by Phoebus rays ; 
 So Phoebus mounting the meridian s height, 25 
 
 Choked by pale Phoebe, faints unto our sight ; 
 Astonish d nature sullen stands to see 
 The life of all this All so chang d to be ; 
 In gloomy gowns the stars about deplore, 
 The sea with murmuring mountains beats the shore, so 
 Black darkness reels o er all, in thousand showers 
 The weeping air on earth her sorrow pours, 
 That, in a palsy, quakes to find so soon 
 Her lover set, and night burst forth ere noon. 
 
 If Heaven, alas ! ordain d thee young to die, 35 
 Why was it not where thou thy might did st try, 
 And to the hopeful world at least set forth 
 Some little spark of thine expected worth ? 
 Moeliades, O that by Ister s streams, 
 Amongst shrill-sounding trumpets, flaming gleams 40 
 Of warm encrimson d swords, and cannons roar, 
 Balls thick as rain pour d by the Caspian shore, 
 Amongst crush d lances, ringing helms, and shields, 
 Dismember d bodies ravishing the fields, 
 In Turkish blood made red like Mars s star, 45 
 
 Thou ended hadst thy life, and Christian war ! 
 
DEATH OF MCELIADES 7 
 
 Or, as brave Bourbon, thou hadst made old Rome, 
 Queen of the world, thy triumph s place and tomb ! 
 So heaven s fair face, to the unborn which reads, 
 A book had been of thine illustrious deeds ; so 
 
 So to their nephews * aged sires had told 
 The high exploits performed by thee of old ; 
 Towns raz d, and rais d, victorious, vanquish d bands, 
 Fierce tyrants flying, foil d, kill d by thy hands ; 
 And in dear arras virgins fair had wrought si 
 
 The bays and trophies to thy country brought ; 
 While some new Homer, imping pens to fame, 
 Deaf Nilus dwellers had made hear thy name. 
 That thou didst not attain those honours spheres, 
 It was not want of worth, O no, but years. GO 
 
 A youth more brave pale Troy with trembling walls 
 Did never see, nor she whose name appals 
 Both Titan s golden bowers, for bloody fights 
 Must ring on Mars s field such Mars-like knights. 
 The heavens had brought thee to the highest height 63 
 Of wit and courage, showing all their might 
 When they thee fram d : ay me ! that what is brave 
 On earth, they as their own so soon should crave ! 
 Moeliades sweet courtly nymphs deplore, 
 From Thule to Hydaspes pearly shore. 70 
 
 When Forth thy nurse, Forth where thou first didst 
 
 pass 
 
 Thy tender days (who smil d oft on her glass 
 To see thee gaze), meand ring with her streams, 
 Heard thou hadst left this round, from Phoebus beams 
 
 * Nephews : grandchildren ; Lat. nepotes. 
 
8 TEARS ON THE 
 
 She sought to fly, but forced to return 75 
 
 By neighbour brooks, she gave herself to mourn ; 
 And as she rush d her Cyclades among, 
 She seem d to plain that Heaven had done her 
 
 wrong. 
 
 With a hoarse plaint, Clyde down her steepy rocks, 
 And Tweed through her green mountains clad with 
 
 flocks, so 
 
 Did wound the ocean, murmuring thy death ; 
 The ocean that roar d about the earth, 
 And it to Mauritanian Atlas told, 
 Who shrunk through grief, and down his white hairs 
 
 roll d 
 
 Huge streams of tears, that changed were in floods, 85 
 With which he drown d the neighbour plains and 
 
 woods. 
 
 The lesser brooks, as they did bubbling go, 
 Did keep a consort unto public woe ; 
 The shepherds left their flocks with downcast eyes, 
 Disdaining to look up to angry skies ; 90 
 
 Some broke their pipes, and some in sweet-sad lays 
 Made senseless things amazed at thy praise. 
 His reed Alexis * hung upon a tree, 
 And with his tears made Doven great to be. 
 Mceliades sweet courtly nymphs deplore, 95 
 
 From Thule to Hydaspes pearly shore. 
 
 Chaste maids which haunt fair Aganippe s well, 
 And you in Tempe s sacred shade who dwell, 
 
 * Sir William Alexander, who also wrote an elegy on 
 Prince Henry s death. 
 
DEATH OF M(ELIADES g 
 
 Let fall your harps, cease tunes of joy to sing, 
 Dishevelled make all Parnassus ring 100 
 
 With anthems sad ; thy music, Phcebus, turn 
 In doleful plaints, whilst joy itself doth mourn : 
 Dead is thy darling who decor d thy bays, 
 Who oft was wont to cherish thy sweet lays, 
 And to a trumpet raise thine amorous style, 105 
 
 That floating Delos envy might this isle. 
 You Acidalian archers break your bows, 
 Your brandons quench, with tears blot beauty s snows, 
 And bid your weeping mother yet again 
 A second Aden s death, nay Mars s plain. no 
 
 His eyes once were your darts, nay, even his name, 
 Wherever heard, did every heart inflame : 
 Tagus did court his love with golden streams, 
 Rhine with his towns, fair Seine with all she claims. 
 But ah ! poor lovers, death did them betray, us 
 
 And, not suspected, made their hopes his prey. 
 Tagus bewails his loss with golden streams, 
 Rhine with his towns, fair Seine with all she claims. 
 Moeliades sweet courtly nymphs deplore, 
 From Thule to Hydaspes pearly shore. 120 
 
 Delicious meads, whose chequer d plain forth brings 
 White, golden, azure flowers, which once were kings, 
 In mourning black their shining colours dye, 
 Bow down their heads, whilst sighing zephyrs fly. 
 Queen of the fields, whose blush makes blush the 
 morn, 125 
 
 Sweet rose, a prince s death in purple mourn ; 
 O hyacinths, for aye your AI keep still, 
 Nay, with more marks of woe your leaves now fill ; 
 
io TEARS ON THE 
 
 And you, O flower of Helen s tears first born, 
 
 Into those liquid pearls again you turn ; 130 
 
 Your green locks, forests, cut ; in weeping myrrhs, 
 
 The deadly cypress, and ink-dropping firs, 
 
 Your palms and myrtles change ; from shadows 
 
 dark, 
 
 Wing d syrens, wail ; and you, sad echoes, mark 
 The lamentable accents of their moan, 135 
 
 And plain that brave Moeliades is gone. 
 Stay, sky, thy turning course, and now become 
 A stately arch unto the earth, his tomb ; 
 Over which aye the wat ry Iris keep, 
 And sad Electra s sisters which still weep. uo 
 
 Moeliades sw r eet courtly nymphs deplore, 
 From Thule to Hydaspes pearly shore. 
 
 Dear ghost, forgive these our untimely tears, 
 By which our loving mind, though weak, appears ; 
 Our loss, not thine, when we complain, we weep, i4.-> 
 For thee the glist ring walls of heaven do keep 
 Beyond the planets wheels, above that source 
 Of spheres, that turns the lower in its course, 
 Where sun doth never set, nor ugly night 
 Ever appears in mourning garments dight ; iso 
 
 Where Boreas stormy trumpet doth not sound, 
 Nor clouds, in lightnings bursting, minds astound ; 
 From care s cold climates far, and hot desire, 
 Where time is banish d, ages ne er expire ; 
 Amongst pure sprights environed with beams, 155 
 Thou think st all things below to be but dreams, 
 And joy st to look down to the azur d bars 
 Of heaven, indented all with streaming stars ; 
 
DEATH OF M(ELIADES n 
 
 And in their turning temples to behold, 
 
 In silver robe the moon, the sun in gold, ieo 
 
 Like young eye-speaking lovers in a dance, 
 
 With majesty by turns retire, advance. 
 
 Thou wond rest earth to see hang like a ball, 
 
 Clos d in the ghastly cloister of this All ; 
 
 And that poor men should prove so madly fond, 155 
 
 To toss themselves for a small foot of ground, 
 
 Nay, that they even dare brave the powers above, 
 
 From this base stage of change that cannot move. 
 
 All worldly pomp and pride thou seest arise 
 
 Like smoke, that scatt reth in the empty skies. 170 
 
 Other hills and forests, other sumptuous towers, 
 
 Amaz d thou find st, excelling our poor bowers ; 
 
 Courts void of flattery, of malice minds, 
 
 Pleasure which lasts, not such as reason blinds : 
 
 Far sweeter songs thou hear st and carollings, 175 
 
 Whilst heavens do dance, and quire of angels 
 
 sings, 
 
 Than mouldy minds could feign : even our annoy, 
 If it approach that place, is chang d in joy. 
 
 Rest, blessed spright, rest satiate with the sight 
 Of him whose beams both dazzle and delight, iso 
 
 Life of all lives, cause of each other cause, 
 The sphere and centre where the mind doth pause ; 
 Narcissus of himself, himself the well, 
 Lover, and beauty, that doth all excel. 
 Rest, happy ghost, and wonder in that glass IBS 
 
 Where seen is all that shall be, is, or was, 
 While shall be, is, or was do pass away, 
 And nought remain but an eternal day : 
 
12 THE DEATH OF MCELIADES 
 
 For ever rest ; thy praise fame may enrol 
 In golden annals, whilst about the pole 
 The slow Bootes turns, or sun doth rise 
 With scarlet scarf, to cheer the mourning skies : 
 The virgins to thy tomb may garlands bear 
 Of flowers, and on each flower let fall a tear. 
 Mceliades sweet courtly nymphs deplore, 
 From Thule to Hydaspes pearly shore. 
 
SONNET 
 
 A PASSING glance, a lightning long the skies, * 
 That, ush ring thunder, dies straight to our sight ; ^ 
 A spark, of contraries which doth arise, ^-^ 
 Then drowns in the huge depths of day and night ; ~ 
 Is this small Small eall d life, held in such price ~ 
 Of blinded wights, who nothing judge aright 
 Of Parthian shaft so swift is not the flight - 
 As life, that wastes itself, and living dies. j* 
 O ! what is human greatness, valour, wit ? 
 What fading beauty, riches, honour, praise 
 To what doth serve in golden thrones to sit, 
 Thrall earth s vast round, triumphal arches raise ? tL 
 All is a dream, learn in this prince s fall, _^, 
 In whom, save death, nought mortal was at all. . <. 
 
EPITAPH 
 
 STAY, passenger, see where enclosed lies ^ 
 The paragon of princes, fairest frame *- 
 Time, nature, place, could show to mortal eyes, 
 In worth, wit, virtue, miracle to fame : ~(- 
 At least that part the earth of him could claim 
 This marble holds, hard like the Destinies : , A> 
 For as to his brave spirit and glorious name, -t/- 
 The one the world, the other fills the ski 
 Th immortal amaranthus, princely rose, 
 Sad violet, and that sweet flower that bears 
 In sanguine spots the tenor of our woes, /[> 
 Spread on this stone, and wash it with thy tears : ^ 
 Then go and tell, from Gades unto Ind, Jt, 
 Thou saw where earth s perfections were confin d. 
 
OF JET, 
 
 OR PORPHYRY, 
 
 OR THAT WHITE STONE 
 
 PAROS AFFORDS ALONE, 
 
 OR THOSE IN AZURE DYE, 
 
 WHICH SEEM TO SCORN THE SKY , 
 
 HERE MEMPHIS WONDERS DO NOT SET, 
 
 NOR ARTEMISIA S HUGE FRAME. 
 
 THAT KEEPS SO LONG HER LOVER S NAME: 
 
 MAKE NO GREAT MARBLE ATLAS TREMBLE WITH GOLD, 
 
 TO PLEASE A VULGAR EYE THAT DOTH BEHOLD: 
 
 THE MUSES, PHCEBUS, LOVE, HAVE RAISED OF THEIR TEARS 
 
 A CRYSTAL TOMB TO HIM, THROUGH WHICH HIS WORTH APPEARS 
 
POEMS 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
TO THE AUTHOR 
 
 WHILE thou dost praise the roses, lilies, gold, 
 Which in a dangling tress and face appear, 
 Still stands the sun in skies thy songs to hear, 
 A silence sweet each whispering wind doth hold ; 
 Sleep in Pasithea s lap his eyes doth fold, s 
 
 The sword falls from the God of the fifth sphere, 
 The herds to feed, the birds to sing, forbear, 
 Each plant breathes love, each flood and fountain 
 
 cold; 
 
 And hence it is, that that once nymph, now tree, 
 Who did th Amphrysian shepherd s sighs disdain, 10 
 And scorn d his lays, mov d by a sweeter vein, 
 Is become pitiful, and follows lliee, 
 
 Thee loves, and vaunteth that she hath the grace, 
 
 A garland for thy locks to interlace. 
 
 PARTHENIUS. 
 
POEMS 
 
 THE FIRST PART 
 
 SONNET I. 
 
 IN my first years, and prime yet not at height, ^ 
 
 When sweet conceits my wits did entertain, " " 
 
 Ere beauty s force I knew, or false delight, ^ 
 
 Or to what oar she did her captives chain, . " 
 
 Led by a sacred troop of Phoebus train, - 5 
 
 I first began to read, then lov d to write, 
 
 And so to praise a perfect red and white, &- 
 
 But, God wot, wist not what was in my brain : 
 
 Love smil d to see in what an awful guise ^tt>- 
 
 I turn d those antiques of the age of gold, / 10 
 
 And, that I might more mysteries behold, 
 
 He set so fair a volume to mine eyes, : 
 
 That I (quires clos d which, dead, dead sighs but 
 breathe) 
 
 Joy on this living book to read my death. 
 
22 POEMS 
 
 SONNET II. 
 
 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 spright which are so dearly bought, 
 As idle sounds, of few or none 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 : 
 Know what I list, this all can not me move, 
 But that, O me ! I both must write and love. 
 
POEMS 23 
 
 SONNET III. 
 
 YE who so curiously do paint your thoughts, 
 Enlight ning ev ry line in such a guise, 
 That they seem rather to have fall n from skies, 
 Than of a human hand be mortal draughts ; 
 In one part Sorrow so tormented lies, X>S- 
 
 As if his life at ev ry sigh would part ; 
 Love here blindfolded stands with bow and dart, 
 There Hope looks pale, Despair with rainy eyes : 
 Of my rude pencil look not for such art, 
 My wit I find now lessened to devise 10 
 
 So high conceptions to express my smart, 
 And some think love but feign d, if too too wise. 
 These troubled words and lines confus d you find, 
 Are like unto their model, my sick mind. 
 
24 POEMS 
 
 SONNET IV. 
 
 FAIR is my yoke, though grievous be my pains, *- 
 Sweet are my wounds, although they deeply smart,^ 
 My bit is gold, though shortened be the reins, * 
 My bondage brave, though I may not depart : - 
 Although I burn, the fire which doth impart ^ 5 
 Those flames, so sweet reviving force contains, /flx 
 That, like Arabia s bird, my wasted heart, / 
 Made quick by death, more lively still remains."* 
 I joy, though oft my waking eyes spend tears, 
 I never want delight, even when I groan, 10 
 
 Best companied when most I am alone ; ^ 
 A heaven of hopes I have midst hells of fears. C 
 Thus every way contentment strange I find, j^ 
 But most in her rare beauty, my rare mind, y^ 
 
POEMS 25 
 
 SONNET V. 
 
 How that vast heaven intitled First is roll d, .r 
 If any other worlds beyond it lie, >-< 
 And people living in eternity, ~*~ 
 Or essence pure that doth this All uphold ; -*- 
 What motion have those fixed sparks of gold, *. - 5 
 The wand ring carbuncles which shine from high, -#~- 
 By sprights, or bodies, contrare-ways in sky J^. 
 If they be turn d, and mortal things behold ; +^ 
 How sun p osts heaven about, how night s pale queen 
 With borrowed beams looks on this hanging round, 10 
 What cause fair Iris hath, and monsters seen 
 In air s large fields of light, and seas profound, 
 
 Did hold my wand ring thoughts, when thy sweet eye 
 Bade me leave all, and only think on thee. SL 
 
26 POEMS 
 
 SONNET VI. 
 
 VAUNT not, fair heavens, of your two glorious lights & 
 Which, though most bright, yet see not when they shine, ^ 
 And shining, cannot show their beams divine 
 Both in one place, but part by days and nights \jff^__ 
 Earth, vaunt not of those treasures ye enshrine, ( .- s 
 Held only dear because hid from our sights, >* 
 Your pure and burnish d gold, your diamonds fine, I 
 Snow-passing ivory that the eye delights ; *- _ 
 Nor, seas, of those dear wares are in you found, <^ 
 Vaunt not, rich pearl, red coral, which do stir ,-. 10 
 A fond desire in fools to plunge your ground ; A-" 
 Those all, more fair, are to be had in her : 
 Pearl, ivory, coral, diamond, suns, gold, 
 Teeth, neck, lips, heart, eyes, hair, are to behold. * 
 
POEMS 27 
 
 SONNET VII. 
 
 THAT learned Grecian,* who did so excel *- 
 In knowledge passing sense, that he is nam d 
 Of all the after- worlds divine, doth tell, * 
 That at the time when first our souls are fram d, 
 Ere in these mansions blind they come to dwell, &.. 5 
 They live bright rays of that eternal light, & 
 And others see, know, love, in heaven s great height, /: 
 Not toil d with aught to reason doth rebel. **- 
 Most true it is, for straight at the first sight ,.<* 
 My mind me told, that in some other place />. 10 
 It elsewhere saw the idea of that face, . X- 
 And lov d a love of heavenly pure delight ; * 
 No wonder now I feel so fair a flame, jL- 
 Sith I her lov d ere on this earth she came. .*- 
 
 * Plato. 
 
28 POEMS 
 
 SONNET VIII. 
 
 Now while the night her sable veil hath spread, * 
 
 And silently her resty coach doth roll, ^ 
 Rousing with her from Tethys azure bed - 
 Those starry nymphs which dance about the pole ; 
 While Cynthia, in purest cypress clad, -tv 5 
 
 The Latmian shepherd in a trance descries, * 
 And whiles looks pale from height of all the skies, " 
 Whiles dyes her beauties in a bashful red ; <v 
 While sleep, in triumph, closed hath all eyes, 
 And birds and beasts a silence sweet do keep, <v in 
 And Proteus monstrous people in the deep, " 
 The winds and waves, husht up, to rest entice ; 
 
 I wake, muse, weep, and who my heart hath slain & 
 See still before me to augment my pain. ^ 
 
POEMS 29 
 
 SONNET IX. 
 
 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 opprest ; 
 Lo, by thy charming rod all breathing things 
 Lie slumb ring, 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, i 
 
 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. 
 
30 POEMS 
 
 SONNET X. 
 
 FAIR Moon, who with thy cold and silver shine 
 Makes sweet the horror of the dreadful night, 
 Delighting the weak eye with smiles divine, 
 Which Phoebus dazzles with his too much light ; 
 Bright Queen of the first Heaven, if in thy shrine, 5 
 By turning oft, and Heaven s eternal might, 
 Thou hast not yet that once sweet fire of thine, 
 Endymion, forgot, and lover s plight ; 
 If cause like thine may pity breed in thee, 
 And pity somewhat else to it obtain, 10 
 
 Since thou hast power of dreams, as well as he 
 Who paints strange figures in the slumb ring brain, 
 Now while she sleeps, in doleful guise her show 
 These tears, and the black map of all my 
 
POEMS 
 
 SONNET XI. 
 
 LAMP of heaven s crystal hall that brings the hours, 
 
 Eye-dazzler, who makes the ugly night 
 
 At thine approach fly to her slumb ry bovv rs, 
 
 And fills the world with wonder and delight ; 
 
 Life of all lives, death-giver by thy flight 5 
 
 To southern pole from these six signs of ours, 
 
 Goldsmith of all the stars, with silver bright 
 
 Who moon enamels, Apelles of the flow rs ; 
 
 Ah ! from those watery plains thy golden head 
 
 Raise up, and bring the so long lingering morn ; 10 
 
 A grave, nay, hell, I find become this bed, 
 
 This bed so grievously where I am torn ; 
 
 But, woe is me ! though thou now brought the day, 
 Day shall but serve more sorrow to display. 
 
32 POEMS 
 
 SONG I. 
 
 IT was the time when to our northern pole 
 The brightest lamp of heaven begins to roll ; 
 When earth more wanton in new robes appeareth, 
 And, scorning skies, her flow rs in rainbows beareth, 
 On which the air moist sapphires doth bequeath, 5 
 Which quake to feel the kissing zephyrs breath ; 
 When birds from shady groves their love forth warble, 
 And sea like heaven, heaven looks like smoothest 
 
 marble ; 
 
 When I, in simple course, free from all cares, 
 Far from the muddy world s captiving snares, 10 
 
 By Ora s flow ry banks alone did wander, 
 Ora that sports her like to old Meander ; 
 A flood more worthy fame and lasting praise 
 Than that which Phaethon s fall so high did raise,* 
 Into whose moving glass the milk-white lilies is 
 
 Do dress their tresses, and the daffodillies. 
 Where Ora with a wood is crown d about, 
 And seems forget the way how to come out, 
 A place there is, where a delicious fountain 
 Springs from the swelling paps of a proud mountain, 20 
 
 * The river Eridanus, or Po, into which Phaethon fell. 
 
POEMS 33 
 
 Whose falling streams the quiet caves do wound, 
 
 And make the echoes shrill resound that sound. 
 
 The laurel there the shining channel graces, 
 
 The palm her love with long stretch d arms embraces, 
 
 The poplar spreads her branches to the sky, 25 
 
 And hides from sight that azure canopy ; 
 
 The streams the trees, the trees their leaves still nourish, 
 
 That place grave winter finds not without flourish.* 
 
 If living eyes Elysian fields could see, 
 
 This little Arden might Elysium be. 30 
 
 Here Dian often used to repose her, 
 
 And Acidalia s queen with Mars rejoice her ; 
 
 The nymphs oft here do bring their maunds with flow rs, 
 
 And anadems weave for their paramours ; 
 
 The Satyrs in these shades are heard to languish, 35 
 
 And make the shepherds partners of their anguish, 
 
 The shepherds who in barks of tender trees 
 
 Do grave their loves, disdains, and jealousies, 
 
 Which Phillis, when thereby her flocks she feedeth, 
 
 With pity whiles, sometime with laughter readeth. 40 
 
 Near to this place, when sun in midst of day 
 In highest top of heaven his coach did stay, 
 And, as advising, on his career glanced 
 The way did rest, the space he had advanced t 
 His panting steeds along those fields of light, 43 
 
 Most princely looking from that ghastly height ; 
 When most the grasshoppers are heard in meadows, 
 And lofty pines have small or else no shadows, 
 
 * Flourish : flowers. Cf. Tears on the Death of 
 Mceliades, line 23. 
 
 f As all along that morn he had advanced Ed. 1656. 
 VOL. i. C 
 
34 POEMS 
 
 It was my hap, O woful hap ! to bide 
 Where thickest shades me from all rays did hide, so 
 Into a shut-up place, some Sylvan s chamber, 
 Whose ceiling spread was with the locks of amber 
 Of new-bloom d sycamores, floor wrought with flowers 
 More sweet and rich than those in princes bowers. 
 Here Adon bluslrd, and Clytia all amaz d 53 
 
 Look d pale, with him who in the fountain gaz d ; 
 The amaranthus smil d, and that sweet boy 
 Which sometime was the god of Delos joy ; 
 The brave carnation, speckled pink here shined, 
 The violet her fainting head declined eo 
 
 Beneath a drowsy chasbow, all of gold, 
 The marigold her leaves did here unfold. 
 
 Now, while that ravish d with delight and wonder, 
 Half in a trance I lay those arches under, 
 The season, silence, place, did all entice & 
 
 Eyes heavy lids to bring night on their skies, 
 Which softly having stolen themselves together, 
 Like evening clouds, me plac d I wot not whither. 
 As cowards leave the fort which they should keep, 
 My senses one by one gave place to Sleep, 70 
 
 Who, followed with a troop of golden slumbers, 
 Thrust from my quiet brain all base encumbers, 
 And thrice me touching with his rod of gold, 
 A heaven of visions in my temples roll d, 
 To countervail those pleasures were bereft me ; 75 
 Thus in his silent prison clos d he left me. 
 
 Methought through all the neighbour woods a 
 
 noise 
 Of quiristers, more sweet than lute or voice 
 
POEMS 35 
 
 (For those harmonious sounds to Jove are given 
 
 By the swift touches of the nine-string cl heaven, so 
 
 Such are, and nothing else), did wound mine ear, 
 
 No, soul, that then became all ear to hear : 
 
 And whilst I list ning lay, O ghastly wonder ! 
 
 I saw a pleasant myrtle cleave asunder ; 
 
 A myrtle great with birth, from whose rent womb es 
 
 Three naked nymphs more white than snow forth 
 
 come, 
 
 For nymphs they seem d ; about their heavenly faces 
 In waves of gold did flow their curling tresses ; 
 About each arm, their arms more white than milk, 
 Each wore a blushing armelet of silk. 90 
 
 The goddesses were such that by Scamander 
 Appeared to the Phrygian Alexander ; 
 Aglaia, and her sisters, such perchance 
 Be, when about some sacred spring they dance. 
 But scarce the grove their naked beauties graced, < 
 And on the amorous verdure had not traced, 
 When to the flood they ran, the flood in robes 
 Of curling crystal to breasts ivory globes 
 Who wrapt them all about, yet seem d take pleasure 
 To show warm snows throughout her liquid azure. 100 
 
 Look how Prometheus man, when heavenly fire 
 First gave him breath, day s brandon * did admire, 
 And wond red of this world s amphitheatre ; 
 So gaz d I on those new guests of the water. 
 All three were fair, yet one excell d as far 105 
 
 The rest as Phoebus doth the Cyprian star, 
 
 * Brandon : torch ; sc. the sun. 
 
36 POEMS 
 
 Or diamonds small gems, or gems do other, 
 
 Or pearls that shining shell is call d their mother. 
 
 Her hair, more bright than are the morning s beams, 
 Hung in a golden shower above the streams, no 
 
 And, sweetly tous d, her forehead sought to cover, 
 Which seen did straight a sky of milk discover, 
 With two fair brows, love s bows, which never 
 
 bend 
 
 But that a golden arrow forth they send ; 
 Beneath the which two burning planets glancing, 115 
 Flash d flames of love, for love there still is dancing. 
 Her either cheek resembl d a blushing morn, 
 Or roses gules in field of lilies borne, 
 Betwixt the which a wall so fair is raised, 
 That it is but abased even when praised ; 120 
 
 Her lips like rows of coral soft did swell, 
 And th one like th other only doth excel : 
 The Tyrian fish looks pale, pale look the roses, 
 The rubies pale, when mouth s sweet cherry closes. 
 Her chin like silver Phoebe did appear 125 
 
 Dark in the midst to make the rest more clear ; 
 Her neck seemed fram d by curious Phidias master, 
 Most smooth, most white, a piece of alabaster. 
 Two foaming billows flow d upon her breast, 
 Which did their tops with coral red encrest ; 130 
 
 There all about, as brooks them sport at leisure, 
 With circling branches veins did swell in azure : 
 Within those crooks are only found those isles 
 Which Fortunate the dreaming old world styles. 
 The rest the streams did hide, but as a lily 135 
 
 Sunk in a crystal s fair transparent belly. 
 
POEMS 37 
 
 I, who yet human weakness did not know, 
 For yet I had not felt that archer s bow, 
 Ne could I think that from the coldest water 
 The winged youngling burning flames could scatter, 140 
 On every part my vagabonding sight 
 Did cast, and drown mine eyes in sweet delight. 
 What wondrous thing is this that beauty s named ! 
 Said I ; I find I heretofore have dreamed, 
 And never known in all my flying days 145 
 
 Good unto this, that only merits praise. 
 My pleasures have been pains, my comforts crosses, 
 My treasure poverty, my gains but losses. 
 
 precious sight ! which none doth else descry, 
 Except the burning sun, and quivering I. iso 
 And yet, O dear-bought sight ! O would for ever 
 
 1 might enjoy you, or had joy d you never ! 
 O happy flood ! if so ye might abide ! 
 
 Yet ever glory of this moment s pride, 
 
 Adjure your rillets all now to behold her, 1-55 
 
 And in their crystal arms to come and fold her ; 
 
 And sith ye may not aye your bliss embrace, 
 
 Draw thousand portraits of her on your face, 
 
 Portraits which in my heart be more apparent, 
 
 If like to yours my breast but were transparent. ]eo 
 
 O that I were, while she doth in you play, 
 
 A dolphin to transport her to the sea ! 
 
 To none of all those gods I would her render, 
 
 From Thule to Ind though I should with her 
 
 wander. 
 
 Oh ! what is this ? the more I fix mine eye, ics 
 
 Mine eye the more new wonders doth espy ; 
 
38 POEMS 
 
 The more I spy, the more in uncouth fashion 
 
 My soul is ravish d in a pleasant passion. 
 
 But look not, eyes : as more I would have said, 
 
 A sound of whirling wheels me all dismay d, 170 
 
 And with the sound forth from the timorous bushes, 
 
 With storm-like course, a sumptuous chariot rushes, 
 
 A chariot all of gold, the wheels were gold, 
 
 The nails, and axe-tree gold on which it roll d ; 
 
 The upmost part a scarlet veil did cover, 175 
 
 More rich than Danae s lap spread with her lover. 
 
 In midst of it, in a triumphing chair, 
 
 A lady sat, miraculously fair, 
 
 Whose pensive countenance, and looks of honour, 
 
 Do more allure the mind that thinketh on her, iso 
 
 Than the most wanton face and amorous eyes, 
 
 That Amathus or flow ry Paphos sees. 
 
 A crew of virgins made a ring about her, 
 
 The diamond she, they seem the gold without 
 
 her. 
 
 Such Thetis is, when to the billows roar IBS 
 
 With mermaids nice she danceth on the shore : 
 So in a sable night the sun s bright sister 
 Among the lesser twinkling lights doth glister. 
 Fair yokes of ermelines whose colour pass 
 The whitest snows on aged Grampius face, 100 
 
 More swift than Venus birds this chariot guided 
 To the astonish d bank whereas it bided : 
 But long it did not bide, when poor those streams, 
 Ay me ! it made, transporting those rich gems, 
 And by that burthen lighter, swiftly drived 195 
 
 Till, as methought, it at a tower arrived. 
 
POEMS 39 
 
 Upon a rock of crystal shining clear, 
 Of diamonds this castle did appear, 
 Whose rising spires of gold so high them reared, 
 That, Atlas-like, it seem d the heaven they beared. 200 
 Amidst which heights on arches did arise, 
 Arches which gilt flames brandish to the skies, 
 Of sparkling topazes, proud, gorgeous, ample, 
 Like to a little heaven, a sacred temple, 
 Whose walls no windows have, nay all the wall 205 
 Is but one window ; night there doth not fall 
 More when the sun to western worlds declineth, 
 Than in our zenith when at noon he shineth. 
 Two flaming hills the passage strait defend 
 Which to this radiant building doth ascend, 210 
 
 Upon whose arching tops, on a pilaster, 
 A port stands open, rais d in love s disaster ; 
 For none that narrow bridge and gate can pass, 
 Who have their faces seen in Venus glass. 
 If those within but to come forth do venture, 215 
 
 That stately place again they never enter. 
 The precinct strengthened with a ditch appears, 
 In which doth swell a lake of inky tears 
 Of madding lovers, who abide there moaning, 
 And thicken even the air with piteous groaning. 220 
 This hold, to brave the skies, the Destines fram d, 
 The world the Fort of Chastity it nam d. 
 The Queen * of the third Heaven once to appal it 
 The god of Thrace here brought, who could not 
 thrall it, 
 
 * Venus. 
 
40 POEMS 
 
 For which he vow d ne er arms more to put on, 225 
 And on Rhipoean hills was heard to groan. 
 Here Psyche s lover hurls his darts at random, 
 Which all for nought him serve, as doth his brandon. 
 
 What bitter anguish did invade my mind, 
 When in that place my hope I saw confin d, 220 
 
 Where with high-tow ring thoughts I only reach d her, 
 Which did burn up their wings when they approach d 
 
 her! 
 
 Methought I set me by a cypress shade, 
 And night and day the hyacinth there read ; 
 And that bewailing nightingales did borrow 235 
 
 Plaints of my plaint, and sorrows of my sorrow. 
 My food was wormwood, mine own tears my drink, 
 My rest, on death and sad mishaps to think. 
 And for such thoughts to have my heart enlarged, 
 And ease mine eyes with briny tribute charged, 240 
 Over a brook, methought, my pining face 
 I laid, which then, as griev d at my disgrace, 
 A face me show d again so overclouded, 
 That at the sight mine eyes afraid them shrouded. 
 This is the guerdon, Love, this is the gain 245 
 
 In end which to thy servants doth remain, 
 I would have said, when fear made sleep to leave me, 
 And of those fatal shadows did bereave me ; 
 But ah, alas ! instead to dream of love 
 And woes, me made them in effect to prove ; 250 
 
 For what into my troubled brain was painted, 
 I waking found that time and place presented. 
 
POEMS 41 
 
 SONNET XII. 
 
 AH ! burning thoughts, now let me take some rest, 
 And your tumultuous broils a while appease ; 
 Is t not enough, stars, fortune, love molest 
 Me all at once, but ye must too displease ? 
 Let hope, though false, yet lodge within my breast, 5 
 - 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 ? 10 
 Let me renown d live from the vulgar throng, 
 And when ye list, Heavens ! take this borrowed breath. 
 
 Men but like visions are, time all doth claim ; 
 
 lie lives, who dies to win a lasting name. 
 
42 POEMS 
 
 MADRIGAL I. 
 
 A DAEDAL * of my death, 
 
 Now I resemble that subtle worm on earth, 
 
 Which, prone to its own evil, can take no rest ; 
 
 For with strange thoughts possest, 
 
 I feed on fading leaves 
 
 Of hope, which me deceives, 
 
 And thousand webs doth warp within my breast 
 
 And thus in end unto myself I weave 
 
 A fast-shut prison, no, but even a grave. 
 
 * Daedal : contriver. 
 
POEMS 43 
 
 SEXTAIN I. 
 
 THE heaven doth not contain so many stars, 
 
 So many leaves not prostrate lie in woods, 
 
 When autumn s old, and Boreas sounds his wars, 
 
 So many waves have not the ocean floods, 
 
 As my rent mind hath torments all the night, 6 
 
 And heart spends sighs, when Phoebus brings the light. 
 
 Why should I been * a partner of the light, 
 
 Who, crost in birth by bad aspects of stars, 
 
 Have never since had happy day nor night ? 
 
 Why was not I a liver in the woods, 10 
 
 Or citizen of Thetis crystal floods, 
 
 Than made a man for love and fortune s wars ? 
 
 I look each day when death should end the wars, 
 
 Uncivil wars, twixt sense and reason s light ; 
 
 My pains I count to mountains, meads, and floods, is 
 
 And of my sorrow partners make the stars ; 
 
 All desolate I haunt the fearful woods, 
 
 When I should give myself to rest at night. 
 
 With watchful eyes I ne er behold the night, 
 Mother of peace, but ah ! to me of wars, so 
 
 * Why was I made Ed. 1656. 
 
44 POEMS 
 
 And Cynthia queen-like shining through the woods, 
 When straight those lamps come in my thought, 
 
 whose light 
 
 My judgment dazzled, passing brightest stars, 
 And then mine eyes en-isle themselves with floods. 
 
 Turn to their springs again first shall the floods, 25 
 
 Clear shall the sun the sad and gloomy night, 
 
 To dance about the pole cease shall the stars, 
 
 The elements renew their ancient wars 
 
 Shall first, and be depriv d of place and light, 
 
 Ere I find rest in city, fields, or woods. so 
 
 End these my days, indwellers of the woods, 
 Take this my life, ye deep and raging floods ; 
 Sun, never rise to clear me with thy light, 
 Horror and darkness, keep a lasting night ; 
 Consume me, care, with thy intestine wars, as 
 
 And stay your influence o er me, bright stars ! 
 
 In vain the stars, indwellers of the woods, 
 Care, horror, wars, I call, and raging floods, 
 For all have sworn no night shall dim my light.* 
 
 * Most editions (including that of 1616) read here 
 " sight " for " light " ; but surely the latter is the word 
 required. 
 
POEMS 45 
 
 SONNET XIII. 
 
 O SACRED blush, impurpling cheeks pure skies 
 With crimson wings which spread thee like the morn ; 
 O bashful look, sent from those shining eyes, 
 Which, though cast down on earth, couldst heaven 
 
 adorn ; 
 
 O tongue, in which most luscious nectar lies, 5 
 
 That can at once both bless and make forlorn ; 
 Dear coral lip, which beauty beautifies, 
 That trembling stood ere that her words were born ; 
 And you her words, words, no, but golden chains, 
 Which did captive mine ears, ensnare my soul, 10 
 Wise image of her mind, mind that contains 
 A power, all power of senses to control ; 
 Ye all from love dissuade so sweetly me, 
 That I love more, if more my love could be. 
 
46 POEMS 
 
 SONNET XIV. 
 
 NOR Arne, nor Mincius, nor stately Tiber, 
 Sebethus, nor the flood into whose streams 
 He fell who burnt the world with borrow d beams, 
 Gold-rolling Tagus, Munda, famous Iber, 
 Sorgue, Rhone, Loire, Garron, nor proud-banked 
 Seine, 5 
 
 Peneus, Phasis, Xanthus, humble Ladon, 
 Nor she whose nymphs excel her who lov d Adon, 
 Fair Tamesis, nor Ister large, nor Rhine, 
 Euphrates, Tigris, Indus, Hermus, Gange, 
 Pearly Hydaspes, serpent- like Meander, 10 
 
 The gulf bereft sweet Hero her Leander, 
 Nile, that far far his hidden head doth range, 
 Have ever had so rare a cause of praise, 
 As Ora, where this northern Phoenix stays. 
 
POEMS 47 
 
 SONNET XV. 
 
 To hear my pkints, fair river crystalline, 
 Thou in a silent slumber seems to stay ; 
 Delicious flow rs, lily and columbine, 
 Ye bow your heads when I my woes display ; 
 Forests, in you the myrtle, palm, and bay, 5 
 
 Have had compassion list ning to my groans; 
 The winds with sighs have solemniz d my moans 
 Mong leaves, which whispered what they could not 
 
 say; 
 
 The caves, the rocks, the hills, the Sylvans thrones, 
 (As if even pity did in them appear) 10 
 
 Have at my sorrows rent their ruthless stones ; 
 Each thing I find hath sense except my dear, 
 Who doth not think I love, or will not know 
 My grief, perchance delighting in my woe. 
 
48 POEMS 
 
 SONNET XVI. 
 
 SWEET brook, in whose clear crystal I mine eyes 
 Have oft seen great in labour of their tears ; 
 Enamell d bank, whose shining gravel bears 
 These sad characters of my miseries ; 
 High woods, whose mounting tops menace the 
 spheres ; 5 
 
 Wild citizens, Amphions of the trees,* 
 You gloomy groves at hottest noons which freeze, 
 Elysian shades, which Phoebus never clears ; 
 Vast solitary mountains, pleasant plains, 
 Embroid red meads that ocean-ways you reach ; 10 
 Hills, dales, springs, all that my sad cry constrains 
 To take part of my plaints, and learn woe ? speech, 
 
 Will that remorseless fair e er pity show ? 
 
 Of grace now answer if ye ought know. No. 
 
 * A rather far-fetched periphrasis for wood-birds ! 
 
POEMS 49 
 
 SONNET XVII. 
 
 WITH flaming horns the Bull now brings the year, 
 
 Melt do the horrid mountains helms of snow, 
 
 The silver floods in pearly channels flow, 
 
 The late-bare woods green anadems do wear ; 
 
 The nightingale, forgetting winter s woe, 
 
 Calls up the lazy morn her notes to hear ; 
 
 Those flow rs are spread which names of princes bear, 
 
 Some red, some azure, white and golden grow ; 
 
 Here lows a heifer, there bea- wailing * strays 
 
 A harmless lamb, not far a stag rebounds ; 10 
 
 The shepherds sing to grazing flocks sweet lays, 
 
 And all about the echoing air resounds. 
 
 Hills, dales, woods, floods, and everything doth 
 change, 
 
 But she in rigour, I in love am strange. 
 
 * The unusual spelling of the first syllable here was 
 doubtless designed to suggest the bleating noise made 
 by lambs. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
POEMS 
 
 SONNET XVIII. 
 
 WHEN Nature now had wonderfully wrought 
 
 All Auristella s parts, except her eyes. 
 
 To make those twins two lamps in beauty s skies, 
 
 She counsel of her starry senate sought. 
 
 Mars and Apollo first did her advise 
 
 In colour black to wrap those comets bright, 
 
 That Love him so might soberly disguise, 
 
 And unperceived, wound at every sight. 
 
 Chaste Phoebe spake for purest azure dyes, 
 
 But Jove and Venus green about the light Jo 
 
 To frame thought best, as bringing most delight, 
 
 That to pin d hearts hope might for aye arise : 
 
 Nature, all said, a paradise of green 
 
 There plac d, to make all love which have them 
 seen. 
 
POEMS 51 
 
 MADRIGAL II. 
 
 To the delightful green 
 
 Of you, fair radiant eyne, 
 
 Let each black yield beneath the starry arch. 
 
 Eyes, burnish d heavens of love, 
 
 Sinople * lamps of Jove, 5 
 
 Save that those hearts which with your flames ye parch 
 
 Two burning suns you prove, 
 
 All other eyes compar d with you, dear lights, 
 
 Be hells, or if not hells, yet dumpish nights. 
 
 The heavens, if we their glass 10 
 
 The sea believe, be green, not perfect blue : 
 
 They all make fair what ever fair yet was, 
 
 And they be fair because they look like you. 
 
 * Sinople : green. 
 
52 POEMS 
 
 SONNET XIX. 
 
 IN 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 fired 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 i< 
 Most bright cynoper,* 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. 
 
 * Cynoper : cinnabar ; vermilion. 
 
POEMS 53 
 
 SONNET XX. 
 
 i^ 
 
 ALL other beauties, howsoe er they shine 
 In hairs more bright than is the golden ore, 
 Or cheeks more fair than fairest eglantine, 
 Or hands like hers who comes the sun before ; * 
 Match d with that heavenly hue, and shape divine, 5 
 With those dear stars which my weak thoughts adore, 
 Look but like shadows, or if they be more, 
 It is in that, that they are like to thine. 
 Who sees those eyes, their force and doth not prove, 
 Who gazeth on the dimple of that chin, 10 
 
 And finds not Venus son intrench d therein, 
 Or hath not sense, or knows not what is love. 
 To see thee had Narcissus had the grace, 
 He sure had died with wond ring on thy face. 
 
 * Aurora. 
 
54 POEMS 
 
 SONNET XXL 
 
 MY tears may well Numidian lions tame, 
 
 And pity breed into the hardest heart 
 
 That ever Pyrrha did to maid impart, 
 
 When she them first of blushing rocks did frame. 
 
 Ah ! eyes which only serve to wail my smart, 
 
 How long will you mine inward woes proclaim ? 
 
 Let it suffice, you bear a weeping part 
 
 All night, at day though ye do not the same : 
 
 Cease, idle sighs, to spend your storms in vain, 
 
 And these calm secret shades more to molest 
 
 Contain you in the prison of my breast, 
 
 You do not ease but aggravate my pain ; 
 
 Or, if burst forth you must, that tempest move 
 In sight of her whom I so dearly love. 
 
POEMS 55 
 
 SONNET XXII. 
 
 NYMPHS, sister nymphs, which haunt this crystal 
 
 brook, 
 
 And, happy, in these floating bowers abide, 
 Where trembling roofs of trees from sun you hide, 
 Which make ideal woods in every crook ; 
 Whether ye garlands for your locks provide, r> 
 
 Or pearly letters seek in sandy book, 
 Or count your loves when Thetis was a bride, 
 Lift up your golden heads and on me look. 
 Read in mine eyes mine agonising cares, 
 And what ye read recount to her again : 10 
 
 Fair nymphs, say, all these streams are but my tears, 
 And if she ask you how they sweet remain, 
 
 Tell, that the bitterest tears which eyes can pour, 
 When shed for her do cease more to be sour. 
 
56 POEMS 
 
 MADRIGAL III. 
 
 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. 
 
 The Graces naked danc d about the place, 
 
 The winds and trees amaz d 
 
 With silence on her gaz d ; 
 
 The flow rs did smile, like those upon her face, 
 
 And as their aspen stalks those fingers band, 
 
 That she might read my case, 
 
 A hyacinth I wish d me in her hand. 
 
POEMS 57 
 
 SONNET XXIIL 
 
 THEN is she gone ? O fool and coward I ! 
 O good occasion lost, ne er to be found ! 
 What fatal chains have my dull senses bound, 
 When best they may, that they not fortune try ? 
 Here is the flow ry bed where she did lie, 
 With roses here she stellified the ground, 
 She fix d her eyes on this yet smiling pond, 
 Nor time, nor courteous place, seem d ought deny. 
 Too long, too long, Respect, I do embrace 
 Your counsel, full of threats and sharp disdain ; 
 Disdain in her sweet heart can have no place, 
 And though come there, must straight retire again 
 Henceforth, Respect, farewell, I oft hear told 
 Who lives in love can never be too bold. 
 
58 POEMS 
 
 SONNET XXIV. 
 
 IN mind s pure glass when I myself behold, 
 And vively see how my best days are spent, 
 What clouds of care above my head are roll d, 
 What coming harms which I can not prevent : 
 My begun course I, wearied, do repent, 
 And would embrace what reason oft hath told ; 
 But scarce thus think I, when love hath controll d 
 All the best reasons reason could invent. 
 Though sure I know my labour s end is grief, 
 The more I strive that I the more shall pine, 
 That only death can be my last relief: 
 Yet when I think upon that face divine, 
 
 Like one with arrow shot in laughter s place, 
 Malgre my heart, I joy in my disgrace. 
 
POEMS 59 
 
 SONNET XXV. 
 
 DEAR quirister, who from those shadows sends, 
 Ere that the blushing dawn dare show her light, 
 Such sad lamenting strains, that night attends 
 (Become all ear), stars stay to hear thy plight ; 
 If one whose grief even reach of thought transcends, 5 
 Who ne er (not in a dream) did taste delight, 
 May thee importune who like case pretends, 
 And seems to joy in woe, in woe s despite ; 
 Tell me (so may thou fortune milder try, 
 And long, long sing) for what thou thus complains, 10 
 Sith, winter gone, the sun in dappled sky 
 Now smiles on meadows, mountains, woods, and plains? 
 The bird, as if my questions did her move, 
 With trembling wings sobb d forth, I love, I love ! 
 
60 POEMS 
 
 SONNET XXVI. 
 
 TRUST 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 enroll d ; 
 Trust not those shining lights which wrought my woe, 5 
 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 10 
 
 Made all the neighbouring herbs and grass rejoice, 
 And think how little is twixt life s extremes : 
 The cruel tyrant that did kill those flow rs, 
 Shall once, ay me ! not spare that spring of yours. 
 
 * Orpheus. 
 
POEMS 61 
 
 SONNET XXVII. 
 
 THAT I so slenderly set forth my mind, 
 Writing I wot not what in ragged rhymes, 
 And charg d with brass into these golden times, 
 When others tower so high, am left behind ; 
 I crave not Phoebus leave his sacred cell 
 To bind my brows with fresh Aonian bays ; 
 Let them have that who tuning sweetest lays 
 By Tempe sit, or Aganippe s well ; 
 Nor yet to Venus tree do I aspire, 
 Sith she for whom I might affect that praise, 
 My best attempts with cruel words gainsays, 
 And I seek not that others me admire. 
 
 Of weeping myrrh the crown is which I crave, 
 With a sad cypress to adorn my grave. 
 
62 POEMS 
 
 SONNET XXVIII. 
 
 SOUND hoarse, sad lute, true witness of my woe, 
 And strive no more to ease self-chosen pain 
 With soul-enchanting sounds ; your accents strain 
 Unto these tears incessantly which flow. 
 Shrill treble, weep ; and you, dull basses, show s 
 Your master s sorrow in a deadly vein ; 
 Let never joyful hand upon you go, 
 Nor consort keep but when you do complain. 
 Fly Phoebus rays, nay, hate the irksome light ; 
 Woods solitary shades for thee are best, w 
 
 > Or the black horrors of the blackest night, 
 
 When all the world, save thou and I, doth rest : 
 Then sound, sad lute, and bear a mourning part, 
 Thou hell mayst move, though not a woman s heart. 
 
POEMS 63 
 
 SONNET XXIX. 
 
 You restless seas, appease your roaring waves, 
 And you who raise huge mountains in that plain, 
 Air s trumpeters, your blust ring storms restrain, 
 And listen to the plaints my grief doth cause. 
 Eternal lights, though adamantine laws 
 Of destinies to move still you ordain, 
 Turn hitherward your eyes, your axe-tree pause, 
 And wonder at the torments I sustain. 
 Earth, if thou be not dull d by my disgrace, 
 And senseless made, now ask those powers above, 
 Why they so crost a wretch brought on thy face, 
 Fram d for mishap, th anachorite of love ? 
 
 And bid them, if they would more ^Etnas burn, 
 In Rhodope or Erymanthe me turn. 
 
64 POEMS 
 
 SONNET XXX. 
 
 WHAT cruel star into this world me brought ? 
 What gloomy day did dawn to give me light ? 
 What unkind hand to nurse me, orphan, sought, 
 And would not leave me in eternal night ? 
 What thing so dear as I hath essence * bought ? 
 The elements, dry, humid, heavy, light, 
 The smallest living things by nature wrought, 
 Be freed of woe, if they have small delight. 
 Ah ! only I, abandon d to despair, 
 Nail d to my torments, in pale Horror s shade, i 
 Like wand ring clouds see all my comforts fled, 
 And evil on evil with hours my life impair : 
 
 The heaven and fortune which were wont to turn, 
 Fixt in one mansion stay to cause me mourn. 
 
 * By "essence" he here intends "existence." 
 
POEMS 
 
 SONNET XXXI. 
 
 DEAR eye, which deign st on this sad monument 
 The sable scroll of my mishaps to view, 
 Though with the mourning Muses tears besprent, 
 And darkly drawn, which is not feign d, but true ; 
 If thou not dazzled with a heavenly hue, 
 And comely feature, didst not yet lament. 
 But happy liv st unto thyself content, 
 O let not Love thee to his laws subdue. 
 Look on the woful shipwreck of my youth, 
 And let my ruins for a Phare thee serve 
 To shun this rock Capharean of untruth, 
 And serve no god who doth his churchmen starve : 
 His kingdom is but plaints, his guerdon tears, 
 What he gives more are jealousies and fears. 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
66 POEMS 
 
 SONNET XXXII. 
 
 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 toss d 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 past, 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. 
 
POEMS 67 
 
 SONNET XXXIII. 
 
 LET fortune triumph now, and To sing, 
 Sith I must fall beneath this load of care ; 
 Let her, what most I prize of ev ry thing, 
 Now wicked trophies in her temple rear. 
 She, who high palmy empires doth not spare, I 
 
 And tramples in the dust the proudest king, 
 Let her vaunt how my bliss she did impair, 
 To what low ebb she now my flow doth bring ; 
 Let her count how, a new Ixion, me 
 She in her wheel did turn, how high nor low K 
 
 I never stood, but more to tortur d be : 
 Weep, soul, weep, plaintful soul, thy sorrows know ; 
 Weep, of thy tears till a black river swell, 
 Which may Cocytus be to this thy hell 
 
68 POEMS 
 
 SONNET XXXIV. 
 
 O CRUEL beauty, meekness inhumane, 
 That night and day contend with my desire, 
 And seek my hope to kill, not quench my fire, 
 By death, not balm, to ease my pleasant pain ; 
 Though ye my thoughts tread down which would 
 
 aspire, 
 
 And bound my bliss, do not, alas ! disdain 
 That I your matchless worth and grace admire, 
 And for their cause these torments sharp sustain. 
 Let great Empedocles vaunt of his death, 
 Found in the midst of those Sicilian flames, .10 
 
 And Phaethon, that heaven him reft of breath, 
 And Daedal s son, he nam d the Samian streams : 
 Their haps I envy not ; my praise shall be, 
 The fairest she that liv d gave death to me. 
 
POEMS 69 
 
 SONNET XXXV. 
 
 THE Hyperborean hills, Ceraunus snow, 
 Or Arimaspus (cruel !) first thee bred ; 
 The Caspian tigers with their milk thee fed, 
 And Fauns did human blood on thee bestow ; 
 Fierce Orithyia s lover * in thy bed 5 
 
 Thee lull d asleep, where he enrag d doth blow ; 
 Thou didst not drink the floods which here do flow. 
 But tears, or those by icy Tanais head. 
 Sith thou disdains my love, neglects my grief, 
 Laughs at my groans, and still affects my death, 10 
 Of thee, nor heaven, I ll seek no more relief, 
 Nor longer entertain this loathsome breath, 
 But yield unto my star, that thou mayst prove 
 What loss thou hadst in losing such a love. 
 
 * Boreas. 
 
70 POEMS 
 
 SONG II. 
 
 PHOEBUS, arise, 
 
 And paint the sable skies 
 
 With azure, white, and red ; 
 
 Rouse Memnon s mother from her Tithon s bed, 
 
 That she thy career 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-wished 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 unto this grove 
 
 My love, to hear and recompense my love. 
 
POEMS 71 
 
 Fair king, who all preserves, 
 
 But show thy blushing beams, 25 
 
 And thou two sweeter eyes 
 
 Shalt see, than those which by Peneus streams 
 
 Did once thy heart surprise ; 
 
 Nay, suns, which shine as clear 
 
 As thou when two thou did to Rome appear. so 
 
 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, 35 
 
 And with her tresses play, 
 
 Kissing sometimes those purple ports of death. 
 
 The winds all silent are, 
 
 And Phoebus in his chair, 
 
 Ensaffroning sea and air, 4u 
 
 Makes vanish every star : 
 
 Night like a drunkard reels 
 
 Beyond the hills to shun his flaming wheels ; 
 
 The fields with flow rs are deck d in every hue, 
 
 The clouds bespangle with bright gold their blue : 43 
 
 Here is the pleasant place, 
 
 And ev ry thing, save her, who all should grace. 
 
72 POEMS 
 
 SONNET XXXVI. 
 
 WHO hath not seen into her saffron bed 
 The morning s goddess mildly her repose, 
 Or her,* of whose pure blood first sprang the rose, 
 Lull d in a slumber by a myrtle shade ; 
 Who hath not seen that sleeping white and red 
 Makes Phoebe look so pale, which she did close 
 In that Ionian hill, to ease her woes, 
 Which only lives by nectar kisses fed ; 
 Come but and see my lady sweetly sleep, 
 The sighing rubies of those heavenly lips, 
 The Cupids which breast s golden apples keep, 
 Those eyes which shine in midst of their eclipse, 
 And he them all shall see, perhaps, and prove 
 She waking but persuades, now forceth love. 
 
 * Venus. 
 
POEMS 73 
 
 SONNET XXXVII. 
 
 OF Cytherea s birds, that milk-white pair, 
 
 On yonder leafy myrtle-tree which groan, 
 
 And waken, with their kisses in the air, 
 
 Enamour d zephyrs murmuring one by one, 
 
 If thou but sense hadst like Pygmalion s stone, 5 
 
 Or hadst not seen Medusa s snaky hair, 
 
 Love s lessons thou might st learn ; and learn, sweet 
 
 fair, 
 
 To summer s heat ere that thy spring be grown. 
 And if those kissing lovers seem but cold, 
 Look how that elm this ivy doth embrace, 10 
 
 And binds, and clasps with many a wanton fold, 
 And courting sleep o ershadows all the place ; 
 Nay, seems to say, dear tree, we shall not part, 
 In sign whereof, lo ! in each leaf a heart. 
 
74 POEMS 
 
 SONNET XXXVIII. 
 
 THE sun is fair when he with crimson crown, 
 And flaming rubies, leaves his eastern bed ; 
 Fair is Thaumantias in her crystal gown, 
 When clouds engemm d hang azure, green, and red : 
 To western worlds when wearied day goes down, 5 
 And from Heaven s windows each star shows her head, 
 Earth s silent daughter, night, is fair, though brown ; 
 Fair is the moon, though in love s livery clad ; 
 Fair Chloris is when she doth paint April, 
 Fair are the meads, the woods, the floods are fair ; 10 
 Fair looketh Ceres with her yellow hair, 
 And apples queen when rose-cheek d she doth smile. 
 That heaven, and earth, and seas are fair is true, 
 Yet true that all not please so much as you. 
 
POEMS 75 
 
 MADRIGAL IV. 
 
 WHENAS she smiles I find 
 
 More light before mine eyes, 
 
 Than * when the sun from Ind 
 
 Brings to our world a flow ry Paradise : 
 
 But when she gently weeps, 5 
 
 And pours forth pearly showers 
 
 On cheeks fair blushing flowers, 
 
 A sweet melancholy my senses keeps. 
 
 Both feed so my disease, 
 
 So much both do me please, 10 
 
 That oft I doubt, which more my heart doth burn, 
 
 Like love to see her smile, or pity mourn. 
 
 * " Than " is the reading of the edition of 1656 ; that 
 of 1616 has " Nor." 
 
76 POEMS 
 
 SONNET XXXIX. 
 
 SLIDE soft, fair Forth, and make a crystal plain, 
 Cut your white locks, and on your foamy face 
 Let not a wrinkle be, when you embrace 
 The boat that earth s perfections doth contain. 
 Winds, wonder, and through wond ring hold your 
 peace ; 5 
 
 Or if that ye your hearts cannot restrain 
 From sending sighs, mov d by a lover s case, 
 Sigh, and in her fair hair yourselves enchain ; 
 Or take these sighs which absence makes arise 
 From mine oppressed breast, and wave the sails, 10 
 Or some sweet breath new brought from Paradise : 
 Floods seem to smile, love o er the winds prevails, 
 And yet huge waves arise ; the cause is this, 
 The ocean strives with Forth the boat to kiss. 
 
POEMS 77 
 
 SONNET XL. 
 
 AH ! who can see those fruits of Paradise, 
 Celestial cherries, which so sweetly swell, 
 That sweetness self confined there seems to dwell, 
 And all those sweetest parts about despise ? 
 Ah ! who can see and feel no flame surprise 
 His hardened heart ? for me, alas ! too well 
 I know their force, and how they do excel : 
 Now burn I through desire, now do I freeze ; 
 I die, dear life, unless to me be given 
 As many kisses as the spring hath flow rs, 
 Or as the silver drops of Iris show rs, 
 Or as the stars in all-embracing heaven ; 
 
 And if, displeas d, ye of the match complain, 
 Ye shall have leave to take them back again. 
 
78 POEMS 
 
 SONNET XLI. 
 
 Is T not enough, ay me ! me thus to see 
 Like some heaven-banish d ghost still wailing go, 
 A shadow which your rays do only show ? 
 To vex me more, unless ye bid me die, 
 What could ye worse allot unto your foe ? 
 But die will I, so ye will not deny 
 That grace to me which mortal foes even try, 
 To choose what sort of death should end my woe. 
 One time I found whenas ye did me kiss, 
 Ye gave my panting soul so sweet a touch, 
 That half I swoon d in midst of all my bliss ; 
 I do but crave my death s wound may be such ; 
 For though by grief I die not and annoy, 
 Is t not enough to die through too much joy ? 
 
POEMS 79 
 
 MADRIGAL V. 
 
 SWEET rose, whence is this hue 
 
 Which doth all hues excel ? 
 
 Whence this most fragrant smell, 
 
 And whence this form and gracing grace in you ? 
 
 In flow ry Psestum s field perhaps ye grew, 5 
 
 Or Hybla s hills you bred, 
 
 Or odoriferous Enna s plains you fed, 
 
 Or Tmolus, or where boar young Adon slew ; 
 
 Or hath the queen of love you dy d of new 
 
 In that dear blood, which makes you look so red ? 10 
 No, none of those, but cause more high you blest, 
 My lady s breast you bare, and lips you kiss d. 
 
So POEMS 
 
 SONNET XLII. 
 
 SHE whose fair flow rs no autumn makes decay, 
 Whose hue celestial, earthly hues doth stain, 
 Into a pleasant odoriferous plain 
 Did walk alone, to brave the pride of May ; 
 And whilst through checker d lists she made her way, 5 
 Which smil d about her sight to entertain, 
 Lo, unawares, where Love did hid remain, 
 She spied, and sought to make of him her prey j 
 For which, of golden locks a fairest hair, 
 To bind the boy, she took j but he, afraid 10 
 
 At her approach, sprang swiftly in the air, 
 And mounting far from reach, look d back and said, 
 Why shouldst thou, sweet, me seek in chains to bind, 
 Sith in thine eyes I daily am confm d ? 
 
POEMS 8l 
 
 MADRIGAL VI. 
 
 ON this cold world of ours, 
 
 Flow r of the seasons, season of the flow rs, 
 
 Son of the sun, sweet Spring, 
 
 Such hot and burning days why dost thou bring ? 
 
 Is this for that those high eternal pow rs 
 
 Flash down that fire this All environing ? 
 
 Or that now Phoebus keeps his sister s sphere ? 
 
 Or doth some Phaethon 
 
 Inflame the sea and air ? 
 
 Or rather is it, usher of the year, 
 
 For that, last day, amongst thy flow rs alone, 
 
 Unmask d thou saw st my fair ? 
 And whilst thou on her gaz d she did thee burn, 
 And in f hy brother Summer doth thee turn ? 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
82 POEMS 
 
 SONNET XLIII. 
 
 DEAR wood, and you, sweet solitary place, 
 Where from the vulgar I estranged live, 
 Contented more with what your shades me give, 
 Than if I had what Thetis doth embrace ; 
 What snaky eye, grown jealous of my peace, 
 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 flow ry place, I first did learn of thee : 
 Ah ! if I were mine own, your dear resorts 
 I would not change with princes stately courts. 
 
POEMS 83 
 
 SEXTAIN II. 
 
 SiTH gone is my delight and only pleasure, 
 
 The last of all my hopes, the cheerful sun 
 
 That clear d my life s dark day, nature s sweet treasure, 
 
 More dear to me than all beneath the moon, 
 
 What resteth now, but that upon this mountain 5 
 
 I weep, till Heaven transform me in a fountain ? 
 
 Fresh, fair, delicious, crystal, pearly fountain, 
 On whose smooth face to look she oft took pleasure, 
 Tell me (so may thy streams long cheer this mountain, 
 So serpent ne er thee stain, nor scorch thee sun, 10 
 So may with gentle beams thee kiss the moon), 
 Dost thou not mourn to want so fair a treasure ? 
 
 While she her glass d in thee, rich Tagus treasure 
 
 Thou envy needed not, nor yet the fountain 
 
 In which that hunter * saw the naked moon ; 15 
 
 Absence hath robb d thee of thy wealth and pleasure, 
 
 And I remain like marigold of sun 
 
 Depriv d, that dies by shadow of some mountain. 
 
 * Actaeon. 
 
8 4 POEMS 
 
 Nymphs of the forests, nymphs who on this mountain 
 Are wont to dance, showing your beauty s treasure 20 
 To goat-feet Sylvans, and the wond ring sun, 
 Whenas you gather flowers about this fountain, 
 Bid her farewell who placed here her pleasure, 
 And sing her praises to the stars and moon. 
 
 Among the lesser lights as is the moon, 
 
 Blushing through scarf of clouds on Latmos mountain, 
 
 Or when her silver locks she looks for pleasure 
 
 In Thetis streams, proud of so gay a treasure, 
 
 Such was my fair when she sat by this fountain 
 
 With other nymphs, to shun the amorous sun. 
 
 As is our earth in absence of the sun, 
 
 Or when of sun deprived is the moon ; 
 
 As is without a verdant shade a fountain, 
 
 Or wanting grass, a mead, a vale, a mountain ; 
 
 Such is my state, bereft of my dear treasure, 
 
 To know whose only worth was all my pleasure. 
 
 Ne er think of pleasure, heart ; eyes, shun the sun, 
 Tears be your treasure, which the wand ring moon 
 Shall see you shed by mountain, vale, and fountain. 
 
POEMS 85 
 
 SONNET XLIV. 
 
 THOU window, once which served for a sphere 
 To that dear planet of my heart, whose light 
 Made often blush the glorious queen of night, 
 While she in thee more beauteous did appear, 
 What mourning weeds, alas ! now dost thou wear ! 5 
 How loathsome to mine eyes is thy sad sight ! 
 How poorly look st thou, with what heavy cheer, 
 Since that sun set, which made thee shine so bright ! 
 Unhappy now thee close, for as of late 
 To wond ring eyes thou wast a paradise, 10 
 
 Bereft of her who made thee fortunate, 
 A gulf thou art, whence clouds of sighs arise ; 
 But unto none so noisome as to me, 
 Who hourly see my murder d joys in thee. 
 
86 POEMS 
 
 SC 
 
 SONNET XLV. 
 
 ARE these the flow ry banks, is this the mead, 
 Where she was wont to pass the pleasant hours ? 
 Did here her eyes exhale mine eyes salt show rs, 
 When on her lap I laid my weary head ? 
 Is this the goodly elm did us o erspread, 5 
 
 Whose tender rind, cut out in curious flow rs 
 By that white hand, contains those flames of ours ? 
 Is this the rustling spring us music made ? 
 Deflourish d mead, where is your heavenly hue ? 
 Bank, where that arras did you late adorn ? 10 
 
 How look ye, elm, all withered and forlorn ? 
 Only, sweet spring, nought altered seems in you ; 
 But while here chang d each other thing appears, 
 To sour your streams take of mine eyes these tears. 
 
POEMS 87 
 
 SONNET XLVI. 
 
 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 musked eglantines, 5 
 
 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 perceiv d, and here a morn 
 Of bright carnations did o erspread her face ; 10 
 
 Here did she sigh, here first my hopes were born, 
 And I first got a pledge of promis d grace : 
 But, ah ! what serv d it to be happy so, 
 Sith passed pleasures double but new woe ? 
 
POEMS 
 
 SONNET XLVII. 
 
 O NIGHT, clear night, O dark and gloomy day ! 
 
 O woful waking ! O soul-pleasing sleep ! 
 
 O sweet conceits which in my brains did creep, 
 
 Yet sour conceits which went so soon away ! 
 
 A sleep I had more than poor words can say, 
 
 For, clos d in arms, methought, I did thee keep ; 
 
 A sorry wretch plung d in misfortunes deep 
 
 Am I not, wak d, when light doth lies bewray? 
 
 O that that night had ever still been black ! 
 
 O that that day had never yet begun ! 
 
 And you, mine eyes, would ye no time saw sun, 
 
 To have your sun in such a zodiac ! 
 
 Lo ! what is good of life is but a dream, 
 When sorrow is a never-ebbing stream. 
 
POEMS 89 
 
 SONNET XLVIII. 
 
 HAIR, precious hair which Midas hand did strain, 
 Part of the wreath of gold that crowns those brows 
 Which winter s whitest white in whiteness stain, 
 And lily, by Eridan s bank that grows ; 
 Hair, fatal present, which first caus d my woes, s 
 When loose ye hang like Danae s golden rain, 
 Sweet nets, which sweetly do all hearts enchain, 
 Strings, deadly strings, with which Love bends his 
 
 bows, 
 
 How are ye hither come ? tell me, O hair, 
 Dear armelet, for what thus were ye given ? 10 
 
 I know a badge of bondage I you wear, 
 Yet hair, for you, O that I were a heaven ! 
 Like Berenice s lock that ye might shine, 
 But brighter far, about this arm of mine. 
 
90 POEMS 
 
 MADRIGAL VII. 
 
 UNHAPPY light, 
 
 Do not approach to bring the woful day. 
 
 When I must bid for aye 
 
 Farewell to her, and live in endless plight. 
 
 Fair moon, with gentle beams r. 
 
 The sight who never mars, 
 
 Long clear heaven s sable vault ; and you, bright stars, 
 
 Your golden locks long glass in earth s pure streams ; 
 
 Let Phoebus never rise 
 
 To dim your watchful eyes : 10 
 
 Prolong, alas ! prolong my short delight, 
 And, if ye can, make an eternal night. 
 
POEMS 91 
 
 SONNET XLIX. 
 
 WITH grief in heart, and tears in swooning eyes, 
 When I to her had giv n a sad farewell, 
 Close sealed with a kiss, and dew which fell 
 On my else-moisten d face from beauty s skies, 
 So strange amazement did my mind surprise, 
 That at each pace I fainting turn d again, 
 Like one whom a torpedo stupefies, 
 Not feeling honour s bit, nor reason s rein. 
 But when fierce stars to part me did constrain, 
 With back-cast looks I envied both and bless d 
 The happy walls and place did her contain, 
 Till that sight s shafts their flying object miss d. 
 So wailing parted Ganymede the fair, 
 When eagles talons bare him through the air. 
 
92 POEMS 
 
 MADRIGAL VIII. 
 
 I FEAR not henceforth death, 
 
 Sith after this departure yet I breathe ; 
 
 Let rocks, and seas, and wind, 
 
 Their highest treasons show ; 
 
 Let sky and earth combin d 
 
 Strive, if they can, to end my life and woe 
 
 Sith grief can not, me nothing can o erthrow : 
 Or if that aught can cause my fatal lot, 
 It will be when I hear I am forgot. 
 
POEMS 93 
 
 SONNET L. 
 
 How many times night s silent queen her face 
 Hath hid, how oft with stars in silver mask 
 In Heaven s great hall she hath begun her task, 
 And cheer d the waking eye in lower place ! 
 How oft the sun hath made by Heaven s swift race 5 
 The happy lover to forsake the breast 
 Of his dear lady, wishing in the west 
 His golden coach to run had larger space ! 
 I ever count, and number, since, alas ! 
 I bade farewell to my heart s dearest guest ; m 
 
 The. miles I compass, and in mind I chase 
 The floods and mountains hold me from my rest : 
 But, woe is me ! long count and count may I, 
 Ere I see her whose absence makes me die. 
 
94 POEMS 
 
 SONNET LI. 
 
 So grievous is my pain, so painful life, 
 That oft I find me in the arms of Death ; 
 But, breath half-gone, that tyrant called Death 
 Who others kills, restoreth me to life : 
 For while I think how woe shall end with life, 5 
 
 And that I quiet peace shall joy by death, 
 That thought even doth o erpower the pains of death, 
 And call me home again to loathed life. 
 Thus doth mine evil transcend both life and death, 
 While no death is so bad as is my life, 10 
 
 Nor no life such which doth not end by death, 
 And Protean changes turn my death and life. 
 O happy those who in their birth find death, 
 Sith but to languish Heaven affordeth life ! 
 
POEMS 95 
 
 SONNET LII. 
 
 FAME, who with golden pens abroad dost range 
 Where Phoebus leaves the night, and brings the day ; 
 Fame, in one place who, restless, dost not stay 
 Till thou hast flown from Atlas unto Gange ; 
 Fame, enemy to time that still doth change, 
 And in his changing course would make decay 
 What here below he findeth in his way, 
 Even making virtue to herself look strange ; 
 Daughter of heaven, now all thy trumpets sound, 
 Raise up thy head unto the highest sky, ic 
 
 With wonder blaze the gifts in her are found ; 
 And when she from this mortal globe shall fly, 
 
 In thy wide mouth keep long, long keep her name 
 So thou by her, she by thee live shall, Fame. 
 
96 POEMS 
 
 MADRIGAL IX. 
 
 THE ivory, coral, gold, 
 
 Of breast, of lips, of hair, 
 
 So lively Sleep doth show to inward sight, 
 
 That wake I think I hold 
 
 No shadow, but my fair : 5 
 
 Myself so to deceive, 
 
 With long-shut eyes I shun the irksome light. 
 
 Such pleasure thus I have, 
 
 Delighting in false gleams, 
 
 If Death Sleep s brother be, 10 
 
 And souls reliev d of sense have so sweet dreams, 
 That I would wish me thus to dream and die. 
 
POEMS 97 
 
 SONNET LIII. 
 
 I CURSE the night, yet do from day me hide, 
 The Pandionian birds * I tire with moans, 
 The echoes even are wearied with my groans, 
 Since absence did me from my bliss divide. 
 Each dream, each toy my reason doth affright ; 
 And when remembrance reads the curious scroll 
 Of pass d contentments caused by her sight, 
 Then bitter anguish doth invade my soul. 
 While thus I live eclipsed of her light, 
 O me ! what better am I than the mole, 
 Or those whose zenith is the only pole, 
 Whose hemisphere is hid with so long night ? 
 Save that in earth he rests, they hope for sun, 
 I pine, and find mine endless night begun. 
 
 * The Paadionian birds : nightingales. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
POEMS 
 
 SONNET LIV. 
 
 OF death some tell, some of the cruel pain 
 
 Which that bad craftsman in his work did try, 
 
 When (a new monster) flames once did constrain 
 
 A human corpse to yield a brutish cry. 
 
 Some tell of those in burning beds who lie, 
 
 For that they durst in the Phlegrsean plain 
 
 The mighty rulers of the sky defy, 
 
 And siege those crystal towers which all contain. 
 
 Another counts of Phlegethon s hot floods 
 
 The souls which drink, Ixion s endless smart, i 
 
 And his to whom a vulture eats the heart ; 
 
 One tells of spectres in enchanted woods. 
 
 Of all those pains he who the worst would prove, 
 Let him be absent, and but pine in love. 
 
POEMS 99 
 
 MADRIGAL X. 
 
 TRITONS, which bounding dive 
 Through Neptune s liquid plain, 
 Whenas ye shall arrive 
 With tilting tides where silver Ora plays, 
 And to your king his watery tribute pays, 
 
 Tell how I dying live, 
 
 And burn in midst of all the coldest main. 
 
ioo POEMS 
 
 SONNET LV. 
 
 PLACE me where angry Titan burns the Moor, 
 And thirsty Afric fiery monsters brings, 
 Or where the new-born phoenix spreads her wings, 
 And troops of wond ring birds her flight adore ; 
 Place me by Gange, or Ind s empamper d shore, s> 
 Where smiling heavens on earth cause double springs ; 
 Place me where Neptune s quire of syrens sings, 
 Or where, made hoarse through cold, he leaves to 
 
 roar; 
 
 Me place where Fortune doth her darlings crown, 
 A wonder or a spark in Envy s eye, i 
 
 Or let outrageous fates upon me frown, 
 And pity wailing see disaster d me ; 
 
 Affection s print my mind so deep doth prove, 
 
 I may forget myself, but not my love. 
 
POEMS 
 
 THE SECOND PART 
 
 SONNET I. 
 
 OF mortal glory, O soon darken d ray ! 
 O posting joys of man, more swift than wind ! 
 O fond desires, which wing d with fancies stray ! 
 O trait rous hopes, which do our judgments blind ! 
 Lo ! in a flash that light is gone away, 5 
 
 Which dazzle did each eye, delight each mind, 
 And with that sun, from whence it came, combin d, 
 Now makes more radiant heaven s eternal day. 
 Let Beauty now be blubber d cheeks with tears,* 
 Let widow d Music only roar and plain ; 10 
 
 Poor Virtue, get thee wings, and mount the spheres, 
 And let thine only name on earth remain. 
 
 Death hath thy temple raz d, Love s empire foil d, 
 The world of honour, worth, and sweetness spoil d. 
 
 * The edition of 1656 reads, "bedew her cheeks 
 with tears." 
 
102 POEMS 
 
 SONNET II. 
 
 THOSE eyes, those sparkling sapphires of delight, 
 Which thousand thousand hearts did set on fire, 
 Which made that eye of heaven that brings the light. 
 Oft jealous, stay amaz d them to admire ; 
 That living snow, those crimson roses bright, a 
 
 Those pearls, those rubies, which did breed desire, 
 Those locks of gold, that purple fair of Tyre, 
 Are wrapt, ay me ! up in eternal night. 
 What hast thou more to vaunt of, wretched world, 
 Sith she, who cursed thee made blest, is gone ? i< 
 Thine ever-burning lamps, rounds ever whirl d, 
 Can unto thee not model such a one : 
 
 For if they would such beauty bring on earth, 
 They should be forc d again to make her breath.* 
 
 * Breath, for "breathe " 
 
POEMS 103 
 
 SONNET III. 
 
 O FATE ! conspir d to pour your worst on me, 
 O rigorous rigour, which doth all confound ! 
 With cruel hands ye have cut down the tree, 
 And fruit and flower dispersed on the ground. 
 A little space of earth my love doth bound ; 
 That beauty which did raise it to the sky, 
 Turn d in neglected dust, now low doth lie, 
 Deaf to my plaints, and senseless of my wound. 
 Ah ! did I live for this ? Ah ! did I love ? 
 For this and was it she did so excel ? 
 That ere she well life s sweet-sour joys did prove, 
 She should, too dear a guest, with horror dwell ? 
 Weak influence of Heaven ! what fair ye frame, 
 Falls in the prime, and passeth like a dream. 
 
104 POEMS 
 
 SONNET IV. 
 
 O WOFUL life ! Life ? No, but living death, 
 Frail boat of crystal in a rocky sea, 
 A sport expos d to Fortune s stormy breath, 
 Which kept with pain, with terror doth decay : 
 The false delights, true woes thou dost bequeath, 
 Mine all-appalled mind do so affray, 
 That I those envy who are laid in earth, 
 And pity them that run thy dreadful way. 
 When did mine eyes behold one cheerful morn ? 
 When had my tossed soul one night of rest ? 
 When did not hateful stars my projects scorn ? 
 O ! now I find for mortals what is best ; 
 
 Even, sith our voyage shameful is, and short, 
 Soon to strike sail, and perish in the port. 
 
POEMS 105 
 
 SONNET V. 
 
 MINE eyes, dissolve your globes in briny streams, 
 
 And with a cloud of sorrow dim your sight ; 
 
 The sun s bright sun is set, of late whose beams 
 
 Gave lustre to your day, day to your night. 
 
 My voice, now deafen earth with anathemes, 5 
 
 Roar forth a challenge in the world s despite, 
 
 Tell that disguised grief is her delight, 
 
 That life a slumber is of fearful dreams. 
 
 And, woful mind, abhor to think of joy ; 
 
 My senses all now comfortless you hide, 10 
 
 Accept no object but of black annoy, 
 
 Tears, plaints, sighs, mourning weeds, graves gaping 
 
 wide. 
 
 I have nought left to wish, my hopes are dead, 
 And all with her beneath a marble laid. 
 
io6 POEMS 
 
 SONNET VI. 
 
 SWEET 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 crown d, 
 
 Most blest abid st above the sphere of spheres ; 
 
 If heavenly laws, alas ! have not thee bound s 
 
 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, 10 
 
 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 fiow rs be seen. 
 
POEMS 107 
 
 MADRIGAL I. 
 
 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 fix d 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 admir d, it in a thought, 
 As swell d from nothing, doth dissolve in nought. 
 
io8 POEMS 
 
 SONNET VII. 
 
 ,O ! IT is not to me, bright lamp day, 
 That in the east thou show st thy rosy face ; 
 O i it is not to me thou leav st that sea, 
 And in these azure lists beginn st thy race. 
 Thou shin st not to the dead in any place ; 
 And I, dead, from this world am gone away, 
 Or if I seem, a shadow, yet to stay, 
 It is a while but to bemoan my case. 
 My mirth is lost, my comforts are dismay d, 
 And unto sad mishaps their place do yield ; 
 My knowledge doth resemble a bloody field, 
 Where I my hopes and helps see prostrate laid. 
 So painful is life s course which I have run, 
 That I do wish it never had begun. 
 
POEMS 109 
 
 SONG I. 
 
 SAD Damon being come 
 
 To that for ever lamentable tomb, 
 
 Which those eternal powers that all control, 
 
 Unto his living soul 
 
 A melancholy prison had prescriv d ; 5 
 
 Of hue, of heat, of motion quite depriv d, 
 
 In arms weak, trembling, cold, 
 
 A marble, he the marble did infold ; 
 
 And having made it warm with many a show r, 
 
 Which dimmed eyes did pour, 10 
 
 When grief had given him leave, and sighs them 
 
 stay d, 
 Thus with a sad alas at last he said : 
 
 Who would have thought to me 
 The place where thou didst lie could grievous be ? 
 And that, dear body, long thee having sought, is 
 O me ! who would have thought 
 Thee once to find it should my soul confound, 
 And give my heart than death a deeper wound ? 
 Thou didst disdain my tears, 
 
 But grieve not that this ruthful stone them bears ; 20 
 Mine eyes serve only now for thee to weep, 
 And let their course them keep ; 
 
I io POEMS 
 
 Although thou never wouldst them comfort show, 
 Do not repine, they have part of thy woe. 
 
 Ah, wretch ! too late I find 
 How virtue s glorious titles prove but wind ; 
 For if she any could release from death, 
 Thou yet enjoy d hadst breath ; 
 For if she ere appear d to mortal eyne, 
 It was in thy fair shape that she was seen. 
 But, O ! if I was made 
 For thee, with thee why too am I not dead ? 
 Why do outrageous fates, which dimm d thy sight, 
 Let me see hateful light ? 
 They without me made death thee to surprise, 
 Tyrants, perhaps, that they might kill me twice. 
 
 O grief ! and could one day 
 Have force such excellence to take away ? 
 Could a swift-flying moment, ah ! deface 
 Those matchless gifts, that grace 
 Which art and nature had in thee combin d, 
 To make thy body paragon thy mind ? 
 Have all passed like a cloud, 
 And doth eternal silence now them shroud ? 
 Is what so much admir d was nought but dust, 
 Of which a stone hath trust ? 
 O change ! O cruel change ! thou to our sight 
 Shows destines rigour equal doth their might. 
 
 When thou from earth didst pass, 
 Sweet nymph, perfection s mirror broken was, 
 And this of late so glorious world of ours, 
 Like meadow without flow rs, 
 Or ring of a rich gem made blind, appear d, 
 
POEMS in 
 
 Or night, by star nor Cynthia neither clear d 
 
 Love when he saw thee die, 
 
 Entomb d him in the lid of either eye, 
 
 And left his torch within thy sacred urn, 
 
 There for a lamp to burn : 
 
 Worth, honour, pleasure, with thy life expir d, 
 
 Death since, grown sweet, begins to be desir d. eo 
 
 Whilst thou to us wast given, 
 The earth her Venus had as well as heaven, 
 Nay, and her sun, which burnt as many hearts, 
 As he doth eastern parts ; 
 
 Bright sun, which, forc d to leave these hemispheres, 65 
 Benighted set into a sea of tears. 
 Ah, Death, who shall thee fly, 
 
 Sith the most worthy be o erthrown by thee ? 
 
 Thou spar st the ravens, and nightingales dost kill, 
 
 And triumphs at thy will ; 70 
 
 But give thou canst not such another blow, 
 
 Because like her earth can none other show. 
 O bitter sweets of love ! 
 
 How better is t at all you not to prove, 
 
 Than when we do your pleasure most possess, 75 
 
 To find them then made less ! 
 
 O ! that the cause which doth consume our joy, 
 
 Remembrance of it too, would too destroy ! 
 
 What doth this life bestow 
 
 But flowers on thorns which grow, 
 
 Which though they sometime blandishing delight, 
 
 Yet afterwards us smite ? 
 
 And if the rising sun them fair doth see, 
 
 That planet, setting, too beholds them die. 
 
112 POEMS 
 
 This world is made a hell, as 
 
 Depriv d of all that in it did excel. 
 
 O Pan, Pan, winter is fallen in our May, 
 
 Turn d is in night our day ; 
 
 Forsake thy pipe, a sceptre take to thee, 
 
 Thy locks dis-garland, thou black Jove shalt be. DO 
 
 The flocks do leave the meads, 
 
 And, loathing three-leav d grass, hold up their 
 
 heads ; 
 
 The streams not glide now with a gentle roar, 
 Nor birds sing as before ; 
 
 Hills stand with clouds, like mourners, veil d in black, 95 
 And owls on cabin roofs foretell our wrack. 
 
 That zephyr every year 
 So soon was heard to sigh in forests here, 
 It was for her : that wrapt in gowns of green, 
 Meads were so early seen, 100 
 
 That in the saddest months oft sung the merles, 
 It was for her ; for her trees dropt 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 ! 105 
 
 Woods cut again do grow, 
 Bud doth the rose and daisy, winter done, 
 But we, once dead, no more do see the sun. 
 
 Whose name shall now make ring 
 The echoes ? of whom shall the nymphets sing ? no 
 Whose heavenly voice, whose soul-invading strains, 
 Shall fill with joy the plains ? 
 What hair, what eyes, can make the morn in east 
 Weep, that a fairer riseth in the west ? 
 
POEMS 
 
 * air sun, post still a way 
 No music here is found thy course to stay 
 
 Blush no more, rose, nor, lily, pale remain 
 
 ^"thatb eauty which you* late did sin. 12 
 Ay me I to wail my plight 
 
 Why have not I as many eyes as night, 
 
 Or as that shepherd which Jove s love did keep 
 
 That I still still may weep? P 
 
 But though I had, my tears unto my cross 
 
 * not yet equal, nor grief to my loss ; 
 
 Yet of your briny showers, 
 
 Which I here pour, may spring as many flowers 
 
 As came of those which fell from Helen s eyes 
 
 And when ye do arise, 
 
 May every leaf in sable letters bear 
 
 leful cause for which ye spring up here. 
 
 VOL. r. 
 
1I4 POEMS 
 
 MADRIGAL II. 
 
 DEAR night, the ease of care, 
 
 Untroubled seat of peace, 
 
 Time s eldest child, which oft the blind do see, 
 
 On this our hemisphere 
 
 What makes thee now so sadly dark to be ? 
 
 Com st thou in funeral pomp her grave to grace? 
 
 Or do those stars which should thy horror clear, 
 
 In Jove s high hall advise 
 
 In what part of the skies, 
 
 With them, or Cynthia, she shall appear? 
 
 Or, ah, alas ! because those matchless eyes 
 Which shone so fair, below thou dost not find, 
 Striv st thou to make all other eyes look blind ? 
 
POEMS II5 
 
 SONNET VIII. 
 
 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 us d 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 waitings 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 widow d turtle, still her loss complain. 
 
 * Warbling : Fr. ramage. 
 
n6 POEMS 
 
 SONNET IX. 
 
 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 5 
 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 ; i 
 
 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 closed in a tomb. 
 
POEMS 117 
 
 SONNET X. 
 
 WHAT doth it serve to see Sun s burning face, 
 And skies enamell d with both the Indies gold, 
 Or moon at night in jetty chariot roll d, 
 And all the glory of that starry place ? 
 What doth it serve earth s beauty to behold, 5 
 
 The mountains pride, the meadows flow ry grace, 
 The stately comeliness of forests old, 
 The sport of floods, which would themselves embrace ? 
 What doth it serve to hear the Syl vans songs, 
 The wanton merle, the nightingale s sad strains, 10 
 Which in dark shades seem to deplore my wrongs ? 
 For what doth serve all that this world contains, 
 Sith she for whom those once to me were dear, 
 No part of them can have now with me here ? 
 
n8 POEMS 
 
 MADRIGAL III. 
 
 THE beauty, and the life 
 
 Of life s and beauty s fairest paragon, 
 
 O tears ! O grief ! hung at a feeble thread, 
 
 To which pale Atropos had set her knife ; 
 
 The soul with many a groan 5 
 
 Had left each outward part, 
 
 And now did take his last leave of the heart ; 
 
 Nought else did want, save death, even to be dead ; 
 
 When the afflicted band about her bed, 
 
 Seeing so fair him come in lips, cheeks, eyes, 10 
 Cried, ah ! and can death enter paradise ? 
 
POEMS 119 
 
 SONNET XL 
 
 AH ! napkin, ominous present of my dear, 
 Gift miserable, which doth now remain 
 The only guerdon of my helpless pain, 
 When I thee got thou show d my state too clear : 
 I never since have ceased to complain, 
 Since I the badge of grief did ever wear, 
 Joy on my face durst never since appear, 
 Care was the food which did me entertain. 
 Now, since made mine, dear napkin, do not grieve 
 That I this tribute pay thee from mine eyne, 10 
 
 And that, these posting hours I am to live, 
 I launder thy fair figures in this brine : 
 No, I must even beg of thee the grace, 
 That thou wouldst deign in grave to shroud my 
 face. 
 
120 POEMS 
 
 MADRIGAL IV. 
 
 POOR turtle ! thou bemoans 
 
 The loss of thy dear love, 
 
 And I for mine send forth these smoking groans : 
 
 Unhappy widow d dove ! 
 
 While all about do sing, 
 
 I at the root, thou on the branch above, 
 
 Even weary with our moans the gaudy spring. 
 Yet these our plaints we do not spend in vain, 
 Sith sighing zephyrs answer us again. 
 
POEMS I2i 
 
 SONNET XII. 
 
 As, in a dusky and tempestuous night, 
 
 A star is wont to spread her locks of gold, 
 
 And while her pleasant rays abroad are roll d, 
 
 Some spiteful cloud doth rob us of her sight ; 
 
 Fair soul, in this black age so shin d thou bright, .5 
 
 And made all eyes with wonder thee behold, 
 
 Till ugly Death, depriving us of light, 
 
 In his grim misty arms thee did enfold. 
 
 Who more shall vaunt true beauty here to see ? 
 
 What hope doth more in any heart remain, Jo 
 
 That such perfections shall his reason rein, 
 
 If beauty, with thee born, too died with thee ? 
 
 World, plain no more of Love, nor count his harms ; 
 
 With his pale trophies Death hath hung his arms. 
 
122 POEMS 
 
 SONNET XIII. 
 
 SlTll it hath pleas cl that First and only Fair 
 To take that beauty to himself again, 
 Which in this world of sense not to remain, 
 But to amaze, was sent, and home repair ; 
 The love which to that beauty I did bear 
 (Made pure of mortal spots which did it stain, 
 And endless, which even death cannot impair), 
 I place on Him who will it not disdain. 
 No shining eyes, no locks of curling gold, 
 No blushing roses on a virgin face, 
 No outward show, no, nor no inward grace, 
 Shall force hereafter have my thoughts to hold : 
 Love here on earth huge storms of care do toss, 
 But, plac d above, exempted is from loss. 
 
POEMS 123 
 
 MADRIGAL V. 
 
 MY thoughts hold mortal strife ; 
 
 I do detest my life, 
 
 And with lamenting cries, 
 
 Peace to my soul to bring, 
 
 Oft call that prince which here doth monarch ise ; 
 
 But he, grim-grinning king, 
 
 Who caitives scorns, and doth the blest surprise, 
 Late having deckt with beauty s rose his tomb, 
 Disdains to crop a weed, and will not come. 
 
124 POEMS 
 
 SONG II. 
 
 IT autumn was, and on our hemisphere 
 Fair Erycine * began bright to appear ; 
 Night westward did her gemmy world decline, 
 And hide her lights, that greater light might 
 
 shine ; 
 
 The crested bird had given alarum twice i 
 
 To lazy mortals, to unlock their eyes ; 
 The owl had left to plain, and from each thorn 
 The wing d musicians did salute the morn, 
 Who, while she glass d her locks in Ganges streams, 
 Set open wide the crystal port of dreams ; .31 
 
 When I, whose eyes no drowsy night could close, 
 In sleep s soft arms did quietly repose, 
 And, for that heavens to die me did deny, 
 Death s image kissed, and as dead did lie. 
 I lay as dead, but scarce charm d were my cares, u 
 And slaked scarce my sighs, scarce dried my tears, 
 Sleep scarce the ugly figures of the day 
 Had with his sable pencil put away, 
 And left me in a still and calmy mood, 
 When by my bed meth ought a virgin stood, a 
 
 * Venus. 
 
POEMS 125 
 
 A virgin in the blooming of her prime, 
 
 If such rare beauty measur d be by time. 
 
 Her head a garland wore of opals bright, 
 
 About her flow d a gown as pure as light, 
 
 Dear amber locks gave umbrage to her face, -22 
 
 Where modesty high majesty did grace ; 
 
 Her eyes such beams sent forth, that but with 
 
 pain 
 
 Here weaker sights their sparkling could sustain. 
 No deity feign d which haunts the silent woods 
 Is like to her, nor syren of the floods : so 
 
 Such is the golden planet of the year, 
 When blushing in the east he doth appear. 
 Her grace did beauty, voice yet grace did pass, 
 Which thus through pearls and rubies broken was. 
 
 How long wilt thou, said she, estrang d from joy, ss 
 Paint shadows to thyself of false annoy ? 
 How long thy mind with horrid shapes affright, 
 And in imaginary evils delight ; 
 Esteem that loss" which, well when view d, is gain, 
 Or if a loss, yet not a loss to plain ? 40 
 
 O leave thy tired soul more to molest, 
 And think that woe when shortest then is best. 
 If she for whom thou deaf nest thus the sky 
 Be dead, what then ? was she not born to die ? 
 Was she not mortal born ? If thou dost grieve 45 
 That times should be in which she should not live, 
 Ere e er she was weep that day s wheel was roll d, 
 Weep that she liv d not in the age of gold ; 
 For that she was not then, thou may st deplore 
 As duly as that now she is no more. M 
 
126 POEMS 
 
 If only she had died, thou sure hadst cause 
 To blame the destines, and heaven s iron laws ; 
 But look how many millions her advance, 
 What numbers with her enter in this dance, 
 With those which are to come : shall heavens them 
 stay, 55 
 
 And All s fair order break, thee to obey ? 
 Even as thy birth, death, which doth thee appal, 
 A piece is of the life of this great All. 
 Strong cities die, die do high palmy reigns, 
 And, weakling, thou thus to be handled plains. so 
 
 If she be dead, then she of loathsome days 
 Hath past the line, whose length but loss bewrays ; 
 Then she hath left this filthy stage of care, 
 Where pleasure seldom, woe doth still repair : 
 For all the pleasures which it doth contain, 65 
 
 Not countervail the smallest minute s pain. 
 And tell me, thou who dost so much admire 
 This little vapour, smoke, this spark, or fire, 
 Which life is call d, what doth it thee bequeath 
 But some few years which birth draws out to death ? 70 
 Which if thou paragon with lustres run, 
 And them whose career is but now begun, 
 In day s great vast they shall far less appear, 
 Than with the sea when matched is a tear. 
 But why wouldst thou here longer wish to be ? 75 
 
 One year doth serve all nature s pomp to see, 
 Nay, even one day and night : this moon, that sun, 
 Those lesser fires about this round which run, 
 Be but the same which, under Saturn s reign, 
 Did the serpenting seasons interchain. so 
 
POEMS 127 
 
 How oft doth life grow less by living long ? 
 And what excelleth but what dieth young ? 
 For age which all abhor, yet would embrace, 
 Whiles makes the mind as wrinkled as the face ; 
 And when that destinies conspire with worth, 85 
 
 That years not glory wrong, life soon goes forth. 
 Leave then laments, and think thou didst not live, 
 Laws to that first eternal cause to give, 
 But to obey those laws which he hath given, 
 And bow unto the just decrees of Heaven, 90 
 
 Which can not err, whatever foggy mists 
 Do blind men in these sublunary lists. 
 
 But what if she for whom thou spend st those 
 
 groans, 
 
 And wastest life s dear torch in ruthful moans, 
 She for whose sake thou hat st the joyful light, 95 
 Court st solitary shades, and irksome night, 
 Doth live ? O ! if thou canst, through tears, a space 
 Lift thy dimm d lights, and look upon this face, 
 Look if those eyes which, fool, thou didst adore, 
 Shine not more bright than they were wont before ; 100 
 Look if those roses death could aught impair, 
 Those roses to thee once which seem d so fair ; 
 And if these locks have lost aught of that gold, 
 Which erst they had when thou them didst behold. 
 I live, and happy live, but thou art dead, 105 
 
 And still shalt be, till thou be like me made. 
 Alas ! whilst we are wrapt in gowns of earth, 
 And blind, here suck the air of woe beneath, 
 Each thing in sense s balances we weigh, 
 And but with toil and pain the truth descry. no 
 
128 POEMS 
 
 Above this vast and admirable frame, 
 This temple visible, which World we name, 
 Within whose walls so many lamps do burn, 
 So many arches opposite do turn, 
 Where elemental brethren nurse their strife, us 
 
 And by intestine wars maintain their life, 
 There is a world, a world of perfect bliss, 
 Pure, immaterial, bright, more far from this 
 Than that high circle, which the rest enspheres, 
 Is from this dull ignoble vale of tears ; 120 
 
 A world, where all is found, that here is found, 
 But further discrepant than heaven and ground. 
 It hath an earth, as hath this world of yours, 
 With creatures peopled, stor d with trees and 
 
 flow rs ; 
 
 It hath a sea, like sapphire girdle cast, 125 
 
 Which decketh of harmonious shores the vast ; 
 It hath pure fire, it hath delicious air, 
 Moon, sun, and stars, heavens wonderfully fair : 
 But there flow rs do not fade, trees grow not old, 
 The creatures do not die through heat nor cold ; iso 
 Sea there not tossed is, nor air made black 
 Fire doth not nurse itself on others wrack ; 
 There heavens be not constrain d about to range, 
 For this world hath no need of any change ; 
 The minutes grow not hours, hours rise not days, 135 
 Days make no months but ever-blooming Mays. 
 
 Here I remain, but hitherward do tend 
 All who their span of days in virtue spend : 
 Whatever pleasure this low place contains, 
 It is a glance but of what high remains. HO 
 
POEMS I2Q 
 
 Those who, perchance, think there can nothing be 
 
 Without this wide expansion which they see, 
 
 And that nought else mounts stars circumference, 
 
 For that nought else is subject to their sense, 
 
 Feel such a case, as one whom some abysm 145 
 
 Of the deep ocean kept had all his time ; 
 
 Who born and nourish d there, can scarcely dream 
 
 That ought can live without that briny stream ; 
 
 Cannot believe that there be temples, towers, 
 
 Which go beyond his caves and dampish bowers, MO 
 
 Or there be other people, manners, laws, 
 
 Than them he finds within the roaring waves ; 
 
 That sweeter flow rs do spring than grow on rocks, 
 
 Or beasts be which excel the scaly flocks ; 
 
 That other elements be to be found, 155 
 
 Than is the water, and this ball of ground. 
 
 But think that man from those abysms were brought, 
 
 And saw what curious nature here hath wrought, 
 
 Did see the meads, the tall and shady woods, 
 
 The hills did see, the clear and ambling floods, ieo 
 
 The diverse shapes of beasts which kinds forth 
 
 bring, 
 
 The feathered troops, that fly and sweetly sing ; 
 Did see the palaces, the cities fair, 
 The form of human life, the fire, the air, 
 The brightness of the sun that dims his sight, 1C5 
 
 The moon, the ghastly splendours of the night : 
 What uncouth rapture would his mind surprise ! 
 How would he his late-dear resort despise ! 
 How would he muse how foolish he had been 
 To think nought be, but what he there had seen ! iro 
 
1 3 o POEMS 
 
 Why did we get this high and vast desire, 
 
 Unto immortal things still to aspire ? 
 
 Why doth our mind extend it beyond time, 
 
 And to that highest happiness even climb, 
 
 If we be nought but what to sense we seem, 175 
 
 And dust, as most of worldlings us esteem ? 
 
 We be not made for earth, though here we come, 
 
 More than the embryon for the mother s womb ; 
 
 It weeps to be made free, and we complain 
 
 To leave this loathsome jail of care and pain. iso 
 
 But thou who vulgar footsteps dost not trace, 
 Learn to raise up thy mind unto this place, 
 And what earth-creeping mortals most affect, 
 If not at all to scorn, yet to neglect : 
 O chase not shadows vain, which, when obtain d, isn 
 Were better lost, than with such travail gain d. 
 Think that on earth, which humans greatness call, 
 Is but a- glorious title to live thrall ; 
 That sceptres, diadems, and chairs of state, 
 Not in themselves, but to small minds are great ; isto 
 How those who loftiest mount do hardest light, 
 And deepest falls be from the highest height ; 
 How fame an echo is, how all renown, 
 Like to a blasted rose, ere night falls down ; 
 And though it something were, think how this round 195 
 Is but a little point, which doth it bound. 
 O leave that love which reacheth but to dust, 
 And in that love eternal only trust, 
 And beauty, which, when once it is possest, 
 Can only fill the soul, and make it blest. 200 
 
 Pale envy, jealous emulations, fears, 
 
POEMS I3I 
 
 Sighs, plaints, remorse, here have no place, nor tears ; 
 
 False joys, vain hopes, here be not, hate nor wrath ; 
 
 What ends all love, here most augments it, death. 
 
 If such force had the dim glance of an eye, 205 
 
 Which some few days thereafter was to die, 
 
 That it could make thee leave all other things, 
 
 And like the taper-fly there burn thy things ; 
 
 And if a voice, of late which could but wail, 
 
 Such pow r had, as through ears thy soul to steal ; 210 
 
 If once thou on that only Fair couldst gaze, 
 
 What flames of love would he within thee raise ! 
 
 In what a mazing maze would it thee bring, 
 
 To hear but once that quire celestial sing ! 
 
 The fairest shapes on which thy love did seize, 215 
 
 Which erst did breed delight, then would displease, 
 
 Then discords hoarse were earth s enticing sounds, 
 
 All music but a noise which sense confounds. 
 
 This great and burning glass that clears all eyes, 
 
 And musters with such glory in the skies ; 220 
 
 That silver star which with its sober light 
 
 Makes day oft envy the eye-pleasing night ; 
 
 Those golden letters which so brightly shine 
 
 In heaven s great volume gorgeously divine ; 
 
 The wonders all in sea, in earth, in air, 305 
 
 Be but dark pictures of that sovereign Fair ; 
 
 Be tongues, which still thus cry unto your ear, 
 
 (Could ye amidst world s cataracts them hear,) 
 
 From fading things, fond wights, lift your desire, 
 
 And in our beauty, his, us made, admire : 2 ;o 
 
 If we seem fair, O think how fair is he 
 
 Of whose fair fairness shadows, steps, we be. 
 
I3 2 POEMS 
 
 No shadow can compare it with the face, 
 
 No step with that dear foot which did it trace ; 
 
 Your souls immortal are, then place them hence, 235 
 
 And do not drown them in the must of sense : 
 
 Do not, O do not, by false pleasures might 
 
 Deprive them of that true and sole delight. 
 
 That happiness ye seek is not below ; 
 
 Earth s sweetest joy is but disguised woe. 240 
 
 Here did she pause, and with a mild aspect 
 Did towards me those lamping twins direct ; 
 The wonted rays I knew, and thrice essay d 
 To answer make, thrice falt ring tongue it stay d ; 
 And while upon that face I fed my sight, ^ 
 
 Methought she vanish d up in Titan s light, 
 Who gilding with his rays each hill and plain, 
 Seem d to have brought the golden * world again. 
 
 * The edition of i6i6has "goldsmith s" for "golden 1 : 
 I have followed that of 1656. 
 
TO THE AUTHOR 
 
 The sister nymphs who haunt the Thespian springs, 
 Ne er did their gifts more liberally bequeath 
 To them who on their hills sucttd sacred breath^ 
 Than unto thee, by which thou sweetly sings. 
 Ne er did Apollo raise on Pegase* wings 
 A muse more near himself, more far from earth, 
 Than thine, if she do weep thy lady s death, 
 Or sing those sweet-sour pangs which passion brings. 
 To write our thoughts in verse doth merit praise, 
 But those our verse to gild in fiction s ore, 3 
 
 Bright, rich, delightful, doth deserve much more, 
 As thou hast done these thy delicious lays : 
 Thy muse s morning, doubtless, doth bewray 
 The near approach of a more g Us f ring day. 
 
 D. MURRAY. 
 
URANIA, OR SPIRITUAL POEMS 
 
URANIA, OR SPIRITUAL POEMS 
 
 TRIUMPHING chariots, statues, crowns of bays, 
 Sky-threat ning arches, the rewards of worth, 
 Works heavenly wise in sweet harmonious lays, 
 Which sprights divine unto the world set forth ; 
 States, which ambitious minds with blood do raise, ; 
 From frozen Tanais to sun-gilded Gange, 
 Gigantic frames, held wonders rarely strange, 
 Like spiders webs, are made the sport of days. 
 All only constant is in constant change, 
 What done is, is undone, and when undone, 10 
 
 Into some other fashion doth it range : 
 Thus goes the floating world beneath the moon : 
 Wherefore, my mind, above time, motion, place, 
 Thee raise, and steps unknown to nature trace. 
 
 Too long I follow d have my fond desire, 
 And too long panted on the Ocean streams, 
 Too long refreshment sought amidst the fire, 
 And hunted joys, which to my soul were blames. 
 Ah ! when I had what most I did admire, 
 137 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
138 SPIRITUAL POEMS 
 
 And seen of life s delights the last extremes, 
 I found all but a rose hedg d with a brier, 
 A nought, a thought, a show of mocking dreams. 
 Henceforth on thee, mine only good, I ll think, 
 For only thou canst grant what I do crave ; 
 Thy nail my pen shall be, thy blood mine ink, 
 Thy winding-sheet my paper, study, grave. 
 And till that soul forth of this body flee, 
 No hope I ll have, but only only Thee. 
 
 To spread the azure canopy of heaven, 
 And make it twinkle all with spangs of gold, 
 To place this pond rous globe of earth so even, 
 That it should all, and nought should it uphold ; 
 To give strange motions to the planets seven, 5 
 
 And Jove to make so meek, and Mars so bold ; 
 To temper what is moist, dry, hot, and cold, 
 Of all their jars that sweet accords are given ; 
 Lord, to thy wit is nought, nought to thy might : 
 But that thou shouldst, thy glory laid aside, 10 
 
 Come basely in mortality to bide, 
 And die for them deserv d eternal plight, 
 A wonder is so far above our wit, 
 That angels stand amaz d to think on it. 
 
 COME forth, come forth, ye blest triumphing bands, 
 
 Fair citizens of that immortal town, 
 
 Come see that King, who all this All commands, 
 
 Now, overcharged with love, die for his own. 
 
 Look on those nails which pierce his feet and hands ; 5 
 
SPIRITUAL POEMS 139 
 
 What a strange diadem his brows doth crown ! 
 Behold his pallid face, his eyes which swoon, 
 And what a throng of thieves him mocking stands : 
 Come forth, ye empyrean troops, come forth, 
 Preserve this sacred blood, which earth adorns ; 10 
 Gather those liquid roses from his thorns, 
 O ! to be lost they be of too much worth ; 
 
 For streams, juice, balm, they are, which quench, 
 kills, charms, 
 
 Of God, death, hell, the wrath, the life, the harms. 
 
 SOUL, which to hell wast thrall, 
 
 He, He for thine offence 
 
 Did suffer death, who could not die at all. 
 
 O sovereign excellence ! 
 
 O life of all that lives ! 5 
 
 Eternal bounty, which all goodness gives ! 
 
 How could Death mount so high ? 
 
 No wit this point can reach ; 
 
 Faith only doth us teach, 
 
 For us He died, at all who could not die. 10 
 
 IF with such passing beauty, choice delights, 
 
 The architect of this great round did frame 
 
 This palace visible, which world we name, 
 
 Yet silly mansion but of mortal wights ; 
 
 How many wonders, what amazing lights, 5 
 
 Must that triumphing seat of glory claim, 
 
 Which doth transcend all this great All s high heights, 
 
 Of whose bright sun ours here is but a beam ! 
 
1 40 SPIRITUAL POEMS 
 
 O blest abode ! O happy dwelling-place 
 Where visibly th Invisible doth reign ! 
 Blest people, who do see true beauty s face, 
 With whose dark shadows he but earth doth deign, 
 All joy is but annoy, all concord strife, 
 Match d with your endless bliss and happy life. 
 
 LOVE which is here a care, 
 
 That wit and will doth mar, 
 
 Uncertain truce, and a most certain war ; 
 
 A shrill tempestuous wind, 
 
 Which doth disturb the mind, 
 
 And, like wild waves, our designs all commove ; 
 
 Among those sprights above 
 
 Which see their Maker s face, 
 
 It a contentment is, a quiet peace, 
 
 A pleasure void of grief, a constant rest, 
 Eternal joy which nothing can molest. 
 
 WHAT hapless hap had I now to be born 
 In these unhappy times, and dying days, 
 Of this else-doating world, when good decays, 
 Love is quench d forth, and virtue held a scorn 
 When such are only priz d, by wretched ways 
 Who with a golden fleece them can adorn, 
 When avarice and lust are counted praise, 
 And noble minds live orphan-like forlorn ? 
 Why was not I into that golden age, 
 
 * 
 
SPIRITUAL POEMS 141 
 
 When gold yet was not known, and those black arts, 10 
 By which base mortals vilely play their parts, 
 And stain with horrid acts earth s stately stage ? 
 
 Then to have been, heaven ! it had been my bliss ; 
 
 But bless me now, and take me soon from this. 
 
 THRICE happy he, who by some shady grove, 
 
 Far from the clamorous world doth live his own, 
 
 Though solitare, yet who is not alone, 
 
 But doth converse with that eternal love. 
 
 O how more sweet is birds harmonious moan, 5 
 
 Or the soft sobbings of the widow d dove, 
 
 Than those smooth whisp rings near a prince s throne, 
 
 Which good make doubtful, do the evil approve ! 
 
 O how more sweet is zephyr s wholesome breath, 
 
 And sighs perfum d, which do the flowers unfold, 10 
 
 Than that applause vain honour doth bequeath ! 
 
 How sweet are streams to poison drunk in gold ! 
 
 The world is full of horrors, falsehoods, slights ; 
 
 Woods silent shades have only true delights. 
 
 WHY, worldlings, do ye trust frail honour s dreams, 
 
 And lean to gilded glories which decay ? 
 
 Why do ye toil to registrate your names 
 
 In icy columns, which soon melt away ? 
 
 True honour is not here ; that place it claims, 5 
 
 Where black-brow d night doth not exile the day. 
 
 Nor no far-shining lamp dives in the sea, 
 
 But an eternal sun spreads lasting beams. 
 
I 4 2 SPIRITUAL POEMS 
 
 There it attendeth you, where spotless bands 
 Of sprights stand gazing- on their sovereign bliss, 10 
 Where years not hold it in their cank ring hands, 
 But who once noble ever noble is : 
 
 Look home, lest he your weak ned wit make thrall, 
 Who Eden s foolish gard ner erst made fall. 
 
 ASTREA in this time 
 
 Now doth not live, but is fled up to heaven ; 
 
 Or if she live, it is not without crime 
 
 That she doth use her power, 
 
 And she is no more virgin, but a whore, 
 
 Whore prostitute for gold : 
 
 For she doth never hold her balance even ; 
 
 And when her sword is roll d, 
 
 The bad, injurious, false she not o erthrows, 
 But on the innocent lets fall her blows. 
 
 WHAT serves it to be good ? Goodness, by thee 
 
 The holy-wise is thought a fool to be ; 
 
 For thee the man to temperance inclin d, 
 
 Is held but of a base and abject mind ; 
 
 The continent is thought for thee but cold ; 
 
 Who yet was good, that ever died old ? 
 
 The pitiful who others fears to kill, 
 
 Is kill d himself, and goodness doth him ill : 
 
 The meek and humble man who cannot brave, 
 
 By thee is to some giant s brood made slave. 
 
SPIRITUAL POEMS 143 
 
 Poor Goodness, thine thou to such wrongs sett st forth, 
 That O ! I fear me, thou art nothing worth : 
 And when I look to earth, and not to heaven, 
 Ere I were turned dove, I would be raven. 
 
 GREAT God whom we with humble thoughts adore, 
 Eternal, infinite, almighty king, 
 
 Whose palace heaven transcends, whose throne before 
 Archangels serve, and seraphim do sing ; 
 Of nought who wrought all that with wond ring eyes. 5 
 We do behold within this spacious round, 
 Who mak st the rocks to rock, and stand the skies, 
 At whose command the horrid thunders sound : 
 Ah ! spare us worms, weigh not how we, alas ! 
 Evil to ourselves, against thy laws rebel ; 10 
 
 Wash off those spots, which still in conscience glass, 
 Though we be loth to look, we see too well. 
 Deserv d revenge, O do not, do not take : 
 If thou revenge, what shall abide thy blow ? 
 Pass shall this world, this world which thou didst 
 make, 15 
 
 Which should not perish till thy trumpet blow. 
 For who is he whom parents sin not stains, 
 Or with his own offence is not defil d ? 
 Though Justice ruin threaten, Justice reins 
 Let Mercy hold, and be both just and mild. 20 
 
 Less are our faults far far than is thy love ; 
 O ! what can better seem * thy pow r divine, 
 
 * Seem : beseem. 
 
144 SPIRITUAL POEMS 
 
 Than those who evil deserve thy goodness prove, 
 
 And where thou thunder shouldst there fair to shine ? 
 
 Then look, and pity, pitying forgive 25 
 
 Us guilty slaves, or servants, at thy will ; 
 
 Slaves, if, alas ! thou look st how we do live, 
 
 Or doing nought at all, or doing ill, 
 
 Of an ungrateful mind a foul effect. 
 
 But if thy gifts, which largely heretofore so 
 
 Thou hast upon us pour d, thou dost respect, 
 
 We be thy servants, nay, than servants more, 
 
 Thy children, yes, and children dearly bought ; 
 
 But what strange chance us of this lot bereaves ? 
 
 Vile rebels, O ! how basely are we brought ! 35 
 
 Whom grace made children, sin hath now made slaves ; 
 
 Sin slaves hath made, but let thy grace sin thrall, 
 
 That in our wrongs thy mercy may appear : 
 
 Thy wisdom not so weak is, pow r so small, 
 
 But thousand ways they can make men thee fear. 40 
 
 O wisdom boundless ! admirable grace ! 
 Grace, wisdom, which do dazzle reason s eye, 
 And could Heaven s king bring from his placeless 
 
 place, 
 
 On this infamous stage of woe to die, 
 To die our death, and with the sacred stream 45 
 
 Of blood and water gushing from his side, 
 To expiate that sin and deadly blame, 
 Contrived first by our first parents pride ! 
 Thus thy great love and pity, heavenly king, 
 Love, pity, which so well our loss prevents, 50 
 
 Could even of evil itself all goodness bring, 
 And sad beginnings cheer with glad events. 
 
SPIRITUAL POEMS 145 
 
 O love and pity ! ill known of these times, 
 
 O love and pity ! careful of our bliss, 
 
 O goodness ! with the heinous acts and crimes 55 
 
 Of this black age that almost vanquish d is, 
 
 Make this excessive ardour of thy love 
 
 So warm our coldness, so our lives renew, 
 
 That we from sin, sin may from us remove, 
 
 Wit may our will, faith may our wit subdue. ,; 
 
 Let thy pure love burn up all mortal lust, 
 
 That band of ills which thralls our better part, 
 
 And fondly makes us worship fleshly dust, 
 
 Instead of thee, in temple of our heart. 
 
 Grant, when at last the spright shall leave this 
 tomb, 65 
 
 This loathsome shop of sin, and mansion blind, 
 And (call d) before thy royal seat doth come, 
 It may a saviour, not a judge, thee find. 
 
 VOL. i. 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 THE STATUE OF MEDUSA. 
 
 OF that Medusa strange, 
 
 Who those that did her see in rocks did change, 
 
 None image carv d is this ; 
 
 Medusa s self it is : 
 
 For whilst at heat of day, 
 
 To quench her thirst, she by this spring did stay, 
 
 Her curling snakes beholding in this glass, 
 
 Life did her leave, and thus transform d she was. 
 
 THE TROJAN HORSE. 
 
 A HORSE I am, whom bit, 
 Rein, rod, nor spur, not fear ; 
 When I my riders bear, 
 Within my womb, not on my back, they sit : 
 No streams I drmk, nor care for grass nor corn ; 
 Art me a monster wrought, 
 All nature s works to scorn : 
 A mother, I was without mother born ; 
 In end all arm d my father I forth brought : 
 What thousand ships, and champions of renown 
 Could not do free, I captive raz d a town. 
 i 49 
 
150 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 A LOVER S HEAVEN. 
 
 THOSE stars, nay, suns, which turn 
 
 So stately in their spheres, 
 
 And dazzling do not burn ; 
 
 The beauty of the morn 
 
 Which on those cheeks appears, 
 
 The harmony which to that voice is given, 
 
 Make me think ye are heaven : 
 
 If heaven ye be, O that by pow rful charms 
 
 I Atlas were, to hold you in mine arms ! 
 
 DEEP IMPRESSION OF LOVE. 
 
 WHOM raging dog doth bite, 
 
 He doth in water still 
 
 That Cerberus image see : 
 
 Love, mad, perhaps, when he my heart did smite, 
 
 More to dissemble ill, 
 
 Transform d himself in thee, 
 
 For ever since thou present art to me : 
 
 No spring there is, no flood, nor other place, 
 
 Where I, alas ! not see thy heavenly face. 
 
 THE PORTRAIT OF MARS AND VENUS. 
 
 FAIR Paphos wanton queen, 
 Not drawn in white and red, 
 Is truly here, as when in Vulcan s bed 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 151 
 
 She was of all heaven s laughing senate seen. 
 
 Gaze on her hair and eyne, 5 
 
 Her brows, the bows of love, 
 
 Her back with lilies spread : 
 
 And ye should see her turn, and sweetly move. 
 
 But that she neither so will do, nor dare, 
 
 For fear to wake the angry god of war. 10 
 
 IOLAS EPITAPH, 
 
 HERE dear lolas lies, 
 
 Who whilst he liv d, in beauty did surpass 
 
 That boy whose heavenly eyes 
 
 Brought Cypris from above, 
 
 Or him till death who look d in wat ry glass, 
 
 Even judge the god of love : 
 
 And if the nymph once held of him so dear, 
 
 Dorine the fair, would here but shed one tear. 
 
 Thou shouldst, in nature s scorn, 
 
 A purple flower see of this marble born. 
 
 UPON THE DEATH OF A LINNET. 
 
 IF cruel Death had ears, 
 
 Or could be pleas d by songs, 
 
 This wing d musician liv d had many years, 
 
 And Chloris mine had never wept these wrongs 
 
 For when it first took breath, 
 
 The heavens their notes did unto it bequeath ; 
 
152 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 And, if that Samian s * sentence be found true, 
 Atnphion in this body liv d of new : 
 But Death, for that he nothing spares, nought hears, 
 As he doth kings, it kill d, O grief! O tears ! n 
 
 ALCON S KISS. 
 
 WHAT others at their ear. 
 
 Two pearls Camilla at her nose did wear j 
 
 Which Alcon, who nought saw 
 
 (For love is blind), robb d with a pretty kiss ; 
 
 But having known his miss, 5 
 
 And felt what ore he from that mine did draw, 
 
 When she to charge again him did desire, 
 
 He fled, and said, foul water quenched fire. 
 
 ICARUS. 
 
 WHILST with audacious wings 
 
 I sprang those airy ways, 
 
 And fill d, a monster new, with dread and fears, 
 
 The feathered people, and their eagle kings ; 
 
 Dazzled with Phcebus rays, 5 
 
 And charmed with the music of the spheres, 
 
 When pens could move no more, and force did fail, 
 
 I measur d by a fall these lofty bounds : 
 
 Yet doth renown my losses countervail, 
 
 For still the shore my brave attempt resounds ; 10 
 
 A sea, an element doth bear my name j 
 
 Who hath so vast a tomb in place or fame ? 
 
 * Pythagoras. 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 153 
 
 CHERRIES. 
 
 MY wanton, weep no more 
 
 The losing of your cherries ; 
 
 Those, and far sweeter berries, 
 
 Your sister in good store 
 
 Hath, spread on lips and face : 5 
 
 Be glad, kiss but with me, and hold your peace. 
 
 OF THAUMANT1A, BEHOLDING HERSELF IN 
 A MARBLE. 
 
 WORLD, wonder not that I 
 
 Engrave thus in my breast 
 
 This angel face which me bereaves of rest ; 
 
 Since things even wanting sense cannot deny 
 
 To lodge so dear a guest, 5 
 
 And this hard marble stone 
 
 Receives the same, and loves, "but cannot groan. 
 
 LOVE SUFFERETH NO PARASOL. 
 
 THOSE eyes, dear eyes, be spheres, 
 
 Where two bright suns are roll d ; 
 
 That fair hand to behold, 
 
 Of whitest snow appears : 
 
 Then while ye coyly stand, 3 
 
 To hide from me those eyes, 
 
 Sweet, I would you advise 
 
 To choose some other fan than that white hand ; 
 
 For if ye do, for truth most true this know, 
 
 That suns ere long must needs consume warm snow. 10 
 
154 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 SLEEPING BEAUTY. 
 
 O SIGHT too dearly bought ! 
 
 She sleeps, and though those eyes, 
 
 Which lighten Cupid s skies, 
 
 Be clos d, yet such a grace 
 
 Environeth that place, 
 
 That I through wonder to grow faint am brought : 
 
 Suns, if eclips d ye have such power divine, 
 
 O ! how can I endure you when ye shine ? 
 
 THE QUALITY OF A KISS. 
 
 THE kiss with so much strife 
 
 Which I late got, sweet heart, 
 
 Was it a sign of death, or was it life ? 
 
 Of life it could not be, 
 
 For I by it did sigh my soul in thee ; 
 
 Nor was it death, death doth no joy impart. 
 
 Thou silent stand st, ah ! what thou didst bequeath, 
 
 To me a dying life was, living death. 
 
 OF PHILLIS. 
 
 IN petticoat of green, 
 
 Her hair about her eyne, 
 
 Phillis beneath an oak 
 
 Sat milking her fair flock : 
 
 Among that strained moisture, rare delight ! 
 
 Her hand seem d milk in milk, it was so white. 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS ,155 
 
 KISSES DESIRED. 
 
 THOUGH I with strange desire 
 
 To kiss those rosy lips am set on fire, 
 
 Yet will I cease to crave 
 
 Sweet touches in such store, 
 
 As he * who long before 
 
 From Lesbia them in thousands did receive. 
 
 Heart mine, but once me kiss, 
 
 And I by that sweet bliss 
 
 Even swear to cease you to importune more 
 
 Poor one no number is ; 
 
 Another word of me ye shall not hear 
 
 After one kiss, but still one kiss, my dear. 
 
 OF DAMETAS. 
 
 DAMETAS dream d he saw his wife at sport, 
 And found that sight was through the horny port. 
 
 THE CANNON. 
 
 WHEN first the cannon from her gaping throat, 
 Against the heaven her roaring sulphur shot, 
 Jove waken d with the noise, and ask d with wonder, 
 What mortal wight had stolen from him his thunder : 
 His crystal towers he fear d ; but fire and air, 5 
 
 So deep, did stay the ball from mounting there. 
 
 * Catullus. 
 
156 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 APELLES ENAMOURED OF CAMPASPE, 
 ALEXANDER S MISTRESS. 
 
 POOR painter, whilst I sought 
 
 To counterfeit by art 
 
 The fairest frame that nature ever wrought, 
 
 And having limn d each part, 
 
 Except her matchless eyes, e 
 
 Scarce on those twins I gaz d, 
 
 As lightning falls from slues, 
 
 When straight my hand benumb d was, mind amaz d ; 
 
 And ere that pencil half them had exprest, 
 
 Love all had drawn, no, graven within my breast. 10 
 
 CAMPASPE. 
 
 ON stars shall I exclaim, 
 
 Which thus my fortune change ? 
 
 Or shall I else revenge 
 
 Upon myself this shame ? 
 
 Unconstant monarch, or shall I thee blame, 5 
 
 Who lett st Apelles prove 
 
 The sweet delights of Alexander s love ? 
 
 No, stars, myself, and thee, I all forgive, 
 
 And joy that thus I live : 
 
 Kings know not beauty, hence mine was despis d ; 10 
 
 The painter did, and me he dearly priz d. 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 157 
 
 UNPLEASANT MUSIC. 
 
 IN fields Ribaldo stray d 
 
 May s tapestry to see, 
 
 And hearing on a tree 
 
 A cuckoo sing, he sigh d, and softly said, 
 
 Lo ! how, alas ! even birds sit mocking me ! 
 
 A JEST. 
 
 IN a most holy church a holy man 
 Unto a holy saint, with visage wan, 
 And eyes like fountains, mumbled forth a prayer, 
 And with strange words and sighs made black the air ; 
 And having long so stay d, and long long pray d, 5 
 A thousand crosses on himself he laid ; 
 Then with some sacred beads hung on his arm, 
 His eyes, his mouth, breast, temples did he charm. 
 Thus not content (strange worship hath none end), 
 To kiss the earth at last he did pretend, 10 
 
 And bowing down, besought with humble grace 
 An aged woman near to give some place : 
 
 She turn d, and turning up her beneath, 
 
 Said, sir, kiss here, for it is all but earth. 
 
 NARCISSUS. 
 
 FLOODS cannot quench my flames ! ah ! in this well 
 I burn, not drown, for what I cannot tell. 
 
158 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 TO THAUMANTIA SINGING. 
 
 Is it not too, too much 
 
 Thou late didst to me prove 
 
 A basilisk of love, 
 
 And didst my wits bewitch ; 
 
 Unless, to cause more harm, 
 
 Made Syren too, thou with thy voice me charm ? 
 
 Ah ! though thou so my reason didst control, 
 
 That to thy looks I could not prove a mole. 
 
 Yet do me not that wrong, 
 
 As not to let me turn asp to thy song. 
 
 OF HER DOG. 
 
 WHEN her dear bosom clips 
 
 That little cur, which fawns to touch her lips, 
 
 Or when it is his hap 
 
 To lie lapp d in her lap, 
 
 O ! it grows noon with me ; 
 
 With hotter-pointed beams 
 
 My burning planet streams, 
 
 What rays were erst, in lightnings changed be. 
 
 When oft I muse, how I to those extremes 
 
 Am brought, I find no cause, except that she, 
 
 In love s bright zodiac having trac d each room, 
 
 To fatal Sirius now at last is come. 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 159 
 
 A KISS. 
 
 HARK, happy lovers, hark, 
 
 This first and last of joys, 
 
 This sweet ner of annoys, 
 
 This nectar of the gods 
 
 Ye call a kiss, is with itself at odds ; 
 
 And half so sweet is not 
 
 In equal measure got 
 
 At light of sun, as it is in the dark : 
 
 Hark, happy lovers, hark. 
 
 CORNUCOPIA, 
 
 IF for one only horn 
 
 Which nature to him gave, 
 
 So famous is the noble unicorn, 
 
 What praise should that man have, 
 
 Whose head a lady brave 
 
 Doth with a goodly pair at once adorn ? 
 
 OF AMINTAS. 
 
 OVER a crystal source 
 
 Amintas laid his face, 
 
 Of purling * streams to see the restless course : 
 
 But scarce he had o ershadowed the place, 
 
 * Purling : this is Phillips s reading ; the edition of 1616 
 has " popling." 
 
160 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 When (spying in the ground a child arise, 
 
 Like to himself in stature, face, and eyes) 
 
 lie rose o erjoyed, and cried, 
 
 Dear mates, approach, see whom I have descried ; 
 
 The boy of whom strange stories shepherds tell, 
 
 Oft-called Hylas, dwelleth in this well. 
 
 PAMPHILUS. 
 
 SOME, ladies wed, some love, and some adore them, 
 I like their wanton sport, then care not for them. 
 
 UPON A GLASS. 
 
 IF thou wouldst see threads purer than the gold, 
 
 Where love his wealth doth show, 
 
 But take this glass, and thy fair hair behold : 
 
 If whiteness thou wouldst see more white than snow, 
 
 And read on wonder s book, 8 
 
 Take but this glass, and on thy forehead look. 
 
 Wouldst thou in winter see a crimson rose, 
 
 Whose thorns do hurt each heart, 
 
 Look but in glass how thy sweet lips do close : 
 
 Wouldst thou see planets which all good impart, 10 
 
 Or meteors divine, 
 
 But take this glass, and gaze upon thine eyne. 
 
 No, planets, rose, snow, gold, cannot compare 
 
 With you, dear eyes, lips, brows, and amber hair ! 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 161 
 
 OF A BEE. 
 
 As an audacious knight, 
 
 Come with some foe to fight, 
 
 His sword doth brandish, makes his armour ring ; 
 
 So this proud bee, at home perhaps a king, 
 
 Did buzzing fly about, 5 
 
 And, tyrant, after thy fair lip did sting : 
 
 O champion strange as stout ! 
 
 Who hast by nature found 
 
 Sharp arms, and trumpet shrill, to sound and wound. 
 
 OF THAT SAME. 
 
 O ! DO not kill that bee 
 
 That thus hath wounded thee ! 
 
 Sweet, it was no despite, 
 
 But hue did him deceive, 
 
 For when thy lips did close, 
 
 He deemed them a rose. 
 
 What wouldst thou further crave ? 
 
 He wanting wit, and blinded with delight, 
 
 Would fain have kiss d, but mad with joy did bite. 
 
 OF A KISS. 
 
 AH ! of that cruel bee 
 
 Thy lips have suck d too much, 
 
 For when they mine did touch, 
 
 I found that both they hurt, and sweeten d me : 
 
 VOL. I. I, 
 
162 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 This by the sting they have, s 
 
 And that they of the honey do receive. 
 
 Dear kiss ! else by what art 
 
 Couldst thou at once both please and wound my heart ? 
 
 IDMON TO VENUS. 
 
 IF, Acidalia s queen, 
 
 Thou quench in me thy torch, 
 
 And with the same Thaumantia s heart shall scorch, 
 
 Each year a myrtle-tree 
 
 Here I do vow to consecrate to thee ; 
 
 And when the meads grow green, 
 
 I will of sweetest flowers 
 
 Weave thousand garlands to adorn thy bowers. 
 
 A LOVER S PLAINT. 
 
 IN midst of silent night, 
 
 When men, birds, beasts, do rest, 
 
 With love and fear possest, 
 
 To Heaven and Flore I count my heavy plight. 
 
 Again, with roseate wings 
 
 When morn peeps forth, and Philomela sings, 
 
 Then void of all relief, 
 
 Do I renew my grief : 
 
 Day follows night, night day, whilst still I prove 
 
 That Heaven is deaf, Flore careless of my love. 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 163 
 
 HIS FIREBRAND. 
 
 LEAVE, page, that slender torch, 
 
 And in this gloomy night 
 
 Let only shine the light 
 
 Of love s hot brandon, which my heart doth scorch : 
 
 A sigh, or blast of wind, a 
 
 My tears, or drops of rain, 
 
 May that at once make blind ; 
 
 Whilst this, like /Etna, burning shall remain. 
 
 DAPHNIS VOW. 
 
 WHEN sun doth bring the day 
 
 From the Hesperian sea, 
 
 Or moon her coach doth roll 
 
 Above the northern pole ; 
 
 When serpents cannot hiss, 
 
 And lovers shall not kiss ; 
 
 Then may it be, but in no time till then, 
 
 That Daphnis can forget his Orienne. 
 
 OF NISA. 
 
 NISA, Palemon s wife, him weeping told, 
 He kept not grammar rules, now being old : 
 For why, quoth she, position false make ye, 
 Putting a short thing where a long should be ? 
 
1 64 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 BEAUTY S IDEA. 
 
 WHO would perfection s fair idea see, 
 
 Let him come look on Chloris sweet with me. 
 
 White is her hand,* her teeth white, white her skin, 
 
 Black be her eyes, her eyebrows Cupid s inn ; 
 
 Her locks, her body, hands do long appear, 5 
 
 But teeth short, belly short, short either ear ; 
 
 The space twixt shoulders, eyes, is wide, brows wide, 
 
 Strait waist, the mouth strait, and her virgin pride ; 
 
 Thick are her lips, thighs, with banks swelling there, 
 
 Her nose is small, small fingers ; and her hair, 10 
 
 Her sugared mouth, her cheeks, her nails be red ; 
 
 Little her foot, pap little, and her head. 
 
 Such Venus was, such was the flame of Troy : 
 Such Chloris is, my hope and only joy. 
 
 CRATON S DEATH. 
 
 AMIDST the waves profound, 
 
 Far, far from all relief, 
 
 The honest fisher, Craton, ah ! is drown d 
 
 Into his little skiff; 
 
 The boards of which did serve him for a bier, a 
 
 So that to the black world when he came near, 
 
 Of him no waftage greedy Charon got, 
 
 For he in his own boat 
 
 Did pass that flood by which the gods do swear. 
 
 * Hand: "hair" in former editions, which is obvi 
 ously incorrect. 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 165 
 
 ARMELINE S EPITAPH. 
 
 NEAR to this eglantine 
 
 Enclosed lies the milk-white Armeline, 
 
 Once Chloris only joy, 
 
 Now only her annoy ; 
 
 Who envied was of the most happy swains 5 
 
 That keep their flocks in mountains, dales, or plains ; 
 
 For oft she bare the wanton in her arm, 
 
 And oft her bed and bosom did he warm : 
 
 Now when unkindly Fates did him destroy, 
 
 Blest dog, he had the grace, 10 
 
 With tears for him that Chloris wet her face. 
 
 THE STATUE OF VENUS SLEEPING. 
 
 BREAK not my sweet repose, 
 
 Thou whom free will or chance brings to this place ; 
 
 Let lids these comets close, 
 
 O do not seek to see their shining grace ; 
 
 For when mine eyes thou seest, they thine will blind, 
 
 And thou shalt part, but leave thy heart behind. 
 
 LILLA S PRAYER. 
 
 LOVE, if thou wilt once more 
 
 That I to thee return, 
 
 Sweet god ! make me not burn 
 
 For quivering age that doth spent days deplore ; 
 
166 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 Nor do not wound my heart 
 
 For some unconstant boy, 
 
 Who joys to love, yet makes of love a toy : 
 
 But, ah ! if I must prove thy golden dart, 
 
 Of grace, O let me find 
 
 A sweet young lover with an aged mind. 
 
 Thus Lilla pray d, and Idas did reply, 
 
 Who heard, Dear, have thy wish, for such am I, 
 
 THE UNKINDNESS OF RORA. 
 
 \VHILST, sighing forth his wrongs, 
 
 In sweet, though doleful songs, 
 
 Alexis seeks to charm his Rora s ears, 
 
 The hills are heard to moan, 
 
 To sigh each spring appears ; a 
 
 Trees, even hard trees, through rind distil their tears. 
 
 And soft grows every stone ; 
 
 But tears, sighs, songs cannot fair Rora move ; 
 
 Proud of his plaints, she glories in his love. 
 
 ANTHEA S GIFT. 
 
 THIS virgin lock of hair 
 
 To Idmon Anthea gives, 
 
 Idmon for whom she lives, 
 
 Though oft she mix his hopes with cold despair : 
 
 This now ; but, absent if he constant prove, 
 
 With gift more dear she vows to meet his love. 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 167 
 
 TO THAUMANTIA. 
 
 COME, let us live and love, 
 
 And kiss, Thaumantia mine : 
 
 I shall the elm be, be to me the vine ; 
 
 Come let us teach new billing to the dove ; 
 
 Nay, to augment our bliss, 
 
 Let souls even other kiss ; 
 
 Let Love a workman be, 
 
 Undo, distemper, and his cunning prove, 
 
 Of kisses three make one, of one make three : 
 
 Though moon, sun, stars, be bodies far more bright, 10 
 
 Let them not vaunt they match us in delight. 
 
 EPITAPH. 
 
 THIS dear, though not respected earth doth hold 
 One, for his worth, whose tomb should be of gold. 
 
 OF LIDA. 
 
 SUCH Lida is, that who her sees, 
 
 Through envy, or through love straight dies. 
 
 A WISH. 
 
 To forge to mighty Jove 
 The thunder-bolts above, 
 Nor on this round below 
 Rich Midas skill to know, 
 
168 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 And make all gold I touch, 
 I do not crave, nor other cunning such ; 
 Of all those arts be underneath the sky, 
 I wish but Phillis lapidare to be. 
 
 A LOVER S DAY AND NIGHT. 
 
 BRIGHT meteor of day, 
 
 For me in Thetis bowers for ever stay : 
 
 Night, to this flowery globe 
 
 Ne er show for me thy star-embroider d robe ; 
 
 My night, my day, do not proceed from you, 
 
 But hang on Mira s brow ; 
 
 For when she lowers, and hides from me her eyes, 
 
 Midst clearest day I find black night arise ; 
 
 When, smiling, she again those twins doth turn, 
 
 In midst of night I find noon s torch to burn. 
 
 THE STATUE OF ADONIS. 
 
 WHEN Venus longst that plain 
 
 This Parian Adon saw, 
 
 She sigh d, and said, What power breaks Destine s law, 
 
 World-mourned boy, and makes thee live again? 
 
 Then with stretch d arms she ran him to enfold ; 5 
 
 But when she did behold 
 
 The boar whose snowy tusks did threaten death, 
 
 Fear closed up her breath : 
 
 Who can but grant then that these stones do live, 
 
 Sith this bred love, and that a wound did give ? 10 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 169 
 
 CHLORUS TO A GROVE. 
 
 OLD oak, and you, thick grove, 
 
 I ever shall you love, 
 
 With these sweet-smelling briers j 
 
 For, briers, oak, grove, ye crowned my desires, 
 
 When underneath your shade 
 
 I left my woe, and Flore her maidenhead. 
 
 A COUPLET ENCOMIASTIC. 
 
 LOVE, Cypris, Phoebus, will feed, deck, and crown 
 Thy heart, brows, verse, with flames, with flow rs, 
 renown, 
 
 ANOTHER. 
 
 THY muse not-able, full, il-lustred rhymes 
 Make theelthe poet-aster of our times. 
 
 THE ROSE. 
 
 FLOWER, which of Adon s blood 
 
 Sprang, when of that clear flood 
 
 Which Venus wept another white was born, 
 
 The sweet Cynarean youth thou right dost show : 
 
 But this sharp-pointed thorn, 
 
 Which does so proud about thy crimson grow, 
 
170 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 What doth it represent ? 
 
 Boars tusks, perhaps, his snowy flank which rent : 
 O show of shows ! of unesteemed * worth, 
 Which both what kill d and what was kill d sett st 
 forth. 10 
 
 TO A RIVER. 
 
 SiTH she will not that I 
 
 Show to the world my joy, 
 
 Thou who oft mine annoy 
 
 Hast heard, dear flood, tell Thetis nymphets bright, 
 
 That not a happier wight 5 
 
 Doth breathe beneath the sky ; 
 
 More sweet, more white, more fair, 
 
 Lips, hands, and amber hair, 
 
 Tell none did ever touch ; 
 
 A smaller, daintier waist, i 
 
 Tell never was embrac d : 
 
 But peace, sith she forbids thou tell st too much. 
 
 THAIS METAMORPHOSE. 
 
 INTO Briareus huge 
 
 Tha is wish d she might change 
 
 Her man, and pray d him herefore not to grudge, 
 
 Nor fondly think it strange : 
 
 * Unesteemed : inestimable. 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 171 
 
 For if, said she, I might the parts dispose, 5 
 
 I wish you not an hundred arms nor hands, 
 
 But hundred things like those 
 
 With which Priapus in our garden stands. 
 
 UPON A BAY TREE, NOT LONG SINCE GROW 
 ING IN THE RUINS OF VIRGIL S TOMB. 
 
 THOSE stones which once had trust 
 
 Of Maro s sacred dust, 
 
 Which now of their first beauty spoil d. are seen, 
 
 That they due praise not want, 
 
 Inglorious and remain, 5 
 
 A Delian tree, fair nature s only plant, 
 
 Now courts, and shadows with her tresses green : 
 
 Sing 16 Psean, ye of Phoebus train, 
 
 Though envy, avarice, time, your tombs throw down, 
 
 With maiden laurels nature will them crown. 10 
 
 EPITAPH. 
 
 THEN death thee hath beguil d, 
 
 Alecto s first-born child ; 
 
 Thou who didst thrall all laws, 
 
 Then against worms canst not maintain thy cause ; 
 
 Yet worms, more just than thou, now do no wrong, 5 
 
 Sith all do wonder they thee spar d so long, 
 
 For though from life but lately thou didst pass, 
 
 Ten springs are gone since thou corrupted was. 
 
I 7 2 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 FLORA S FLOWER. 
 
 VENUS doth love the rose ; 
 
 Apollo those dear flow rs 
 
 Which were his paramours ; 
 
 The queen of sable skies 
 
 The subtle lunaries ; 
 
 But Flore likes none of those, 
 
 For fair to her no flower seems save the lily : 
 
 And why ? because one letter turns it 
 
 MELAMPUS EPITAPH. 
 
 ALL that a dog could have, 
 
 The good Melampus had ; 
 
 Nay, he had more than what in beasts we crave, 
 
 For he could play the brave, 
 
 And often like a Thraso stern go mad ; 
 
 And if ye had not seen, but heard him bark, 
 
 Ye would have sworn he was your parish clerk. 
 
 KALA S COMPLAINT. 
 
 KALA, old Mopsus wife, 
 
 Kala with fairest face, 
 
 For whom the neighbour swains oft were at strife, 
 
 As she to milk her milk-white flock did tend, 
 
 Sigh d with a heavy grace, 
 
 And said, what wretch like me doth lead her life ? 
 
 I see not how my task can have an end ; 
 
 All day I draw these streaming dugs in fold, 
 
 All night mine empty husband s soft and cold. 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 173 
 
 THE HAPPINESS OF A FLEA. 
 
 How happier is that flea 
 
 Which in thy breast doth play, 
 
 Than that pied butterfly 
 
 Which courts the flame, and in the same doth die ! 
 
 That hath a light delight, a 
 
 Poor fool ! contented only with a sight ; 
 
 When this doth sport, and swell with dearest food, 
 
 And if he die, he, knight-like, dies in blood. 
 
 OF THAT SAME. 
 
 POOR flea ! then thou didst die ; 
 
 Yet by so fair a hand, 
 
 That thus to die was Destine to command : 
 
 Thou die didst, yet didst try 
 
 A lover s last delight, * 
 
 To vault on virgin plains, her kiss and bite : 
 
 Thou diedst, yet hast thy tomb 
 
 Between those paps, O dear and stately room ! 
 
 Flea^ happier far, more blest 
 
 Than Phoenix burning in his spicy nest ! 10 
 
 LINA S VIRGINITY. 
 
 WHO Lina weddeth, shall most happy be, 
 
 For he a maid shall find, 
 
 Though maiden none be she, 
 
 A girl, or boy, beneath her waist confin d ; 
 
 And though bright Ceres locks be never shorn, * 
 
 He shall be sure this year to lack no corn. 
 
174 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 LOVE NAKED. 
 
 AND would ye, lovers, know 
 
 Why Love doth naked go ? 
 
 Fond, waggish, changeling lad ! 
 
 Late whilst Thaumantia s voice 
 
 He wond ring heard, it made him so rejoice, s 
 
 That he o erjoy d ran mad, 
 
 And in a frantic fit threw clothes away, 
 
 And since from lip and lap hers cannot stray. 
 
 NIOBE. 
 
 WRETCHED Niobe I am ; 
 
 Let wretches read my case, 
 
 Not such who with a tear ne er wet their face. 
 
 Seven daughters of me came, 
 
 And sons as many, which one fatal day 5 
 
 Orb d mother took away. 
 
 Thus reft by heavens unjust, 
 
 Grief turn d me stone, stone too me doth entomb ; 
 
 Which if thou dost mistrust, 
 
 Of this hard rock but ope the flinty womb, 10 
 
 And here thou shalt find marble, and no dust. 
 
 CHANGE OF LOVE. 
 
 ONCE did I weep and groan, 
 Drink tears, draw loathed breath, 
 And all for love of one 
 Who did affect my death : 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 175 
 
 But now, thanks to disdain, 
 
 I live reliev d of pain ; 
 
 For sighs, I singing go, 
 
 I burn not as before, no, no, no, no. 
 
 WILD BEAUTY. 
 
 IF all but ice thou be, 
 
 How dost thou thus me burn, 
 
 Or how at fire which thou dost raise in me, 
 
 Sith ice, thyself in streams dost thou not turn, 
 
 But rather, plaintful case ! 
 
 Of ice art marble made to my disgrace ? 
 
 O miracle of love, not heard till now ! 
 
 Cold ice doth burn, and hard by fire doth grow ! 
 
 CONSTANT LOVE. 
 
 TIME makes great states decay, 
 
 Time doth May s pomp disgrace, 
 
 Time draws deep furrows in the fairest face, 
 
 Time wisdom, force, renown doth take away, 
 
 Time doth consume the years, 
 
 Time changes works in heaven s eternal spheres : 
 
 Yet this fierce tyrant, which doth all devour, 
 
 To lessen love in me shall have no power. 
 
 TO CHLORIS. 
 SEE, Chloris, how the clouds 
 Tilt in the azure lists, 
 And how with Stygian mists 
 Each horned hill his giant forehead shrouds ; 
 
176 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 Jove thund reth in the air, fl 
 
 The air, grown great with rain, 
 
 Now seems to bring Deucalion s days again. 
 
 I see thee quake ; come, let us home repair, 
 
 Come hide thee in mine arms, 
 
 If not for love, yet to shun greater harms. 10 
 
 UPON A PORTRAIT. 
 THE goddess that in Amathus doth reign, 
 With silver trammels,* and sapphire-colour d eyes, 
 When naked from her mother s crystal plain 
 She first appear d unto the wond ring skies, 
 Or when, the golden apple to obtain, 
 
 Her blushing snows amazed Ida s trees, 
 Did never look in half so fair a guise 
 As she here drawn, all other ages stain. 
 O God, what beauties to inflame the soul, 
 And hold the wildest hearts in chains of gold ! 10 
 Fair locks, sweet face, love s stately capitol, 
 Dear neck, which dost that heavenly frame up-hold : 
 If Virtue would to mortal eyes appear, 
 To ravish sense, she would your beauty wear. 
 
 UPON THAT SAME. 
 
 IF heaven, the stars, and nature did her grace 
 With all perfections found the moon above, 
 And what excelleth in this lower place 
 Did place in her, to breed a world of love ; 
 * Trammels : nets. So Spenser : 
 
 " Her golden locks she roundly did uptie 
 In braided trammels." 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 177 
 
 If angels gleams shine on her fairest face, 5 
 
 Which make heaven s joy on earth the gazer 
 
 prove, 
 
 And her bright eyes, the orbs which beauty move, 
 Do glance like Phcebus in his glorious race ; 
 What pencil paint, what colour to the sight 
 So sweet a shape can show ? The blushing morn 10 
 The red must lend, the milky-way the white, 
 And night the stars which her rich crown adorn, 
 To draw her right ; but then, that all agree, 
 The heaven the table, Zeuxis Jove must be. 
 
 UPON THAT SAME, DRAWN WITH A PANSY. 
 
 WHEN with brave art the curious painter drew 
 This heavenly shape, the hand why made he bear 
 With golden veins that flower of purple hue, 
 Which follows on the planet of the year ? 
 Was it to show how in our hemisphere 5 
 
 Like him she shines ; nay, that effects more true 
 Of power and wonder do in her appear, 
 Whilst he but flowers, she doth brave minds sub 
 due? 
 
 Or would he else to virtue s glorious light 
 Her constant course make known ; or is it he 10 
 
 Doth parallel her bliss with Clytia s plight? 
 Right so ; and thus, he reading in her eye 
 Some woful lover s end, to grace his grave, 
 For cypress tree this mourning flower her gave. 
 VOL. I. M 
 
178 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 UPON THAT SAME. 
 
 IF sight be not beguil d 
 
 And eyes right play their part, 
 
 This flower is not of art, 
 
 But is fair nature s child : 
 
 And though, when Phoebus from us is exil d, 
 
 She doth not lock her leaves, his loss to moan, 
 
 No wonder, earth hath now more suns than one. 
 
 THIRSIS IN DISPRAISE OF BEAUTY, 
 
 THAT which so much the doating world doth prize, 
 Fond ladies only care and sole delight, 
 Soon-fading beauty, which of hues doth rise, 
 Is but an abject let of nature s might : 
 Most woful wretch, whom shining hair and eyes s 
 Lead to love s dungeon, traitor d by a sight, 
 Most woful ; for he might with greater ease 
 Hell s portals enter, and pale death appease. 
 
 As in delicious meads beneath the flowers, 
 And the most wholesome herbs that May can show, 10 
 In crystal curls the speckled serpent lowers ; 
 As in the apple, which most fair doth grow, 
 The rotten worm is clos d, which it devours j 
 As in gilt cups with Gnossian wine which flow, 
 Oft poison pompously doth hide its sours : 15 
 
 So lewdness, falsehood, mischief them advance, 
 Clad with the pleasant rays of beauty s glance. 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 179 
 
 Good thence is chas d where beauty doth appear, 
 
 Mild lowliness with pity from it fly j 
 
 Where beauty reigns, as in their proper sphere, 20 
 
 Ingratitude, disdain, pride, all descry ; 
 
 The flower and fruit which virtue s tree should bear, 
 
 With her bad shadow beauty maketh die : 
 Beauty a monster is, a monster hurl d 
 From angry heaven, to scourge this lower world. 25 
 
 As fruits which are unripe, and sour of taste, 
 To be confect d more fit than sweet we prove, 
 For sweet, in spite of care, themselves will waste, 
 When they, long kept, the appetite do move ; 
 So in the sweetness of his nectar, Love so 
 
 The foul confects, and seasons for his feast : 
 Sour is far better which we sweet may make, 
 Than sweet which sweeter sweetness will not take. 
 
 Foul may my lady be, and may her nose, 
 A Teneriffe, give umbrage to her chin ; 35 
 
 May her gay mouth, which she no time may close, 
 So wide be that the moon may turn therein ; 
 May eyes and teeth be made conform to those, 
 Eyes set by chance and white, teeth black and thin : 
 May all what seen is, and is hid from sight, 40 
 
 Like unto these rare parts be framed right. 
 
 I shall not fear, thus though she stray alone, 
 
 That others her pursue, entice, admire ; 
 
 And though she sometime counterfeit a groan, 
 
 I shall not think her heart feels uncouth fire, 45 
 
iSo MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 I shall not style her ruthless to my moan, 
 Nor proud, disdainful, wayward to desire : 
 
 Her thoughts with mine will hold an equal line, 
 I shall be hers, and she shall all be mine. 
 
 EURYMEDON S PRAISE OF MIRA. 
 
 GEM of the mountains, glory of our plains, 
 Rare miracle of nature and of love, 
 Sweet Atlas, who all beauty s heavens sustains, 
 No, beauty s heaven, where all her wonders move, 
 The sun from east to west who all doth see, 5 
 
 Ont his low globe sees nothing like to thee. 
 
 One Phoenix only liv d ere thou wast born, 
 
 And earth but did one queen of love admire ; 
 
 Three Graces only did the world adorn, 
 
 But thrice three Muses sung to Phoebus lyre : 10 
 
 Two Phoenixes be now, love s queens are two, 
 Four Graces, Muses ten, all made by you ! 
 
 For those perfections which the bounteous heaven 
 To diverse worlds in diverse times assign d, 
 With thousands more, to thee at once were given, is 
 Thy body fair, more fair they made thy mind ; 
 And that thy like no age should more behold, 
 When thou wast fram d they after brake the mould. 
 
 Sweet are the blushes on thy face which shine, 
 Sweet are the flames which sparkle from thine eyes, 2j 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 181 
 
 Sweet are his torments who for thee doth pine, 
 Most sweet his death for thee who sweetly dies, 
 For if he die, he dies not by annoy, 
 But too much sweetness and abundant joy. 
 
 What are my slender lays to show thy worth ? 25 
 
 How can base words a thing so high make known ? 
 
 So wooden globes bright stars to us set forth ; 
 
 So in a crystal is sun s beauty shown : 
 
 More of thy praises if my muse should write, 
 More love and pity must the same indite. so 
 
 THAUMANTIA AT THE DEPARTURE OF IDMON. 
 
 FAIR Dian, from the height 
 
 Of heaven s first orb who cheer st this lower place, 
 
 Hide now from me thy light, 
 
 And, pitying my case, 
 
 Spread with a scarf of clouds thy blushing face. 5 
 
 Come with your doleful songs, 
 
 Night s sable birds, which plain when others sleep, 
 
 Come, solemnize my wrongs, 
 
 And consort to me keep, 
 
 Sith heaven, earth, hell, are set to cause me weep, jo 
 
 This grief yet I could bear, 
 
 If now by absence I were only pin d ; 
 
 But, ah ! worse evil I fear, 
 
 Men absent prove unkind, 
 
 And change, unconstant like the moon, their mind, is 
 
1 82 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 
 
 If thought had so much power 
 
 Of thy departure, that it could me slay, 
 
 How will that ugly hour 
 
 My feeble sense dismay, 
 
 Farewell, sweet heart, when I shall hear thee say ! 20 
 
 Dear life, sith thou must go, 
 
 Take all my joy and comfort hence with thee, 
 
 And leave with me thy woe, 
 
 Which, until I thee see, 
 
 Nor time, nor place, nor change shall take from me. 25 
 
 ERYCINE AT THE DEPARTURE OF ALEXIS. 
 
 AND wilt thou then, Alexis mine, depart, 
 And leave these flow ry meads and crystal streams, 
 These hills as green as great with gold and gems, 
 Which court thee with rich treasure in each part ? 
 Shall nothing hold thee, not my loyal heart, 
 That bursts to lose the comfort of thy beams, 
 Nor yet this pipe which wildest satyrs tames, 
 Nor lambkins wailing, nor old Dorus smart ? 
 O, ruthless shepherd ! forests strange among, 
 What canst thou else but fearful dangers find ? 
 But, ah ! not thou, but honour doth me wrong ; 
 O cruel honour, tyrant of the mind ! 
 
 This said sad Erycine, and all the flowers 
 Empearled, as she went, with eyes salt showers. 
 
MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS 183 
 
 ALEXIS TO DAMON.* 
 
 THE love Alexis did to Damon bear 
 Shall witness d be to all the woods and plains 
 As singular, renown d by neighbouring swains, 
 That to our relics time may trophies rear : 
 Those madrigals we sung amidst our flocks, 
 With garlands guarded from Apollo s beams, 
 On Ochills whiles, whiles near Bodotria s streams, 
 Are registrate by echoes in the rocks. 
 Of foreign shepherds bent to try the states, 
 Though I, world s guest, a vagabond do stray, 
 Thou mayst that store which I esteem survey. 
 As best acquainted with my soul s conceits : 
 Whatever fate heavens have for me design d, 
 I trust thee with the treasure of my mind. 
 
 * Written by Sir William Alexander. 
 
FORTH FEASTING: 
 
 A PANEGYRIC TO THE KING S MOST 
 EXCELLENT MAJESTY 
 
 Flumina senserunt ij>sa 
 
TO HIS SACRED MAJESTY 
 
 [From the MUSES WELCOME TO KING JAMES 
 Edinburgh, MDCXVIII.] 
 
 If in this storm of joy and pompous throng, 
 This nymph, great King, come ever thee so near 
 That thy harmonious ears her accents hear, 
 Give pardon to her hoarse and lowly song: 
 Fain would she trophies to thy virtues rear, 
 But for this stately task she is not strong, 
 And her defects her high attempts do "wrong, 
 Yet as she could she makes thy worth appear 
 So in a map is shown this Jlowery place, 
 So wrought in arras by a virgin s hand, 
 With heaven and blazing stars doth Atlas stand, 
 So drawn by charcoal is Narcissus* face. 
 She may Aurora be to some bright sun, 
 Which may perfect the day by her begun. 
 
 187 
 
FORTH FEASTING 
 
 WHAT blust ring noise now interrupts my sleep, 
 
 What echoing shouts thus cleave my crystal deep, 
 
 And call me hence from out my wat ry court ? 
 
 What melody, what sounds of joy and sport, 
 
 Be these here hurl d from ev ry neighbour spring ? s 
 
 With what loud rumours do the mountains ring, 
 
 Which in unusual pomp on tip-toes stand, 
 
 And, full of wonder, overlook the land ? 
 
 Whence come these glitt ring throngs, these meteors 
 
 bright, 
 
 This golden people set unto my sight ? 10 
 
 Whence doth this praise, applause, and love arise ? 
 What load-star eastward draweth thus all eyes ? 
 And do I wake, or have some dreams conspir d 
 To mock my sense with shadows much desir d ? 
 Stare I that living face, see I those looks, is 
 
 Which with delight wont to amaze my brooks? 
 Do I behold that worth, that man divine, 
 This age s glory, by these banks of mine ? 
 Then is it true, what long I wish d in vain, 
 That my much-loving prince is come again ? 23 
 
 So unto them whose zenith is the pole, 
 
 W T hen six black months are past, the sun doth roll : 
 189 
 
190 FORTH FEASTING 
 
 So after tempest to sea-tossed wights 
 
 Fair Helen s brothers show their cheering lights : 
 
 So comes Arabia s marvel * from her woods, 25 
 
 And far, far off is seen by Memphis floods ; 
 
 The feather d sylvans cloud-like by her fly, 
 
 And with applauding clangours beat the sky ; 
 
 Nile wonders, Scrap s priests entranced rave, 
 
 And in Mygdonian stone her shape engrave, so 
 
 In golden leaves write down the joyful time 
 
 In which Apollo s bird came to their clime. 
 
 Let mother earth now deckt with flowers be seen, 
 And sweet-breath d zephyrs curl the meadows green, 
 Let heavens weep rubies in a crimson shower, sr, 
 
 Such as on Indies shores they use to pour, 
 Or with that golden storm the fields adorn, 
 Which Jove rain d when his blue-eyed maid was 
 
 born. 
 
 May never hours the web of day out-weave, 
 May never night rise from her sable cave. 40 
 
 Swell proud, my billows, faint not to declare 
 Your joys as ample as their causes are ; 
 For murmurs hoarse sound like Arion s harp, 
 Now delicately flat, now sweetly sharp. 
 And you, my nymphs, rise from your moist repair, 45 
 Strew all your springs and grots with lilies fair : 
 Some swiftest-footed get her hence and pray 
 Our floods and lakes come keep this holiday ; 
 Whate er beneath Albania s hills do run, 
 Which see the rising or the setting sun, so 
 
 * The Phoenix. 
 
FORTH FEASTING 191 
 
 Which drink stern Grampius mists, or Ochills snows ; 
 Stone-rolling Tay, Tyne tortoise-like that flows, 
 The pearly Don, the Dees, the fertile Spey, 
 Wild Nevern which doth see our longest day, 
 Ness smoking sulphur, Leave with mountains 
 
 crown d, 55 
 
 Strange Lomond for his floating isles renown d, 
 The Irish Rian, Ken, the silver Ayr, 
 The snaky Dun, the Ore with rushy hair, 
 The crystal-streaming Nid, loud-bellowing Clyde, 
 Tweed, which no more our kingdoms shall divide, eo 
 Rank-swelling Annan, Lid with curled streams, 
 The Esks, the Solway where they lose their names : 
 To ev ry one proclaim our joys and feasts, 
 Our triumphs, bid all come, and be our guests ; 
 And as they meet in Neptune s azure hall, 65 
 
 Bid them bid sea-gods keep this festival. 
 This day shall by our currents be renown d, 
 Our hills about shall still this day resound : 
 Nay, that our love more to this day appear, 
 Ldt us with it henceforth begin our year. 70 
 
 To virgins flowers, to sun-burnt earth the rain, 
 To mariners fair winds amidst the main, 
 Cool shades to pilgrims, which hot glances burn, 
 Please not so much, to us as thy return. 
 That day, dear Prince, which reft us of thy sight, 75 
 Day, no, but darkness, and a cloudy night, 
 Did freight our breasts with sighs, our eyes with tears, 
 Turn d minutes in sad months, sad months in years ; 
 Trees left to flourish, meadows to bear flowers, 
 Brooks hid their heads within their sedgy bowers ; so 
 
1 92 FORTH FEASTING 
 
 Fair Ceres curst our fields with barren frost, 
 
 As if again she had her daughter lost ; 
 
 The Muses left our groves, and for sweet songs 
 
 Sat sadly silent, or did weep their wrongs : 
 
 Ye know it, meads, ye, murmuring woods, it know, ss 
 
 Hill, dales, and caves, copartners of their woe ; 
 
 And ye it know, my streams, which from their eyne 
 
 Oft on your glass receiv d their pearled brine. 
 
 O Naiads dear, said they, Napseas * fair, 
 
 O nymphs of trees, nymphs which on hills repair, M 
 
 Gone are those maiden glories, gone that state, 
 
 Which made all eyes admire our hap of late. 
 
 As looks the heaven when never star appears, 
 
 But slow and weary shroud them in their spheres, 
 
 While Tithon s wife embosom d by him lies, 95 
 
 And world doth languish in a dreary guise ; 
 
 As looks a garden of its beauty spoil d ; 
 
 As wood in winter by rough Boreas foil d ; 
 
 As portraits raz d of colours use to be ; 
 
 So look d these abject bounds depriv d of thee. 300 
 
 While as my rills enjoy d thy royal gleams, 
 They did not envy Tiber s haughty streams, 
 Nor wealthy Tagus with his golden ore, 
 Nor clear Hydaspes, which on pearls doth roar, 
 Empamper d Gange, that sees the sun new born, 105 
 Nor Achelous with his flowery horn,t 
 Nor floods which near Elysian fields do fall ; 
 For why ? thy sight did serve to them for all. 
 
 * Napaeas : nymphs of the vales, 
 f Achelous 1 horn : the cornucopia. 
 
FORTH FEASTING 193 
 
 No place there is so desert, so alone, 
 Even from the frozen to the torrid zone, no 
 
 From flaming Hecla to great Quincy s Lake, 
 Which thine abode could not most happy make. 
 All those perfections, which by bounteous Heaven 
 To diverse worlds in diverse times were given, 
 The starry senate pour d at once on thee, us 
 
 That thou exemplar might st to others be. 
 
 Thy life was kept till the three sisters spun 
 Their threads of gold, and then it was begun. 
 With curled clouds when skies do look most fair, 
 And no disorder d blasts disturb the air ; 123 
 
 When lilies do them deck in azure gowns, 
 And new-born roses blush with golden crowns ; 
 To bode how calm we under thee should live, 
 What h?-lcyonean days thy reign should give, 
 And to two flowery diadems thy right, VM 
 
 The heavens thee made a partner of the light. 
 Scarce wast thou born, when, join d in friendly 
 
 bands, 
 
 Two mortal foes with other clasped hands, 
 With virtue fortune strove, which most should grace 
 Thy place for thee, thee for so high a place ; i 30 
 
 One vow d thy sacred breast not to forsake, 
 The other on thee not to turn her back, 
 And that thou more her love s effects might st feel, 
 For thee she rent her sail, and broke her wheel. 
 
 When years thee vigour gave, O then how clear 135 
 Did smother d sparkles in bright flames appear ! 
 Amongst the woods to force a flying hart, 
 To pierce the mountain wolf with feather d dart 
 VOL. i. N 
 
194 FORTH FEASTING 
 
 See falcons climb the clouds, the fox ensnare, 
 Outrun the wind-outrunning daedal hare, i 
 
 To loose a trampling steed alongst a plain, 
 And in meand ring gyres him bring again, 
 The press thee making place, were vulgar things ; 
 In admiration s air, on glory s wings, 
 O ! thou far from the common pitch didst rise, i 
 With thy designs to dazzle envy s eyes : 
 Thou sought st to know this All s eternal source, 
 Of ever- turning heavens the restless course, 
 Their fixed eyes, their lights which wand ring run, 
 Whence moon her silver hath, his gold the sun ; iso 
 If destine be or no, if planets can 
 By fierce aspects force the free-will of man ; 
 The light and spiring fire, the liquid air, 
 The flaming dragons, comets with red hair, 
 Heaven s tilting lances, artillery, and bow, 155 
 
 Loud-sounding trumpets, darts of hail and snow, 
 The roaring element with people dumb, 
 The earth, with what conceiv d is in her womb, 
 What on her moves, were set unto thy sight, 
 Till thou didst find their causes, essence, might : wo 
 But unto nought thou so thy mind didst strain, 
 As to be read in man, and learn to reign, 
 To know the weight and Atlas of a crown, 
 To spare the humble, proudlings pester down. 
 When from those piercing cares which thrones in 
 vest, 1C5 
 As thorns the rose, thou wearied wouldst thee rest, 
 With lute in hand, full of celestial fire, 
 To the Pierian groves thou didst retire : 
 
FORTH FEASTING 195 
 
 There, garlanded with all Urania s flowers, 
 
 In sweeter lays than builded Thebes towers, 170 
 
 Or them which charm d the dolphins in the main, 
 
 Or which did call Eurydice again, 
 
 Thou sung st away the hours, till from their sphere 
 
 Stars seem d to shoot, thy melody to hear. 
 
 The god with golden hair, the sister maids, 175 
 
 Left nymphal Helicon, their Tempe s shades, 
 
 To see thine isle, here lost their native tongue, 
 
 And in thy world-divided language sung. 
 
 Who of thine after-age can count the deeds, 
 With all that fame in time s huge annals reads, iso 
 How by example more than any law, 
 This people fierce thou didst to goodness draw, 
 How while the neighbour worlds, tous d by the Fates, 
 So many Phaethons had in their states, 
 Which turn d in heedless flames their burnish d 
 thrones, ]85 
 
 Thou, as enspher d, keep dst temperate thy zones ; 
 In Afric shores the sands that ebb and flow, 
 The speckled flowers in unshorn meads that grow, 
 He sure may count, with all the waves that meet 
 To wash the Mauritanian Atlas feet. 190 
 
 Though thou were not a crowned king by birth, 
 Thy worth deserves the richest crown on earth. 
 Search this half-sphere and the opposite ground, 
 Where is such wit and bounty to be found ? 
 As into silent night, when near the bear 195 
 
 The virgin huntress shines at full most clear, 
 And strives to match her brother s golden light, 
 The host of stars doth vanish in her sight ; 
 
1 96 FORTH FEASTING 
 
 Arcturus dies, cool d is the lion s ire, 
 Po burns no more with Phaethontal fire ; 200 
 
 Orion faints to see his arms grow black, 
 And that his blazing sword he now doth lack : 
 So Europe s lights, all bright in their degree, 
 Lose all their lustre paragon d with thee. 
 By just descent thou from more kings dost shine 205 
 Than many can name men in all their line : 
 What most they toil to find, and finding hold, 
 Thou scornest, orient gems and flatt ring gold ; 
 Esteeming treasure surer in men s breasts 
 Than when immur d with marble, clos d in chests. 210 
 No stormy passions do disturb thy mind, 
 No mists of greatness ever could thee blind : 
 Who yet hath been so meek ? Thou life didst give 
 To them who did repine to see thee live. 
 What prince by goodness hath such kingdoms gain d? 215 
 Who hath so long his people s peace maintained ? 
 Their swords are turn d in scythes, in culters spears, 
 Some giant post their antique armour bears : 
 Now, where the wounded knight his life did bleed, 
 The wanton swain sits piping on a reed ; 
 And where the cannon did Jove s thunder scorn, 
 The gaudy huntsman winds his shrill-tun d horn ; 
 Her green locks Ceres without fear doth dye, 
 The pilgrim safely in the shade doth lie, 
 Both Pan and Pales careless keep their flocks, 225 
 Seas have no dangers save the winds and rocks : 
 Thou art this isle s palladium, neither can, 
 While thou art kept, it be o erthrown by man. 
 Let others boast of blood and spoils of foes, 
 
FORTH FEASTING 197 
 
 Fierce rapines, murders, Iliads of woes, 230 
 
 Of hated pomp, and trophies reared fair, 
 
 Gore-spangled ensigns streaming in the air, 
 
 Count how they make the Scythian them adore, 
 
 The Gaditan, the soldier of Aurore ; 
 
 Unhappy vauntry ! to enlarge their bounds, 235 
 
 Which charge themselves with cares, their friends with 
 
 wounds, 
 
 Which have no law to their ambitious will, 
 But, man-plagues, born are human blood to spill : 
 Thou a true victor art, sent from above, 
 What others strain by force to gain by love ; 240 
 
 World-wand ring fame this praise to thee imparts, 
 To be the only monarch of all hearts. 
 They many fear who are of many fear d, 
 And kingdoms got by wrongs by wrongs are tear d, 
 Such thrones as blood doth raise, blood throweth 
 down ; 245 
 
 No guard so sure as love unto a crown. 
 
 Eye of our western world, Mais-daunting King, 
 With whose renown the earth s seven climates ring, 
 Thy deeds not only claim these diadems, 
 To which Thame, Liffey, Tay, subject their streams, 250 
 But to thy virtues rare, and gifts, is due 
 All that the planet of the year doth view : 
 Sure, if the world above did want a prince, 
 The world above to it would take thee hence. 
 
 That murder, rapine, lust, are fled to hell, 255 
 
 And in their rooms with us the Graces dwell, 
 That honour more than riches men respect, 
 That worthiness than gold doth more effect, 
 
198 FORTH FEASTING 
 
 That piety unmasked shows her face, 
 
 That innocency keeps with power her place, 2,30 
 
 That long-exil d Astrea leaves the heaven, 
 
 And useth right her sword, her weights holds even, 
 
 That the Saturnian world is come again, 
 
 Are wish d effects of thy most happy reign. 
 
 That daily peace, love, truth, delights increase, 255 
 
 And discord, hate, fraud, with encumbers cease, 
 
 That men use strength not to shed others blood, 
 
 But use their strength now to do other good, 
 
 That fury is enchain d, disarmed wrath, 
 
 That, save by nature s hand, there is no death, 270 
 
 That late grim foes like brothers other love, 
 
 That vultures prey not on the harmless dove, 
 
 That wolves with lambs do friendship entertain, 
 
 Are wish d effects of thy most happy reign. 
 
 That towns increase, that ruined temples rise, 275 
 
 And their wind-moving vanes plant in the skies, 
 
 That ignorance and sloth hence run away, 
 
 That buried arts now rouse them to the day, 
 
 That Hyperion, far beyond his bed 
 
 Doth see our lions ramp, our roses spread, MO 
 
 That Iber courts us, Tiber not us charms, 
 
 That Rhine with hence-brought beams his bosom 
 
 warms, 
 
 That evil us fear, and good us do maintain, 
 Are wish d effects of thy most happy reign. 
 
 O virtue s pattern, glory of our times, iss 
 
 Sent of past days to expiate the crimes, 
 Great King, but better far than thou art great, 
 Whom state not honours, but who honours state ; 
 
FORTH FEASTING 199 
 
 By wonder born, by wonder first install d, 
 
 By wonder after to new kingdoms call d, 293 
 
 Young, kept by wonder near home-bred alarms, 
 
 Old, sav d by wonder from pale traitors harms, 
 
 To be for this thy reign which wonders brings, 
 
 A king of wonder, wonder unto kings ! 
 
 If Pict, Dane, Norman thy smooth yoke had seen, 295 
 
 Pict, Dane, and Norman had thy subjects been : 
 
 If Brutus knew the bliss thy rule doth give, 
 
 Even Brutus joy would under thee to live ; 
 
 For thou thy people dost so dearly love, 
 
 That they a father, more than prince, thee prove, soo 
 
 O days to be desir d, age happy thrice, 
 If ye your heaven-sent good could duly prize ! 
 But ye, half-palsy-sick, think never right 
 Of what ye hold, till it be from your sight, 
 Prize only summer s sweet and musked breath, sos 
 When armed winters threaten you with death ; 
 In pallid sickness do esteem of health, 
 And by sad poverty discern of wealth. 
 I see an age when after many years, 
 And revolutions of the slow-pac d spheres, aio 
 
 These days shall be to other far esteem d, 
 And like Augustus palmy reign be deem d. 
 The names of Arthur s fabulous paladins, 
 Grav n in time s surly brows in wrinkled lines, 
 Of Henrys, Edwards, famous for their fights, sis 
 
 Their neighbour conquests, orders new of knights, 
 Shall by this prince s name be past as far 
 As meteors are by the Idalian star. * 
 
 * The Idalian star : Venus. 
 
200 FORTH FEASTING 
 
 If grey-hair d Proteus songs the truth not miss, 
 And grey-hair d Proteus oft a prophet is, 320 
 
 There is a land hence distant many miles, 
 Outreaching fiction and Atlantic isles, 
 Which, homelings, from this little world we name, 
 That shall emblazon with strange rites his fame, 
 Shall raise him statues all of purest gold, 325 
 
 Such as men gave unto the gods of old, 
 Name by him fanes, proud palaces, and towns, 
 With some great flood, which most their fields renowns. 
 This is that king who should make right each wrong, 
 Of whom the bards and mystic sibyls sung, 330 
 
 The man long promis d, by whose glorious reign 
 This isle should yet her ancient name regain, 
 And more of Fortunate deserve the style 
 Than those where heavens with double summers smile. 
 Run on, great Prince, thy course in glory s way, 335 
 The end the life, the evening crowns the day ; 
 Heap worth on worth, and strongly soar above 
 Those heights which made the world thee first to love ; 
 Surmount thyself, and make thine actions past 
 Be but as gleams or lightnings of thy last, 240 
 
 Let them exceed them of thy younger time, 
 As far as autumn doth the flowery prime. 
 Through this thy empire range, like world s bright eye, 
 That once each year surveys all earth and sky, 
 Now glances on the slow and resty bears, 345 
 
 Then turns to dry the weeping Auster s tears, 
 Just unto both the poles, and moveth even 
 In the infigur d circle of the heaven. 
 O ! long long haunt these bounds, which by thy sight 
 
FORTH FEASTING 201 
 
 Have now regain d their former heat and light ! 350 
 
 Here grow green woods, here silver brooks do glide, 
 
 Here meadows stretch them out with painted pride, 
 
 Embroid ring all the banks ; here hills aspire 
 
 To crown their heads with the ethereal fire ; 
 
 Hills, bulwarks of our freedom, giant walls, 555 
 
 Which never fremdling s slight nor sword made thralls ; 
 
 Each circling flood to Thetis tribute pays, 
 
 Men here, in health, outlive old Nestor s days ; 
 
 Grim Saturn yet amongst our rocks remains, 
 
 Bound in our caves with many metal d chains ; sej 
 
 Bulls haunt our shades like Leda s lover white, 
 
 Which yet might breed Pasiphae delight ; 
 
 Our flocks fair fleeces bear, with which for sport 
 
 Endymion of old the moon did court, 
 
 High-palmed harts amidst our forests run, 355 
 
 And, not impaled, the deep-mouth d hounds do shun ; 
 
 The rough-foot hare hirri in our bushes shrouds, 
 
 And long-wing d hawks do perch amidst our clouds. 
 
 The wanton wood-nymphs of the verdant spring 
 
 Blue, golden, purple flowers shall to thee bring, 370 
 
 Pomona s fruits the panisks, * Thetis girls 
 
 Thy Thule s amber, with the ocean pearls ; 
 
 The Tritons, herdsmen of the glassy field, 
 
 Shall give thee what far-distant shores can yield, 
 
 The Serean fleeces, Erythrean gems, 375 
 
 Vast Plata s silver, gold of Peru streams, 
 
 Antarctic parrots, ./Ethiopian plumes, 
 
 Sabasan odours, myrrh, and sweet perfumes. 
 
 * Panisks : rural divinities ; fauns. 
 
202 FORTH FEASTING 
 
 And I myself, wrapt in a watchet gown, 
 Of reeds and lilies on my head a crown, 
 Shall incense to thee burn, green altars raise, 
 And yearly sing due paeans to thy praise. 
 
 Ah ! why should Isis only see thee shine ? 
 Is not thy Forth as well as Isis thine ? 
 Though Isis vaunt she hath more wealth in store, 
 Let it suffice thy Forth doth love thee more : 
 Though she for beauty may compare with Seine, 
 For swans and sea-nymphs with imperial Rhine, 
 Yet in the title may be claim d in thee, 
 Nor she, nor all the world, can match with me. 
 Now when, by honour drawn, thou shalt away 
 To her already jealous of thy stay, 
 When in her amorous arms she doth thee fold, 
 And dries thy dewy hairs with hers of gold, 
 Much questioning of thy fare, much of thy sport, 
 Much of thine absence, long, howe er so short, 
 And chides perhaps thy coming to the north, 
 Loathe not to think on thy much-loving Forth. 
 O ! love these bounds, where of thy royal stem 
 More than an hundred wore a diadem. 
 So ever gold and bays thy brows adorn, 
 So never time may see thy race outworn, 
 So of thine own still may st thou be desir d, 
 Of strangers fear d, redoubted, and admir d ; 
 So memory thee praise, so precious hours 
 May character thy name in starry flowers ; 
 So may thy high exploits at last make even 
 With earth thy empire, glory with the heaven. 
 
NOTES 
 
NOTES TO VOLUME I. 
 
 TEARS ON THE DEATH OF MCELIADES (p. 5). 
 
 I HAVE followed the text given in the edition of 
 Drummond s Poems published in 1616, which, being 
 the last published during his lifetime, may be taken 
 as representing his final intention. It differs in some 
 slight particulars from that of the first edition. The 
 latter gives, for example, a different version of the 
 couplet which concludes several of the paragraphs 
 after the manner of a refrain. In the first edition 
 we find : 
 
 " Meliades sweet courtly nymphs deplore 
 From ruddy Hesp rus rising to Aurore. " 
 
 Brave Bourbon (line 47;. The famous Constable 
 de Bourbon, born in 1489. His name is not very 
 happily introduced by Drummond in this connection, 
 for although his bravery and his military abilities are 
 unquestioned, he is principally remembered by his 
 achievements in arms against his native country. The 
 story of the reproach which he received from the 
 205 
 
206 NOTES 
 
 dying Bayard is familiar to every one. Bourbon ended 
 his life as a military adventurer. He led a merce 
 nary army against Rome, and got his death-wound 
 in an assault upon the city on the 6th of May 1527. 
 Rome, nevertheless, was captured and pillaged by 
 the besiegers. 
 
 She whose name appals Both Titan s golden bowers 
 (lines 62-63). "She "is Rome. "Titan s golden 
 bowers " are the East, where he rises, and the West, 
 where he sets. Sir William Alexander has this image 
 in the sixteenth sonnet of his Aiirora : 
 
 " I with her praise both Titan s bowers should fill." 
 
 Flowers, which once were kings (line 122). Hya 
 cinth, narcissus, and anemone, flowers which sprang 
 from the blood of the princes Hyacinthus, Narcissus, 
 and Adonis. 
 
 O hyacinths, for aye your AI keep still (line 
 127). According to the poets, this flower, which 
 sprang from the blood of Hyacinthus, bore upon 
 its leaves marks resembling the Greek exclamation 
 of woe AI. 
 
 And sad Electro* s sisters which still weep (line 140). 
 Electra was one of the seven Pleiades, the daughters 
 of Atlas and Pleione. They made away with them 
 selves for sorrow at the death of their sisters, the 
 Hyades, and were changed into the constellation 
 which bears their name. In the first edition this 
 line reads as follows : 
 
 * And soft-eyed Pleiades which still do weep." 
 
NOTES 207 
 
 SONNET (p. 13). 
 
 In whom, save death, nought mortal was at all (line 
 14). This conceit is borrowed from Guarini (Madrigal 
 133. Rime: Venice, 1598): 
 
 Ne di mortal havesti altro, che morte. 
 
 This sonnet originally appeared in the Mausoleum, 
 or, The Choisest Flowres of the Epitaphs, written on the 
 Death of the never-loo-imich lamented Prince Henrie, 
 Edinburgh, 1613. 
 
 POEMS. THE FIRST PART 
 To THE AUTHOR (p. 19). 
 
 " Parthenius," the author of this very graceful com 
 mendatory sonnet, is Sir William Alexander. 
 
 SONNET VI. (p. 26). 
 
 Guarini, in his twenty-seventh sonnet, celebrates 
 his mistress s beauty in a similar manner, cataloguing 
 the wonders of earth and heaven, and preferring to 
 them all the divina luce of her countenance ; but the 
 resemblance in particulars is very slight. 
 
 SONNET VII. (p. 27). 
 
 This sonnet is largely Platonic, and refers princi 
 pally to the Phadrus. In the intelligible world abide 
 the Ideas of all things, eternal, immutable, in occult 
 union. Now the winged souls, accompanying the 
 
208 NOTES 
 
 Gods, and possessing themselves a deiform nature, 
 perceive according to their ability, as Plotinus asserts, 
 this intelligible world and what bejongs to it ; though 
 the same spectacle is not received by each. But the 
 soul, possessing also a nature contrary to the deiform 
 (Plato s mortal steed), falls into generation, as into 
 darkness and oblivion, and slowly regains the know 
 ledge of what it had seen in the intelligible world, by 
 recognising in corporeal objects the Ideas of which 
 they participate. For human knowledge is wholly of 
 the nature of an awakening and a recollection. Thus 
 the sight of a beautiful object awakens in the soul a 
 reminiscence of the Idea, the Beautiful itself, which 
 in its winged condition it beheld, and it is alone by 
 virtue of this reminiscence by virtue, that is, of the 
 idea of beauty which it retains in itself that it is 
 capable of recognising the beautiful in nature. But 
 Drummond, in recording that he "elsewhere saw the 
 idea of that face" was possibly referring unwittingly 
 to the experience of a previous incarnation ; inasmuch 
 as Ideas, " the exemplary causes of things," are of the 
 permanent alone, but not of the temporary. " Every 
 image formed by nature," says Plotinus, " lasts as long 
 as its archetype remains " (Ennead. V., Lib. VIII. 12). 
 Now the visible world, being an image of the intel 
 ligible world, is equally enduring ; but matter is ever 
 flowing, and that which participates of matter is there 
 fore subject to continual change. And therefore the 
 eternal Idea is constantly reflected in the whole of 
 nature, but not uniformly in the particular parts of 
 nature. 
 
NOTES 209 
 
 Not toitd with aught to reason doth rebel (line 8). 
 I.e., subsisting according to intellect, or pure reason ; 
 not wearied with the encumbrance of body. Professor 
 Masson reads "soiled" for "toiled" (Drummond of 
 Hawtlwrnden, p. 47), but I think unnecessarily. 
 
 SONNET VIII. (p. 28). 
 
 This exquisite sonnet is partly borrowed from 
 Petrarch. Compare the following lines (Petrarch, 
 Part I., Son. 131) : 
 
 " Or, che 1 ciel e la terra e 1 vento tace, 
 E le fere e gli augelli il sonno affrena, 
 Notte 1 carro stellato in giro mena, 
 E nel suo letto il mar senz onda giace ; 
 Veggio, penso, ardo, piango ; e chi mi sface, 
 Sempre m e innanzi per mia dolce pena." 
 
 SONNET IX. (p. 29). 
 
 Evidently suggested by the following sonnet of 
 Marino (Rime di Gio. Battista Marino, Venice, 1602 : 
 Part L, p. 31): 
 
 " O del silentio figlio, e dela Notte, 
 Padre di vaghe imaginate forme, 
 Sonno gentil, per le cui tacit orme 
 Son 1 alme al ciel-d Amor spesso condotte ; 
 Hor, che n grembo ale lievi ombre interrotte 
 Ogni cor (fuor che 1 mio) riposa, e dorme, 
 L Herebo oscuro, al mio pensier conforme, 
 Lascia ti prego, e le Cimerie grotte, 
 E vien col dolce tuo tranquillo oblio, 
 E col bel volto, in ch io mirar m appago, 
 VOL. i. o 
 
210 NOTES 
 
 A consolar il vedovo desio. 
 Che, se n te la sembianza, onde son vago, 
 Non m e dato goder, godro pur io 
 Dela morte, che bramo, almen 1 imago." 
 
 The expression "image of death," applied to sleep, 
 is borrowed from Cicero : " Habes somnurn imaginem 
 mortis, eamque quotidie induis" ( Tusculanarum Quas- 
 tionum Lib. I., c. 38), Drummond again uses this 
 figure in the second part of his Poems (Song II., 
 line 14). So Sidney, in the third book of Arcadia; 
 
 " And mother earth, now clad in mourning weeds, did 
 
 breathe 
 A dull desire to kiss the image of our death." 
 
 Compare also with this sonnet, Astrophel and Stella, 
 Sonnet 39. 
 
 SONG I. (p. 32). 
 
 This graceful poem is rich in pleasant reminiscences 
 of Sidney. 
 
 Here Adon blush d, &c. (lines 55-58). Adonis is 
 the rose (compare Bion s first Idyll, and Drummond s 
 The Rose, p. 169). Clyde is the heliotrope (Ovid. 
 Metam., Lib. IV.) ; "that sweet boy" is Hyacinthus 
 (ibid., Lib. XIII. ) 
 
 For those harmonious sounds to Jove are given, By 
 the swiff touches of the nine- string 1 d heaven (lines 
 79-80). An allusion to the Pythagorean doctrine 
 of the music of the spheres. 
 
 Or pearls that shining shell is calVd their mother 
 (line 108). Sidney has this image in the verses 
 
NOTES 2ii 
 
 which Amphialus causes to be sung unto Philoclea 
 (Arcadia, Book III.) : 
 
 " A nymph that did excel as far 
 All things that erst I saw, as orient pearls exceed 
 That which their mother hight." 
 
 Or roses gules infield of lilies borne (line 1 18). So 
 Sidney writes (Astrophel and Stella, Sonnet 13) of 
 Stella s face : 
 
 " Where roses gules are borne in silver field." 
 
 There all about, as brooks them sport at leisure, &c. 
 (lines 131-133). Compare the song which Zelmane 
 makes upon the beauty of Philoclea bathing (Arcadia, 
 Book II.): 
 
 " There fall those sapphire-coloured brooks, 
 Which conduit-like with curious crooks, 
 Sweet islands make in that sweet land." 
 
 But Drummond s entire description of the bathing 
 nymph (lines 109-136) may well be compared with 
 this Song to Philoclea, and was perhaps suggested 
 by it. 
 
 With storm-like course, a stimptuous chariot rushes 
 (line 172). So in the Song of Amphialus (Arcadia, 
 Book III.) : 
 
 "A chariot . . . 
 
 Whose storm-like course staid not till hard by me 
 it bided." 
 
 And ease mine eyes with briny tribute charged, &c. 
 
212 NOTES 
 
 (lines 240-244). Compare Zelmane s verses by the 
 river Ladon {Arcadia, Book II.) : 
 
 " Over these brooks trusting to ease mine eyes 
 (Mine eyes even great in labour with their tears) 
 I laid my face ; my face wherein there lies 
 Clusters of clouds which no sun ever clears." 
 
 SONNET XII. (p. 41). 
 
 The first four lines of this sonnet were no doubt 
 suggested by the following lines of Petrarch (Part II., 
 Son. 6) : 
 
 " Datemi pace, o duri miei pensieri : 
 Non basta ben, ch Amor, Fortuna e Morte, 
 Mi fanno guerra intorno, e n su le porte, 
 Senza trovarmi dentro altri guerrieri ? " 
 
 But the two sonnets have no further resemblance. 
 
 MADRIGAL I. (p. 42). 
 
 Translated from the following madrigal by Marino 
 (Rime, Part II., p. 72) : 
 
 " Fabro dela mia morte 
 Sembr io verme ingegnoso, 
 Che intento al proprio mal mai non riposo. 
 Dele caduche foglie 
 D una vana speranza mi nodrisco : 
 E varie fila ordisco 
 Di pensier, di desiri insieme attorte. 
 Cosl lasso a me stesso 
 Prigion non sol, ma sepoltura intesso." 
 
NOTES 213 
 
 SEXTAIN I. (p. 43). 
 
 Compare the following stanzas of Petrarch (Part I., 
 Sestina 7) : 
 
 " Non ha tanti animali il mar fra 1 onde, 
 Ne lassu sopra 1 cerchio della luna 
 Vide mai tante stelle alcuna notte, 
 Ne tanti augelli albergan per li boschi, 
 Ne tant erbe ebbe mai campo ne piaggia, 
 Quant ha 1 mio cor pensier ciascuna sera. 
 
 ei Di di in di spero omai 1 ultima sera 
 Che scevri in me dal vivo terren 1 onde, 
 E mi lasci dormir in qualche piaggia ; 
 Che tanti affanni uom mai sotto la luna 
 Non sofferse quant io : sannolsi i boschi, 
 Che sol vo ricercando giorno e notte. 
 
 " F non ebbi giammai tranquilla notte, 
 Ma sospirando andai mattino e sera, 
 Poi ch Amor femmi un cittadin de boschi. 
 Ben fia, in prima ch i posi, il mar senz onde, 
 E la sua luce avra 1 sol dalla luna, 
 E i fior d April morranno in ogni piaggia." 
 
 SONNET XIV. (p. 46). 
 
 Petrarch has a similar catalogue of rivers in the first 
 four lines of one of his sonnets : " Non Tesin, P6, 
 Varo, Arno, Adige e Tebro," &c. (Part I., Son. 116). 
 The. remainder of his sonnet, however, bears no re 
 semblance to Drummond s. 
 
214 NOTES 
 
 SONNET XVI. (p. 48). 
 
 Sweet brook, in whose clear crystal I mine eyes 
 Have oft seen great in labour of their tears (lines 1-2). 
 Another reminiscence of the verses, already quoted, 
 which Zelmane wrote in the sand of Ladon (Arcadia, 
 Book II.). 
 
 SONNET XVII. (p. 49). 
 
 Those flow 1 rs are spread which names of princes bear 
 (line 7). I.e., hyacinth and narcissus. 
 
 SONNET XVIII. (p. 50). 
 
 Compare Astrophel and Stella, Sonnets 7 and 20. 
 The name Auristella, which appears nowhere else in 
 Drummond s poems, was probably chosen not without 
 a thought of Sidney s mistress. 
 
 MADRIGAL II. (p. 51). 
 
 Translated, with some variation, from the following 
 madrigal by Tasso (Scielta delle Rime delSig. Torquato 
 Tasso : Ferrara, 1582: Part I., p. 49) : 
 
 " Al vostro dolce azurro 
 Ceda, o luci serene, 
 
 Qual piu bel negro Italia in pregio tiene. 
 Occhi, cielo d amore, 
 Sole di questo core, 
 
 Sono gli altri appo voi notte et inferno. 
 Azurro e 1 cielo eterno, 
 E quel, ch e bello, il bello ha sol da lui, 
 Ei bello e sol, perch assomiglia a vui." 
 
NOTES 215 
 
 SONNET XIX. (p. 52). 
 
 Marino has a sonnet, similar in motive (Rime, 1602 : 
 Part I., p. 28), to which Drummond was doubtless 
 indebted. The only direct imitation, however, occurs 
 in lines 9-12 of Drummond s sonnet, with which com 
 pare the following lines of Marino s : 
 
 "Ei novo Zeusi, al Oriente tolto 
 L oro, 1 ostro al Aurora, i raggi al Sole, 
 II bel crin ne figura, e gli occhi, e 1 volto." 
 
 SONNET XXI. (p. 54). 
 
 That ever Pyrrha did to maid impart, &c. (lines 
 3-4). See Ovid s Metamorphoses, Book I. 
 
 SONNET XXVII. (p. 61). 
 Compare Astrophel and Stella, Sonnet 90. 
 
 SONNET XXIX. (p. 63). 
 
 And bid them, if they ivoiild more ALlnas bum, 
 In Rhodope or Erymanthe me turn (lines 13-14). 
 
 Were he transformed into a snowy mountain 
 
 Rhodope or Erymanthus his inward fire would 
 convert it into a volcano. 
 
 SONNET XXXI. (p. 65). 
 
 This sonnet is addressed, by way of warning, to 
 one yet inexperienced in love. 
 
 And let my ruins for a Phare thee serve, To shun 
 this rock Capharean of untruth (lines lo-i I ). Phare : 
 
216 NOTES 
 
 Pharos or lighthouse. Caphareus was the name of a 
 rocky promontory of the island of Euboea. Palamedes, 
 the son of Nauplius, king of that island, was treacher 
 ously slain by the Greeks during the siege of Troy ; 
 wherefore his father Nauplius, when the Grecian ships 
 were returning homewards, caused false beacons to 
 be displayed on the Capharean rock, and many were 
 wrecked there. 
 
 And serve no god "who doth his churchmen starve 
 (line 12). Compare Sidney, Astrophel and Stella, 
 Sonnet 5 : 
 
 Till that good god makes church and churchman 
 starve." 
 
 SONNET XXXIII. (p. 67). 
 
 Translated from the following sonnet by Tasso 
 (Scielta delle Rime, c., 1582 : Part II., p. 26) : 
 
 "Vinca fortuna homai, se sotto il peso 
 Di tante cure al fin cader conviene, 
 Vinca, e del rnio riposo, e del mio bene 
 L empio trofeo sia nel suo tempio appeso 
 Colei, che mille eccelsi imperi ha reso 
 Vili, et eguali a le piu basse arene, 
 Del mio male hor si vanta, e le mie pene 
 Conta, e me chiama da suoi strali offeso. 
 Dunque natura, e stil cangia, perch io 
 Cangio il mio riso in pianto? Hor qual piii chiaro 
 Presagio attende del mio danno eterno ? 
 Piangi, alma trista, piangi, e del tuo amaro 
 Pianto si formi un tenebroso rio, 
 Ch il Cocito sia poi del nostro Inferno. * 
 
NOTES 217 
 
 SONNET XXXIV. (p. 68). 
 
 Let great Empedocles -vaunt of his death, &c. (lines 
 9-10). He alludes to the fable concerning Empedocles, 
 the great Sicilian philosopher, who was feigned to have 
 cast himself into the crater of Etna, in order that his 
 mysterious disappearance might give rise to the report 
 that he was a god. 
 
 And D&daFs son, he nam d the Samian streams 
 (line 12). Icarus, the son of Daedalus, falling into 
 the sea near Samos, gave to that part of the Mediter 
 ranean the name of Icarian. See Ovid s Metamor 
 phoses, Book VIII. 
 
 SONNET XXXV. (p. 69). 
 
 There is no need to suppose that the dreadful com 
 plaints which Drummond makes, here and elsewhere, 
 of his mistress s cruelty, were intended to bear any 
 personal application to Miss Cunningham of Barns. 
 He was merely following the fashion of his school, in 
 which such complaints formed a part of the regular 
 system of amatory poetry. Even the gentle Petrarch 
 ascribes to his Laura "un cor di tigre o d orsa." To 
 the poefs mistress, in fact, cruelty was an attribute 
 equally indispensable with beauty. 
 
 This sonnet is partly borrowed from the following 
 by Marino (Rime, 1602 : Part I., p. 76) : 
 
 " Te 1 Hiperboreo monte, o I Arimaspe 
 
 Produsse, Elpinia, il Caucaso, o 1 Cerauno : 
 Te fra 1 Hircane tigri, e fra le Caspe 
 Sol di tosco nodri Centauro o Fauno, 
 Non le dolci bevesti acque di Dauno ; 
 
218 NOTES 
 
 Ma dela Tana il ghiaccio, o del Idaspe : 
 Non tra 1 agne crescesti in grembo a Cauno, 
 Ma in mezo dela vipera, e del aspe. 
 Poich alpestra qual fera, aspra qual angue, 
 Sol delo stratio altrui sempre ti cibi, 
 Ne curi il tuo pastor, ch a morte langue. 
 O piu crudel, die gli avoltori e i nibi, 
 Pasciti del mio core, e del mio sangue, 
 Purch un tuo bacio anzi 1 morir delibi." 
 
 SONG II. (p. 70). 
 
 Those which by Pencils streams Did once thy heart 
 surprise (lines 27-28). Daphne, the beloved of Apollo, 
 was the daughter of the river-god Peneus. See Ovid s 
 Metamorphoses, Lib. I. 
 
 As thou when two thou did to Rome appear (line 30). 
 " During the Consulship of Cornelius Cethegus, and 
 Sempronius [B.C. 204], at what time the Africane Warres 
 were appointed to Scipio, two Sunnes at one time were 
 scene in the Heavens : and the night (which is by nature 
 darke) appeared extraordinary light" (Varieties^ by 
 David Person : London, 1635 : Book V., p. 27). 
 
 Night like a drunkard reels Beyond the hills to shun 
 his flaming wheels (lines 42-43). These fine lines are 
 borrowed, as Professor Masson has pointed out, from 
 Romeo and Juliet (Act II., Sc. 3) : 
 
 " And flecked darkness like a drunkard reels 
 Forth from Day s path and Titan s fiery wheels." 
 
 SONNET XXXVI. (p. 72). 
 
 That Ionian hill (line 7). Mount Latmos, where 
 Endymion slept, beloved of Phcebe (the moon). 
 
NOTES 219 
 
 SONNET XXXVIII. (p. 74)- 
 
 Fair is Thaumantias in her crystal gown (line 3). 
 Thaumantias is a name of Iris (the rainbow), as the 
 daughter of Thaumas (wonder). " Ad quern sic roseo 
 Thaumantias ore locuta est " (^Eneid, IX. 5). 
 
 Chloris (line 9), from xAco/aos, pale-green ; a name 
 of Flora, the goddess of flowers, as presiding over the 
 young vegetation of spring. 
 
 SONNET XXXIX. (p. 76). 
 
 Sigh, and in her fair hais yourselves enchain 
 (line 8). And Sidney, in a sonnet of Stella sailing 
 on the Thames (Astrophel and Stella, 103), has these 
 words of the winds : 
 
 " In her golden hair 
 
 They did themselves (O sweetest prison !) twine." 
 
 MADRIGAL VI. (p. 81). 
 
 That fire this All environing (line 6). According 
 to the Platonists, true fire subsists in the heavens. 
 They say "that all heaven consists of fire, which 
 there predominates; but that it also comprehends, 
 according to cause, the powers of the other elements, 
 such as the solidity and stability of earth, the con- 
 glutinating and uniting power of water, and the 
 tenuity and transparency of air" (Proclus, On the 
 Timaus, Book III.). But the celestial fire differs 
 from the grosser sublunary fire in being unburning 
 and vivific. Thus Pico della Mirandola says : " Ele- 
 mentaris [ignis] urit, ccelestis vivificat, supercoelestis 
 amat." 
 
220 NO TES 
 
 SONNET XLIIL (p. 82). 
 
 Far from the madding -worldling s hoarse discords 
 (line li). Possibly this verse suggested the well- 
 known line of Gray. 
 
 SONNET XLVIII. (p. 89). 
 
 Like Berenices lock that ye might shine (line 13). 
 Berenice was a queen of Egypt, and the wife of 
 Ptolemy Euergetes. During her husband s absence in 
 Syria, she dedicated her hair in the temple of Venus, as 
 an offering for his safe return. The hair subsequently 
 disappeared, and was said to have been changed into 
 the constellation known as Berenice s Hair. 
 
 MADRIGAL IX. (p. 96). 
 
 Myself so to deceive, With long-shut eyes I shun the 
 irksome light (lines 6-7). Sanazzaro has the same 
 fancy in his twelfth Canzone, wherein he also records 
 the appearance of his mistress to him in a dream 
 (Opcre volgari dijacopo Sanazzaro, Padova, 1723) : 
 
 " Ond io per ingannarme 
 Lungo spazio non volsi gli occhi aprire." 
 
 There is no further resemblance, however. 
 
 SONNET LIV. (p. 98). 
 
 That bad craftsman (line 2). Perillus, who made 
 for Phalaris, tyrant of Agrigentum, the brazen bull, 
 wherein men were enclosed and consumed with fire ; 
 of whose victims Perillus was himself the first. 
 
NOTES 221 
 
 The Phlegraan plain (line 6). On the burning 
 plain of Phlegra the earth-born giants fought with the 
 gods, who overcame them by the aid of Hercules. 
 
 SONNET LV. (p. 100). 
 
 An imitation, with considerable variations, of the 
 following sonnet by Petrarch (Part I., Son. 113) : 
 
 " Pommi ove 1 Sol uccide i fiori e 1 erba ; 
 O dove vince lui 1 ghiaccio e la neve : 
 Pommi ov e 1 carro suo temprato e leve ; 
 Ed ov e chi eel rende, o chi eel serba : 
 Pomm in umil fortuna, od in superba ; 
 Al dolce acre sereno, al fosco e greve : 
 Pommi alia notte ; al di lungo ed al breve ; 
 Alia matura etate, od all acerba : 
 Pomm in cielo, od in terra, od in abisso ; 
 In alto poggio ; in valle ima e palustre ; 
 Libero spirto, od a suoi membri affisso : 
 Pommi con fama oscura, o con illustre : 
 Saro qual fui : vivro com io son visso, 
 Continuando il mio sospir trilustre." 
 
 " Trilustre " indicates that Petrarch had been in love 
 with Laura for fifteen years when he wrote this 
 sonnet. 
 
 In Puttenham s Arte of English Poesie (Lib. III. 
 c. 19), a translation of this sonnet by Sir Thomas 
 Wyatt is quoted as an illustration of the figure which 
 the author terms Merismits, or the Distributor. 
 
222 NOTES 
 
 POEMS. -THE SECOND PART. 
 
 SONNET I. (p. 101). 
 
 Partly translated from the following sonnet of 
 Marino (Rime, Part I., p. 146): 
 
 " O d humano splendor breve baleno : 
 Ecco e pur (lasso) in apparir sparita 
 L alma mia luce, e di quagiu partita 
 Per far 1 eterno di vie piu sereno. 
 Quella, che resse di mia vita il freno, 
 Cola poggiata, ond era dianzi uscita, 
 Et al gran Sol, di cui fu raggio, unita, 
 II ciel di gloria, e me di doglia ha pieno. 
 Ma tu (se pur di la cose mortali 
 Lice mirar, dove si gode, e regna) 
 Mira i miei pianti ale tue gioie eguali : 
 E come, ove volasti, anima degna, 
 La mia, per teco unirsi, aperte ha 1 ali, 
 E d uscir con le lagrime s ingegna." 
 
 That sun (line 7). Intellect, from which the soul 
 proceeds, and to which she returns. 
 
 SONNET II. (p. 102). 
 
 Here again Drummond is largely indebted to 
 Marino. In the first four lines he has paraphrased 
 the commencement of a sonnet by the Italian poet 
 (Rime, Part I., p. 155) : 
 
 " Gli occhi leggiadri, a cui soavi honesti 
 Sguardi di mill alme ardean d alti desiri : 
 
NOTES 223 
 
 E da cui vivi e lucidi zaffiri 
 
 Scorno haveano e splendor gli occhi celesti." 
 Lines 5-8, moreover, seem to owe their suggestion 
 to a passage in another of Marino s sonnets (Part I., 
 
 P- 153) : 
 
 " Le vive nevi, oime, le vive rose^ 
 E le perle, e i rubini, e 1 ostro, e 1 oro, 
 Dove, dove son hor ? " 
 
 SONNET III. (p. 103). 
 
 I know not if the poet, in writing these very touch 
 ing verses, had any thought of Petrarch, but lines 
 6-9 suggest a passage, not less affecting, in one of 
 Petrarch s sonnets (Part II., Son. 24), where, recalling 
 the beauties of his dead mistress, he exclaims : 
 
 " Poca polvere son, che nulla sente: 
 Ed io pur vivo ! " 
 
 SONNET IV. (p. 104). 
 
 Translated, the conclusion excepted, from the 
 seventeenth sonnet of Sanazzaro (Opere volgari, 1723 : 
 p. 343), which I subjoin : 
 
 " O vita, vita nb, ma vivo affanno, 
 Nave di vetro in mar di cieco errore, 
 Sotto pioggia di pianto, e di dolore, 
 Che sempre cresce con vergogna e danno; 
 Le tue false promesse, e 1 vero inganno 
 M han privo si d ogni speranza il core, 
 Ch io porto invidia a quei che son gia fore, 
 Ed ho pieta degli altri che verranno. 
 Quando vid io mai di sereno, o lieto ? 
 Quando passo quest alma ora tranquilla ? 
 
224 NOTES 
 
 Quando il mio cor fu libero, o quieto ? 
 Quando sentii mai scema una favilla 
 Dell incendio nfelice, ov io m acqueto, 
 Per piu non ritentar Cariddi, e Scilla ? " 
 
 The last three lines of Drummond s sonnet are 
 borrowed from the corresponding lines of the fifteenth 
 of Sanazzaro (ibid. p. 342) : 
 
 " Un sol rimedio veggio al viver corto ; 
 Che avendo a navigar mar si profondo, 
 Uom raccolga la vela, e mora in porto." 
 
 SONNET VI. (p. 106). 
 
 The first two lines are translated from these of 
 Marino (Rime, Part I., p. 154) : 
 
 " Anima bella, che n su 1 nor degli anni 
 Per arricchir di te 1 empirea spera," &c. 
 
 But the substance of the whole sonnet is evidently 
 borrowed from the following, which is also by Marino 
 (ibid. p. 150) : 
 
 " Alma gentil, ch anzi gran tempo 1 ale 
 Lieta spiegasti agli stellanti giri, 
 Ov hor nel divin Sol vagheggi e miri 
 Te stessa, e 1 tuo splendor non piu mortalc : 
 Deh, se non vieta in ciel legge fatale 
 Talhora in nostri udir bassi desiri, 
 A me china le luci, e de martiri 
 Mira lo stuol, ch ognor per te m assale. 
 E se mole non ergo, ove lasciasti 
 La terrestre quagiu lacera spoglia, 
 
NOTES 225 
 
 Che degli anni al furor salda contrasti : 
 Prendilo in pace, e la pietosa voglia 
 Gradisci, e 1 pianto, ond io la lavo, e basti, 
 Che 1 cor viva Piramide 1 accogli 
 
 ha. 
 
 MADRIGAL I. (p. 107). 
 
 Altered, though without improvement, from the 
 following beautiful madrigal of Guarini, entitled 
 "Humana fragilita" (Mad. 132: Rime del Sig. 
 Cavaliers Battista Guarini, Venice, 1598) : 
 
 " Questa vita mortale, 
 Che par si bella, e quasi piuma al vento, 
 Che la porta, e la perde in un momento. 
 E s ella pur con temerari giri 
 Tal or s avanza, e sale, 
 E librata su 1 ale 
 
 Fender da se nel aria anco la miri ; 
 E sol, perche di sua natura e leve : 
 Ma poco dura, e n breve 
 Dopo mille rivolte, e mille strade, 
 Perch ella e pur di terra, a terra cade." 
 
 SONG I. (p. 109). 
 
 And this of late so glorioiis world of ours, Like 
 meadow without flow* rs, Or ring of a rich gem made 
 blind, appeared (lines 51-53). Compare Petrarch 
 (Part II., Son. 67) : 
 
 " Pianger 1 aer e la terra e 1 mar dovrebbe 
 L uman legnaggio, che senz ella e quasi 
 Senza nor prato, o senza gemma anello." 
 VOL. i. p 
 
226 NOTES 
 
 Or as that shepherd -which Jove s love did keep (line 
 123). Argus with the hundred eyes, who guarded 
 Jove s love, lo. 
 
 SONNET IX. (p. 116). 
 
 Petrarch has a pretty sonnet on the same theme 
 (Part II., Son. 42), beginning : 
 
 " Zefiro torna, e 1 bel tempo rimena, 
 E i fiori e 1 erbe, sua dolce famiglia." 
 
 Drummond s sonnet may possibly have been sug 
 gested by this, but the resemblance is not very close. 
 To the poetical reader it will perhaps recall Gray s 
 exquisite sonnet on the death of West. 
 
 MADRIGAL III. (p. 118). 
 
 Translated, and adapted to his own case, by Drum- 
 mond, from the following madrigal of Guarini, headed 
 " Bella Donna Campata" (Mad. 130: Rime, 1598):- 
 
 Pendeva a debil filo 
 (O dolore, O pietate) 
 De la novella mia terrena dea 
 La vita, e la beltate ; 
 E gia 1 ultimo spirito trahea 
 L anima per uscire, 
 
 Ne mancava a morire altro, che morte ; 
 Quando sue fere scorte, 
 Mirando ella si bella in quel bel viso, 
 Disse, morte non entra in Paradise." 
 
NOTES 227 
 
 SONNET XI. (p. 119). 
 
 I launder thy fair figures in this brine (line 12). 
 This line is borrowed from Shakespeare.. Compare 
 ^A Lovers Complaint, stanza 3 : 
 
 " Oft did she heave her napkin to her eyne, 
 Which on it had conceited characters, 
 Laund ring the silken figures in the brine 
 That seasoned woe had pelleted in tears," 
 
 MADRIGAL IV. (p. 120). 
 
 Translated from Tasso (Rime^ Venice, 1608 : Part 
 IV., p. 99) :- 
 
 " O vaga tortorella, 
 Tu la tua compagnia 
 Ed io piango colei, che non fu mia. 
 Misera vedovella, 
 Tu sovra il nudo ramo, 
 A pie del secco tronco io la richiamo. 
 Ma 1 aura solo, e 1 vento 
 Risponde mormorando al mio lamento." 
 
 SONG II. (p. 124). 
 
 This beautiful poem presents our author in his most 
 philosophic mood. To contrast it with the pieces 
 written by Petrarch upon a similar theme, is to set 
 in the clearest light the most vital distinction between 
 Drummond and the Italian poets, whom he so often 
 and so happily imitated. Petrarch, too, is visited in 
 dreams by the apparition of his dead mistress. In the 
 sixth Canzone of the second part of his poems, he 
 tells how in a vision he saw her, and of the words of 
 
228 NOTES 
 
 hope and comfort which she spoke. It is all perfectly 
 sweet and simple. She is happy in heaven, and he is 
 to implore God s help, and to follow her ; the Canzone 
 concluding with an impassioned prayer to the Virgin 
 Mary for aid and guidance. Nothing is there of the 
 mystic philosophy which shines with steady radiance 
 throughout the greater part of Drummond s poem 
 In his Italian masters Marino, perhaps, on some 
 rare occasions, excepted he would find little of the 
 philosophy which is so striking a characteristic of his 
 own most thoughtful work ; nor could he learn much 
 in this respect from the English poets, his contem 
 poraries or predecessors. His philosophy is Platonic : 
 in his later writings it is modified in the direction 
 of Christianity ; less so in the poem now before 
 us, a part of which, indeed, is little more than a 
 poetical adaptation of a portion of the Phcedo. In 
 Drummond s .most philosophical production the 
 prose essay entitled A Cypress Grove, which he 
 published in 1623 together with his Flowers of Sion 
 many passages from the present poem are expanded 
 or repeated ; but as the reader will find a reprint of 
 the entire essay in the second volume, I shall not 
 quote from it in this place. 
 
 Some wise sayings concerning Death may be noted. 
 How long wilt thou esteem that loss which, well when 
 viewed, is gain (line 39) ? Even as thy birth, death, 
 which doth thee appal, A piece is of the life of this 
 great AH (lines 57-58). And once more : / live, and 
 happy live, but thou art dead, And still shalt be, till 
 t/iou be like me made (lines 105-106). This last con 
 ception is profoundly philosophical. The soul is con 
 fined in the body as in a tomb, and its life here is said 
 
NOTES 229 
 
 to be death in comparison with that which it enjoys 
 when free from the encumbrance of matter. Thus 
 Ileracleitus, speaking of disembodied souls, has these 
 words : " We live their death, and we die their life." 
 
 This temple visible, which World we name (line 
 112). "World" is here, of course, used in the sense 
 of /c6oyios, the visible universe. The argument of the 
 following portion of the poem is chiefly borrowed from 
 the Phado. I am persuaded, says Socrates, "that 
 the earth is prodigiously great ; that we who dwell in 
 places extending from Phasis to the pillars of Hercules, 
 inhabit only a certain small portion of it, about the 
 Mediterranean sea, like ants or frogs about a marsh ; 
 and that there are many others elsewhere, who dwell 
 in many such-like places. For I am persuaded, that 
 there are everywhere about the earth many hollow 
 places of all -various forms and magnitudes, into 
 which there is a confluence of water, mists, and air ; 
 but that the earth itself, which is of a pure nature, is 
 situated in the pure heavens, in which the stars are 
 contained, and which most of those who are accus 
 tomed to speak about such particulars denominate 
 eether. But the places which we inhabit are nothing 
 more than the dregs of this pure earth, or cavities 
 into which its dregs continually flow. We are ignorant, 
 therefore, that we dwell in the cavities of this earth, 
 and imagine that we inhabit its upper parts. Just as 
 if some one dwelling in the bottom of the sea, should 
 think that he resided on its surface, and, beholding 
 the sun and the other stars through the water, should 
 imagine that the sea is the heavens ; but through sloth 
 and imbecility having never ascended to the top of the 
 sea, nor emerged from its deeps into this region, has 
 
230 NOTES 
 
 never perceived how much purer and more beautiful it 
 is than the place which he inhabits, nor has received this 
 information from any other who has beheld this place 
 of our abode. In the very same manner are we 
 affected : for, dwelling in a certain hollow of the earth, 
 we think that we reside on its surface ; and we call 
 the air heaven, as if the stars passed through this, as 
 through the heavens themselves " (Thomas Taylor s 
 translation. Compare Drummond, lines 141-170). 
 These upper regions of the earth are far more beauti 
 ful than the parts which we inhabit, and possess 
 everything which nature here brings forth in far 
 greater perfection (compare line 121 el seq.}. But 
 hear Socrates again: "This [upper] earth too con 
 tains many other animals and men, some of whom 
 inhabit its middle parts ; others dwell about the air, 
 as we do about the sea ; and others reside in islands 
 which the air flows round, and which are situated 
 not far from the continent. And in one word, what 
 water and the sea are to us, with respect to utility, 
 that air is to them : but what air is to us, that sether 
 is to the inhabitants of this pure earth. But the 
 seasons there are endued with such an excellent 
 temperament, that the inhabitants are never molested 
 with disease, and live for a much longer time than 
 those who dwell in our regions ; and they surpass 
 us in sight, hearing, and prudence, and everything 
 of this kind, as much as air excels water in purity 
 and aether, air. And besides this, they have groves 
 and temples of the Gods, in which the Gods dwell in 
 reality ; and likewise oracles and divinations, and 
 sensible perceptions of the Gods, and such-like asso 
 ciations with them. The sun, too, and moon, and 
 
NOTES 231 
 
 stars are seen by them such as they really are ; and 
 in every other respect their felicity is of a correspon 
 dent nature." And lastly, Socrates, speaking of that 
 which happens to the soul after death, says : " But 
 those who shall appear to have lived most excellently, 
 with respect to piety these are they who, being 
 liberated and dismissed from these places in the 
 earth, as from the abodes of a prison, shall arrive 
 at the pure habitation on high, and dwell on the 
 oethereal earth. And among these, those who are 
 sufficiently purified by philosophy shall live without 
 bodies through the whole of the succeeding time, and 
 shall arrive at habitations yet more beautiful than 
 these, which it is neither easy to describe, nor is the 
 present time sufficient for such an undertaking." 
 
 Undoubtedly Drummond had conjoined in his 
 mind some notion of the Christian heaven, and 
 even of the intelligible world, with that of Plato s 
 upper earth. But Plato s meaning was widely dif 
 ferent from Drummond s. It must be remem 
 bered that, according to the Platonic doctrine, the 
 earth is an animal, endued with intellect and soul. 
 Now the soul of the earth, like the soul of man, 
 possesses three vehicles or bodies ; of which the first 
 is simple and immaterial, the second simple and 
 material, and the third composite and material. Of 
 these vehicles, moreover, the first is called sethereal 
 and luciform, and is analogous to the body of the 
 heavens ; and it contains the summits of the elements 
 incorruptibly and unitedly, and according to a celestial 
 characteristic ; but fire predominates, viz., the celestial 
 fire which is vivific but not destructive. And finally, 
 it is vital, and is perpetually generated through the 
 
232 NOTES 
 
 whole of time, and it is immaterial as compared with 
 corruptible bodies. The second vehicle is called 
 aerial, and is indeed the first vehicle of the soul which 
 is properly called a body ; for it is composed of the 
 pure elements, and is material and mutable, although 
 in a less degree than the third vehicle. But the third, 
 in which the elements are no longer pure, is this 
 terrestrial globe which we commonly call the earth ; 
 and it is enclosed in the second vehicle, as a small 
 globe in a greater. Thus the first and second vehicles 
 are the media which connect the immaterial soul with 
 this gross body, since, as Proclus says, " The progres 
 sion of things is nowhere without a medium, but exists 
 according to a well ordered gradation." Plato s upper 
 earth is then the middle vehicle of the earth-soul, and 
 is placed in the pure heavens, beyond the grosser 
 elements of this terrestrial globe ; and there the 
 elements are pure, as being more proximate to their 
 divine causes. And whatever subsists according to 
 nature in our lower earth, will subsist in proportion 
 ately greater purity in this upper earth, as again the 
 whole is essentially in the intelligible world, which 
 is the eternal paradigm of this All. But the souls 
 which descend from the intelligible world into gener 
 ation upon the earth, proceed first to the sethereal 
 vehicle or celestial earth, possessing themselves a 
 corresponding vehicle, connate with their mundane 
 existence. Next, gathering from the elements as 
 they descend a material vehicle, they dwell, in aerial 
 bodies, on the upper earth, the second vehicle, 
 namely, but first material body, of the earth-soul. 
 Finally, obtaining a grosser vehicle, they descend 
 into this composite body of the earth, which we now 
 
NOTES 233 
 
 inhabit. And the reascent takes place through the 
 same media. For souls which have lived here a guilt 
 less life, but without philosophy, proceed, after death, 
 to the upper earth, and dwell there in aerial vehicles ; 
 but being not yet released from the bonds of matter, 
 they are still subject to death, although from the 
 purity of the elements there, they are far longer lived 
 than we. The souls which have attained a more 
 perfect liberation are raised to their kindred star, as 
 Plato says : i.e., to the sethereal vehicle of that mun 
 dane soul under which they are arranged, and which 
 in our case is the earth ; and they dwell there with luci- 
 form vehicles. And those which are completely purified 
 may rise yet higher, proceeding, beyond time itself, 
 to the intelligible world whence they were derived. 
 
 O leave that love which reacheth but to dust (line 
 197). This verse is borrowed from Sidney, who has 
 in one of his sonnets the following line : 
 
 " Leave me, O Love, which reachest but to dust." 
 
 To THE AUTHOR (p. 133). 
 
 This sonnet, by Sir David Murray of Gorthy, is 
 printed in the edition of 1616 immediately after 
 Urania ; but as it relates particularly to the " Poems," 
 I have inserted it here. 
 
 URANIA, OR SPIRITUAL POEMS (p. 137). 
 
 Of the thirteen poems published under this title, 
 ten were republished by Drummond in his Flowers 
 of Sion, 1623, but with certain alterations. I have 
 therefore retained both versions. In the first of the 
 
234 NOTES 
 
 sonnets (p. 137) Drummond is again in his philosophic 
 mood : see especially lines 9-14. All on y constant 
 is in constant change, is finely said of \tiv~, floating ivorld 
 beneath the moon. For in the sensible world, all is con 
 stantly becoming, but never really is ; since matter 
 itself, as is beautifully explained by Plotinus (Ennead. 
 III., Lib. VI., 7), is no other than non-being ; and 
 " the forms which appear to exist in matter, are empty 
 shows (iralyvia. toys), shadows in a shadow, just as 
 in a mirror the object appears to be there, while in 
 reality it is elsewhere ; and seeming to possess sub 
 stance, possesses indeed nothing." That which is 
 above time , motion, place (line 13), is the intelligible 
 world, of which this visible universe is the reflection. 
 
 SONNET, "COME FORTH," &c. (p. 138). 
 
 Partly translated from the following portion of a 
 sonnet by Marino (Rime, 1602 : Part I., p. 195) : 
 
 " Uscite, uscite a rimirar, pietose 
 Schiere del Paradiso cittadine, 
 II vostro Re schernito ; e qual su 1 crine 
 Novo e stranio diadema Amor gli pose : 
 Dale tempie traffitte e sanguinose 
 II vivo humor dele purpuree brine 
 Voi rasciugate ; e dal acute spine 
 Venite a cor le gia cadenti rose." 
 
 SONNET, "THRICE HAPPY HE," c. (p. 141). 
 
 Translated by Drummond, doubtless with much 
 sympathy, from the following sonnet by Marino 
 (Rime, Part I., p. 177) : 
 
NOTES 235 
 
 P elice e ben chi selva ombrosa e folta 
 Cerca, e ricovra in solitaria vita : 
 Ivi mai non e sola alma romita, 
 Ma fra gli angeli stessi a Dio rivolta. 
 O quanto la piii volentier s ascolta 
 Di semplicetto augel voce gradita, 
 Che n regio albergo, ov e la fe mentita, 
 Vanto di turba adulatrice, e stolta. 
 Quanto e piu dolce un venticel di bosco, 
 Ch aura vana d honor : quanto tra fiori 
 D argento un rio, che n vasel d oro il tosco. 
 Hanno i sacri silentij e i muti horrori 
 Armenia vera, e pace ; e 1 ombra e 1 fosco 
 Mille vivi del ciel lam pi, e splendori." 
 
 MADRIGALS AND EPIGRAMS. 
 
 THE STATUE OF MEDUSA (p. 149). 
 
 No doubt suggested by the following epigram by 
 Antonio Tibaldeo (Deliticz Poet. Italorum, collectore 
 Ranutio Ghero, 1608 : vol. ii. p. 1151) : 
 
 IN MEDUS/E CAPUT. 
 
 " Exemptam media de Palladis segide dicas 
 Gorgona, quam parvo claudit in orbe lapis. 
 
 Quin et monstrifici perstant miracula vultus ; 
 Vivit, et innumero palpitat angue caput. 
 
 Tarn similis non ipsa sibi est ; se forsitan olim 
 Vidit, et a speculo saxea facta suo est." 
 
236 NOTES 
 
 THE TROJAN HORSE (p. 149). 
 
 In the Greek Anthology is an epigram on this 
 subject by Antiphilus of Byzantium (AntJwL Palatin. 
 vol. ii. p. 30), but it has little or no resemblance to 
 Drummond s. 
 
 A LOVER S HEAVEN (p. 150). 
 
 Probably suggested by the forty-first madrigal of 
 Marino, which is headed " Celia rassomigliata al 
 Cielo." The last two lines are : 
 
 " S un ciel reggessi di bellezze tante 
 
 Fra queste bracia, O me felice Atlante ! " 
 
 IOLAS EPITAPH (p. 151). 
 
 The conclusion of this epitaph was perhaps sug 
 gested by the following dainty little madrigal of 
 Guarini (Mad. 134) : 
 
 EPITAFIO DI PARGOLETTA VIOLANTE. 
 
 " Se vuoi saper chi sono, 
 
 O tu, che miri la brev urna ; piagni. 
 
 Spuntera dal mio cenere, se 1 bagni 
 
 D una tua lagrimetta, 
 
 Un odorata e vaga violetta, 
 
 E cosi dal tuo dono 
 
 Intenderai chi sono." 
 
 SLEEPING BEAUTY (p. 154). 
 
 The conceit in the last two lines of this pretty 
 madrigal is also to be found in Guarini, who, in a 
 
NOTES 237 
 
 madrigal to his mistress s eyes (Mad. 12), ex 
 claims 
 
 " Se chiusi m uccidete, 
 Aperti che farete ? " 
 
 OF PHILLIS (p. 154). 
 
 Borrowed from the thirty-first madrigal of Marino 
 (Rime, Part II., p. 38). Drummond s version, how 
 ever, is more picturesque and more concise than the 
 original, which I subjoin : 
 
 " Mentre Lidia premea 
 Dentro rustica coppa 
 A la lanuta la feconda poppa, 
 I stava a rimirar doppio candore 
 Di natura e d amore : 
 Ne distinguer sapea 
 II bianco humor dale sue mani intatte, 
 Ch altro non discernea, che latte in latte." 
 
 OF HER DOG (p. 158). 
 
 Suggested by a sonnet of Marino (Rime, Part I., 
 p. 34). I quote the lines to which Drummond was 
 here indebted : 
 
 " Mentre nel grembo a trastullar ti stai 
 Dela mia donna humilemente altero, 
 Vezzoso animaletto, e lusinghiero, 
 Ond invido e geloso altrui ne fai : 
 Ardo, e vie piu nel cor, lasso, che mai 
 Sento 1 usato ardor possente, e fero, 
 Forse pero, che 1 mio Sol vivo, e vero, 
 Vibra nel Can vie piu cocenti i rai." 
 
238 NOTES 
 
 OF AMINTAS (p. 159). 
 
 Compare the following epigram by Francesco Pani- 
 garola (Delitia Poet. ///., vol. ii. p. 176) : 
 
 DE IOLi. 
 
 " Cum nudum lymphis se credere vellet lolas, 
 
 Effigiem fonti vidit inesse suam : 
 Nee semet noscens, comites io currite, dixit, 
 Depositis alis ecce Cupido natat." 
 
 PAMPHILUS (p. 160). 
 
 The name and character of this Pamphilus are 
 borrowed from Sir Philip Sidney s Arcadia, Book II., 
 where the story is told of the inconstancy of Pam 
 philus, and the revenge taken upon him by the ladies 
 whom he had deceived. 
 
 OF A BEE (p. 161). 
 
 Translated, with variations, from the following 
 madrigal by Tasso {Rime y Venice, 1608 : Part IV., 
 p. 104) : 
 
 " Qual cavagliero ardito 
 A le famose prove 
 II sonoro metallo accende, e move ; 
 Tal zenzaretta fiera 
 Zuffola intorno, e vola, 
 E vi percuote poi la bianca gola. 
 O mirabil guerriera, 
 In cui natura giunge 
 La tromba a 1 arme, ond ella suona, e punge." 
 
NOTES 239 
 
 OF A Kiss (p. 161). 
 
 This, again, is borrowed from Tasso (Scielta ddle 
 Rime, &c., Ferrara, 1582 : Part I., p. 50) : 
 
 " Ne i vostri dolci baci 
 Del api e il dolce mele, 
 E vi e il morso del api anco crudele. 
 Dunque addolcito e punto 
 Da voi parto in un punto." 
 
 CRATON S DEATH (p. 164). 
 
 Possibly suggested by an epigram of Julianus the 
 Egyptian (Antholog. Palatin., vol. i. p. 386), of 
 which the first two lines are these : 
 
 Hvydtov Ttp/ut-a ftioio Xax&v, cbr6<rroAos fjXOev 
 ets bitdrjVy veKvojv Tropd/J.i5os 6v ^ar^ojf. 
 
 /.(?., Mygdon, having reached the end of his life, came 
 self-equipped to Hades, not needing the boat of the 
 dead. 
 
 LILLA S PRAYER (p. 165). 
 
 From the following madrigal by Guarini (Mad. 
 109), entitled " Donna Accorta" : 
 
 " Se vuoi ch io torni a le tue fiamme, Amore, 
 Non far idolo il core 
 Ne di fredda vecchiezza, 
 Ne d incostante e pazza giovanezza. 
 Dammi, se puoi, Signore, 
 Cor saggio in bel sembiante, 
 Canuto amore in non canuto amante." 
 
240 NOTES 
 
 THE STATUE OF ADONIS (p. 168). 
 
 Translated from the following epigram by Giovanni 
 Antonio Volpi (Delit. Poet. ItaL, vol. ii. pp u 1452-3): 
 
 IN STATUAM ADONIDIS. 
 
 " Cum Cytherea procul Parium spectaret Adonim, 
 
 Accurrens tales fudit ab ore sonos : 
 Quis deploratum nobis te reddit, Adoni ? 
 
 Quaeve tibi lucem fata dedere novam ? 
 Dixit, et ad caros amplexus keta cucurrit, 
 
 Figeret ut niveis oscula pressa genis. 
 Ast aprum aspiciens, novavulnera denteminantem, 
 
 Semianimis trepido concidit icta metu. 
 Vivere quis neget hos lapides? si incendit Adonis 
 
 Corda Dese forma, vulnere terret aper." 
 
 THE ROSE (p. 169). 
 
 Translated from the following madrigal by Tasso 
 (Sdelta delle Rime, &c., 1582 : Part II., p. 64) : 
 
 " O del sangue d Adone 
 Nato fior, quando un altro ancor del acque 
 Lacrimose di Venere ne nacque, 
 II bel morto garzone 
 Tu vivo rappresenti ; 
 Ma la spina pungente, 
 Che cinge il giro tuo purpureo, e vago, 
 Di chi diremo imago ? 
 Forse figura del cinghial il dente ? 
 O bel mostro tra mostri, 
 Ch in un 1 ucciso e 1 uccisor dimostri ! " 
 
 In Bion s first Idyll the rose is said to have sprung 
 
NOTES 241 
 
 from the blood of Adonis, and the anemone from the 
 tears shed by Venus upon his death. Cynarean 
 (line 4) should doubtless be Cinyrean, from Cinyras, 
 the father of Adonis. 
 
 KALA S COMPLAINT (p. 172). 
 
 From a Latin epigram by P. Zanchi (Delit. Poet. 
 //a/., vol. ii. p. 1481). 
 
 THE HAPPINESS OF A FLEA (p. 173). 
 
 From Tasso (Rime, Venice, 1608: Part IV., p. 
 
 104) : 
 
 "Questa lieve zenzara 
 Quanto ha sorte migliore 
 Dela farfalla, che s infiamma, e more 
 L una di chiaro foco, 
 Di gentil sangue e vaga 
 L altra, che vive di si bella piaga. 
 O fortunato loco 
 Tra 1 mento, e 1 casto petto, 
 Altrove non fu mai maggior diletto." 
 
 OF THAT SAME (p. 173). 
 Again from Tasso (ibid., Part IV., p. 104) : 
 
 Tu moristi in quel seno, 
 Piccioletta zenzara, 
 Dov e si gran fortuna il venir meno. 
 Quando fin piu beato, 
 O ver tomba piu cara, 
 Fu mai concesso da benigno fato ? 
 Felice tu, felice 
 
 Piu che nel rego oriental Fenice ! " 
 VOL. i. 
 
242 NOTES 
 
 LOVE NAKED (p. 174). 
 
 This is from the Italian, but I have not succeeded 
 in tracing the original. There is a version of the 
 same by Crashaw, which I subjoin : 
 
 OUT OF THE ITALIAN. 
 
 " Would any one the true cause find 
 
 How Love came nak d, a boy, and blind ? 
 
 Tis this : list ning one day too long 
 
 To th Syrens in my mistress song, 
 
 The ecstasy of a delight 
 
 So much o er-mast ring all his might, 
 
 To that one sense made all else thrall, 
 
 And so he lost his clothes, eyes, heart and all." 
 
 NIOBE (p. 174). 
 
 Translated from the following verses by Bernardo 
 Accolti {Rime di diversi Atitori, Venice, 1550) : 
 
 Niobe son, legga mia sorte dura 
 Chi miser e, e non chi mai si dolse. 
 Sette, e sette figliuoi mi die natura, 
 E sette, e sette un giorno sol mi tolse. 
 Poi fu al marmo il marmo sepoltura, 
 Perche 1 Ciel me regina in pietra volse ; 
 E se non credi, apri 1 sepolcro basso, 
 Cener non troverai, ma sasso in sasso." 
 
 UPON A PORTRAIT (p. 176). 
 
 In the edition of 1656 this sonnet appears with the 
 heading, "On the Pourtrait of the Countesse of 
 
NOTES 243 
 
 Perthe." The three following pieces relate to the 
 same subject. This lady was Jean, daughter of 
 Robert Ker, first Earl of Roxburgh, and wife of 
 John Drummond, second Earl of Perth, who suc 
 ceeded to the title upon the death of his elder brother, 
 James, in December 161 r. Earl John was a man of 
 learning and literary tastes : five of the poet Drum- 
 mond s letters to him, chiefly on heraldic or genea 
 logical matters, are extant, and have been published. 
 His Countess " lived in great esteem with all that 
 knew her, and died much regretted about the year 
 1622" {Genealogy of the House of Drummond, by 
 William Drummond, Viscount Strathallan : Edin 
 burgh, 1831 : p. 208). She died young, although the 
 mother of seven children. 
 
 I think Drummond was indebted for the hint of this 
 graceful sonnet to Marino, a sonnet by whom (Rime, 
 Part I., p. 205) begins with the following lines : 
 
 " La Dea, che n Cipro, e ? n Amathunta impera, 
 Quando, o dove a te, Fidia, ignuda apparse ? 
 Forse quando 1 Egeo, che d amor n arse, 
 Solco nascente in su la conca altera ? 
 O pur allhor, che dala terza spera 
 Al Troiano pastor venne a mostrarse ? " 
 
 UPON THAT SAME (p. 176). 
 
 The blushing morn The red must lend, the milky 
 way the white (lines 10-1 1). Compare Marino (Rime, 
 Part I., p. 202, Sonnet): 
 
 L ostro schietto al Aurora, il latte tolsc 
 Al bel calle stellate, e 1 santo viso, 
 E la beata fronte ornar ne volse. " 
 
244 NOTES 
 
 EURYMEDON S PRAISE OF MIRA (p. 180). 
 
 Two Phoenixes be now, love s queens are two> Four 
 Graces, Muses ten, all made by you (lines 11-12). 
 Compare the following anonymous epigram from the 
 Greek Anthology (Anthol. Palatin., vol. i. p. 76) : 
 
 at Xaptres, IIa0tat Svo, /cat 5e/ca Mo&rat. 
 Aep/cuXts v Trderats MoC<ra, Xdpts, Ila^o;. 
 
 7.6 ., Four are the Graces, Venuses two, and ten the 
 Muses ; among them all is Dercylis, a Muse, a Grace, 
 a Venus. 
 
 Compare also Drummond s posthumous " Epitaph 
 of one named Margaret." 
 
 ERYCINE AT THE DEPARTURE OF ALEXIS (p. 182). 
 
 Alexis is Sir William Alexander, the author of 
 the following sonnet, headed * Alexis to Damon"; 
 Damon being, of course, Drummond himself. Alex 
 ander s sonnet concludes the Madrigals and Epigrams 
 in the edition of 1616, and is here retained, both on 
 account of its connection with the sonnet by Drum 
 mond which immediately precedes it, and as an 
 interesting testimony to the close friendship which 
 subsisted between the two poets. 
 
 FORTH FEASTING (p. 189). 
 
 70 spare the humble, proudlings pester down (line 
 164). King James s motto, " Parcere subjectis et 
 debellare superbos." 
 
NOTES 245 
 
 Thou sung*st away the hours, till from their 
 sphere Stars seemed to shoot, thy melody to hear 
 (lines 173-174). Compare A Midsummer Nighfs 
 Dream , Act II., Sc. i : 
 
 " And certain stars shot madly from their spheres 
 To hear the sea-maid s music." 
 
 There is a land . . . Which^ homelings, from this 
 little -world we name (lines 321-323). Drummond 
 probably alludes to the colony of New Scotland. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 Printed by IULLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. 
 Edinburgh and London 
 
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