WILLIAM DRUMMOND.

(1585-1649.)

ANOTHER eminent junior Spenserian was the Scottish poet William Drummond, eldest son of the first Laird of Hawthornden, and distantly connected with the Drummonds of Stobhall, Earls of Perth. He graduated at Edinburgh University in 1605, and succeeded his father in the lairdship in 1610. His first publication was a poem written on the occasion of Prince Henry's death in 1612. This was followed in 1616 by a volume entitled Poems: Amorous, Funerall, Divine, Pastorall: in Sonnets, Songs, Sextains, Madrigals; and in 1617, when King James visited Edinburgh, by Forth Feasting, A Panegyric to the King's most Excellent Majesty. In the year 1619 Ben Jonson paid his memorable visit to Drummond at Hawthornden, and Drummond's Notes1 of their talk on that occasion afford us vivid glimpses of the literary world of that day and of Jonson's own stupendous figure, half grand, half burlesque, in the midst. Some of Jonson's critical remarks referred to Drummond himself. He told his host that his verses were all good.. that they smelled too much of the schools, and were not after the fancy of the time." He said Drummond "was too good and simple," "and," adds Drummond, "he dissuaded me from poetry, for that she had beggared him when he might have been a rich lawyer, physician, or merchant." Jonson's criticism was extremely honest and clever, but scarcely just. Four years later Drummond published another volume containing his Flowers of Sion and Cypress Grove. His life had been in the meantime saddened by an unhappy loveaffair, and the songs and madrigals of his youth were replaced by strains of religious and philosophic reflection; and in a few of his finest pieces, written late in his life, there is something of Milton's own lofty sadness. Drummond's sonnets are considered his masterpieces, and they are with

save

1 Notes of Ben Jonson's Conversations with William Drummond of Hawthornden, January 1619. Edited by David Laing (Shakespeare Society's Publications, 1842).

out doubt the best in the language between the time of Shakespeare and that of Milton.

MY WANDERING THOUGHTS.

How that vast Heaven intitled First1 is rolled;
If any glancing towers beyond it be,

And people living in Eternity,

Or essence pure that doth this All uphold;

What motion have those fixèd sparks of gold;

The wandering carbuncles which shine from high,
By spirits or bodies contrar-wise in sky

If they be turned, and mortal things behold;

How Sun posts heaven about; how Night's pale Queen,
With borrowed beams, looks on this hanging Round;2
What cause fair Iris hath, and monsters seen

In Air's large field of light and Sea's profound :

Did hold my wandering thoughts, when thy sweet eye
Bade me leave all and only think on thee.

THE MOURNING LUTE.

Sound hoarse, sad lute, true witness of my woe,
And try no more to ease self-chosen pain;

With soul-enchanting sounds your accents strain
Unto these tears incessantly which flow;
Sad treble, weep! and you, dull basses, show
Your master's sorrow in a doleful strain;
Let never joyful hand upon you go,

Nor comfort weep but when you do complain;
Fly Phœbus' rays, abhor the irksome light;
Wood's solitary shades for thee are best,
Or the black horrors of the blackest night,
When all the world save thou and I do rest.

Then sound, sad lute, and bear a mourning part;
Thou hell canst move, but not a woman's heart!

A MADRIGAL.

Like the Idalian queen,
Her hair about her een

And neck, on breasts ripe apples to be seen,
At first glance of the morn,

In Cyprus gardens gathering those fair flowers
Which of her blood were born:

1 The Primum Mobile or outermost Sphere.

2 Globe.

I saw, but fainting saw my paramours
The Graces, naked, danced about the place;
The winds and trees, amazed,

With silence on her gazed;

The flowers did smile like those upon her face;
And, as the aspen stalks those fingers bind,
That she might read my case,
I wished to be a hyacinth in her hand.

PHYLLIS.

In petticoat of green,
Her hair about her een,
Phyllis, beneath an oak,

Sat milking her fair flock :

'Mongst that sweet strainèd moisture, rare delight, Her hand seemed milk in milk, it was so white!

OF A BEE.

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 kissed, but, mad with joy, did bite.

FROM FLOWERS OF SION.

CHILDREN OF THE WORLD.

Of this fair volume which we World1 do name
If we the sheets and leaves could turn with care,
Of Him who it corrects and did it frame

We clear might read the art and wisdom rare,
Find out His power which wildest powers doth tame,
His providence extending everywhere,

His justice which proud rebels doth not spare,
In every page and period of the same.

1 Drummond's "world" signified the visible or starry universe.

But silly we, like foolish children, rest
Well pleased with coloured vellum, leaves of gold,
Fair dangling ribands, leaving what is best;
On the great Writer's sense ne'er taking hold;
Or, if by chance we stay our minds on ought,
It is some picture on the margin wrought.

HIDDEN IN LIGHT.

Beneath a sable vail and shadows deep
Of unaccessible and dimming light,

In silence, ebon clouds more black than night,
The World's great King his secrets hid doth keep:
Through whose thick mists when any mortal wight
Aspires, with halting pace and

eyes that To pry and in His mysteries to creep,

weep,

With thunders He, and lightnings, blasts their sight.
O Sun invisible! that dost abide

Within thy bright abysms, most fair, most dark,
Where with thy proper1 rays thou dost thee hide,
O ever shining, never full seen, mark!

To guide me in life's night, Thy light me show :
The more I search of Thee, the less I know.

SAFE AND ALL SCARLESS.

As when it happeneth that some lovely town
Unto a barbarous besieger falls,

Who both by sword and flames himself installs,
And, shameless, it in tears and blood doth drown;
Her beauty spoilt, her citizens made thralls,
His spite yet cannot so her all throw down
But that some statue, pillar of renown,

Yet lurks unmaimed within her weeping walls :

So, after all the spoil, disgrace, and wreck,

That time, the world, and death, could bring combined,

Amid that mass of ruins they did make,

Safe and all scarless yet remains my mind.

From this so high transcendent rapture springs
That I, all else defaced, not envy kings.

1 Own.

FROM THE RIVER OF FORTH FEASTING.

THE SONG OF THE RIVER TO THE KING.1

O, long, long, haunt these bounds, which by thy sight Have now regained their former heat and light!

Here grow green woods; here silver brooks do glide; Here meadows stretch them out, with painted pride Embroidering all the lands here hills aspire

To crown their heads with the ethereal fire-
Hills, bulwarks of our freedom, giant walls,

Which never friends did slight, nor swords 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-metalled chains; .
Our flocks fair fleeces bear, with which for sport
Endymion of old the Moon did court;
High-palmèd harts amidst our forests run,

And, not impaled, the deep-mouthed hounds do shun;
The rough-foot hare safe in our bushes shrouds,
And long-winged hawks do perch amidst our clouds.
The wanton wood-nymphs of the verdant spring,
Blue, golden, purple flowers shall to thee bring;
Pomona's fruits the panisks ;2 Thetis' girls,
The Thulè's amber with the ocean's pearls ;
The Tritons, herdsmen of the glassy field,
Shall give thee what far distant shores can yield;
The Serian fleeces, Erythrean gems,
Vast Plata's silver, gold of Peru streams,
Antarctic parrots, Ethiopian plumes,
Sabæan odours, myrrh, and sweet perfumes :
And I myself,3 wrapt in a watchet gown,
Of reeds and lilies on mine head a crown,
Shall incense to thee burn, green altars raise,
And yearly sing due Pæans to thy praise.
Ah! why should Isis only on 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.

1 James VI. of Scotland.

2 Little wood-gods. 3 i.e. the River Forth.

4 One of the heads of the Thames.