Collected English Verse — William Drummond, of Hawthornden, b. 1585, d. 1649 (Part 2 of 2)

were born,
And I first got a pledge of promised grace:
   But ah! what served it to be happy so?
   Sith passàed pleasures double but new woe?

237   Her Passing

    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
    Had left each outward part,
And now did take his last leave of the heart:
Naught else did want, save death, ev’n to be dead;
When the afflicted band about her bed,
Seeing so fair him come in lips, cheeks, eyes,
Cried, ‘Ah! and can Death enter Paradise?’

238   Inexorable

     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 monarchise:
   —But he, grim-grinning King,
Who caitiffs scorns, and doth the blest surprise,
Late having deck’d with beauty’s rose his tomb,
Disdains to crop a weed, and will not come.

239   Change should breed Change

    NEW doth the sun appear,
    The mountains’ snows decay,
Crown’d with frail flowers forth comes the baby year.
    My soul, time posts away;
    And thou yet in that frost
    Which flower and fruit hath lost,
As if all here immortal were, dost stay.
   For shame! thy powers awake,
Look to that Heaven which never night makes black,
And there at that immortal sun’s bright rays,
Deck thee with flowers which fear not rage of days!

240   Saint John Baptist

THE last and greatest Herald of Heaven’s King,
Girt with rough skins, hies to the deserts wild,
Among that savage brood the woods forth bring,
Which he than man more harmless found and mild.
His food was locusts, and what young doth spring
With honey that from virgin hives distill’d;
Parch’d body, hollow eyes, some uncouth thing
Made him appear, long since from earth exiled.
There burst he forth: ‘All ye, whose hopes rely
On God, with me amidst these deserts mourn;
Repent, repent, and from old errors turn!’
—Who listen’d to his voice, obey’d his cry?
   Only the echoes, which he made relent,
   Rung from their marble caves ‘Repent! Repent!