ON LUCY, COUNTESS OF BEDFORD. THIS morning, timely rapt with holy fire, I thought to form unto my zealous Muse, Of greatest blood, and yet more good than great; I meant the day-star should not brighter rise, Nor lend like influence from his lucent seat. I meant she should be courteous, facile, sweet, Hating that solemn vice of greatness, pride; I meant each softest virtue there should meet, Fit in that softer bosom to reside. Only a learned, and a manly soul I purpos'd her, that should, with even pow'rs, The rock, the spindle, and the shears control Of Destiny, and spin her own free hours. Such when I meant to feign, and wish'd to see, My Muse bade, Bedford write, and that was she. SONG TO CELIA Kiss me, sweet: the wary lover While you breathe. First give a hundred, Hundred, then unto the tother TO THE SAME. DRINK to me only with thine eyes, The thirst, that from the sou. doth rise, But might I of Jove's nectar sup, I sent thee, late, a rosy wreath, But thou thereon did'st only breathe, And sent'st it back to me: Since when, it grows, and smells, I swear Not of itself, but thee. FROM THE SHEPHERD'S HOLIDAY. NYMPH I. THUS, thus, begin: the yearly rites NYMPH 11. Strew, strew, the glad and smiling ground, The garden-star, the queen of May, NYMPH III. Drop crop, you violets, change your hues, LOVE, A LITTLE BOY MASQUE ON LORD HADDINGTON'S MARRIAGE FIRST GRACE. BEAUTIES, have ye seen this toy Called Love, a little boy, Almost naked, wanton, blind, If he be amongst ye, say; SECOND GRACE. She, that will but now discover THIRD GRACE. He hath of marks about him plenty : And his breath a flame entire, FIRST GRACE. At his sight, the Sun hath turned, SECOND GRACE. Wings he hath, which though ye clip, He will leap from lip to lip, SECOND GRACE. Trust him not: his words, though sweet, Every gift it is a bait; Not a kiss but poison bears; And most treason in his tears. THIRD GRACE. Idle minutes are his reign; Then the straggler makes his gain, And would have ye think them joys; 'Tis the ambition of the elf To have all childish as himself. FIRST GRACE. If by these ye please to know him, Beauties, be not nice, but show him. SECOND GRACE. Though ye had a will to hide him, Now, we hope, you'll not abide him. THIRD GRACE. Since ye hear his falser play; And that he is Venus' run-away. THOSE EYES. AH! do not wanton with those eyes, Nor cast them down, but let them rise, Ah! be not angry with those fires, For then my hopes will spill me. Ah! do not steep them in thy tears, Nor spread them as distraught with fears- DISCOURSE WITH CUPID. NOBLEST Charis, you that are Both my fortune and my star! And do govern more my blood, Than the various moon the flood! Hear what late discourse of you Love and I have had; and true. 'Mongst my muses finding me, Where he chanced your name to see Set, and to this softer strain: Sure," said he, "if I have brain, This here sung can be no other By description but my mother! So hath Homer praised her hair; So Anacreon drawn the air Of her face, and made to rise, Just about her sparkling eyes, Both her brows, bent like my bow. By her looks I do her know, Which you call my shafts. And see! Such my mother's blushes be, As the bath your verse discloses In her cheeks of milk and roses; Such as oft I wanton in. And above her even chin, Have you placed the bank of kisses Where, you say, men gather blisses, Ripened with a breath more sweet Than when flowers and west winds meet. Nay, her white and polished neck, With the lace that doth it deck, Is my mother's! hearts of slain Lovers, made into a chain! And between each rising breast Lies the valley called my nest, Where I sit and proyne my wings After flight; and put new strings To my shafts! Her very name, With my mother's is the same.' "I confess all," I replied, "And the glass hangs by her side, And the girdle 'bout her waist, All is Venus; save unchaste. But, alas! thou seest the least Of her good, who is the best Of her sex; but couldst thou, Love, Call to mind the forms that strove For the apple, and those three Make in one, the same were she. For this beauty still doth hide Something more than thou hast spied. Outward grace weak Love beguiles: She is Venus when she smiles, But she's Juno when she walks, And Minerva when she talks." WILLIAM DRUMMOND. WILLIAM DRUMMOND, who is said to have been the first Scottish poet that wrote in pure English, was born at Hawthornden, near Edinburgh, December 13, 1585. His family was one of the most ancient and noble in Scotland. His father, Sir John Drummond, was gentlemanusher to King James VI., and his mother was a daughter of Sir William Fowler, secretary to the queen. He was educated at the University of Edinburgh, and at the age of twenty-one was sent to France to study law. Four years later, in 1610, his father died, leaving him an independent fortune and the beautiful family-seat of Hawthornden. To this picturesque and romantie retreat Drummond retired, abandoning the law and devoting himself to the quiet pursuits of a country gentleman and a literary life. In 1616 he published at Edinburgh a collection of his poems, which gave him considerable reputation, and gained him the friendship of most of the leading poets of the day, among them Ben Jonson and Michael Drayton, with whom for many years he maintained a cordial and even affectionate correspondence. In the winter of 1618-19 Ben Jonson showed his high regard for the Scottish poet by making a journey on foot of several hundred miles, expressly to visit him. Drummond made notes of the conversation of his distinguished guest, apparently merely as memoranda for his own use. The manuscript, however, was preserved and published after Drummond's death, and gave rise to much unfavorable criticism on both poets, Jonson having spoken with great freedom and some harshness of Shakespeare, Spenser, and other eminent contemporaries, while Drummond has been most absurdly censured for preserving notes of his talk, as if that were a breach of hospitality. The only fault of Drummond in the matter seems to have been that he made his notes too meagre. He might have rendered a great ser vice to the world of letters, by recording at full length Jonson's remarks on the great authors of the Elizabethan age, with whom he was so intimately acquainted. About this time Drummond met with a great calamity. A young and beautiful lady of hon orable family, to whom he was engaged, died of a sudden fever on the day before that appointed for the wedding. His griet on this bereavement he expressed in many tender sonnets; and it has been said that he celebrated his dead mistress with more passion than many poets manifest to their living ones. To divert his sorrow he spent eight years in travel in Germany, France, and Italy, during which time he resided long in Paris and Rome. On his return he devoted himself again to letters, and wrote a history of the five Jameses of Scotland, comprising the period from 1423 to 1542. In 1630, at the age of forty-five, he married Elizabeth Logan, grand-daughter of Sir Robert Logan, a lady in whom he found or fancied a resemblance to his lost mistress. The rest of his life was spent in quiet happiness at Hawthornden, where he died December 4, 1649. His poems were collected and published at Edinburgh, in one volume, a few years after his death, and were reprinted at London in 1659. A complete collection appeared in folio in 1711. His versification is thought to resemble that of the minor poems of Milton, and his sonnets have been compared to those of Petrarch, with whose writings he was well acquainted, as he was with those of the other eminent Italian poets. They are distinguished by natural feeling, elevation of sentiment, and grace of expression. "River of Forth Feasting," a congratulatory poem to King James on his revisiting Scotland, in 1617, at once became very popular. It has been pronounced “one of the most elegant panegyrics ever addressed by a poet to a prince." His THE RIVER OF FORTH FEASTING. WHAT blustering noise now interrupts my sleeps? What echoing shouts thus cleave my crystal deeps, And seem to call me from my watery court? Whence come these glittering throngs, these meteors bright, This golden people glancing in my sight? Whence doth this praise, applause, and love arise; What loadstar draweth unto us all eyes? Do I behold that worth, that man divine, So after tempest to sea-tossèd wights, Let heaven weep rubies in a crimson shower, May never hours the web of day outweave; Strew all your springs and grots with lilies fair. Some swiftest footed, get them hence, and pray snows: Stone-rolling Tay, Tyne, tortoise-like, that flows; The pearly Don, the Dees, the fertile Spey, Wild Severn, which doth see our longest day; Ness, smoking sulphur, Leve, with mountains crowned, Strange Lomond for his floating isles renowned; names; To every one proclaim our joys and feasts, To mariners fair winds amidst the main; Are not so pleasing as thy blest return, PHOEBUS, arise, SONG. And paint the sable skies That she thy career may with roses spread, Give life to this dark world which lieth dead; In larger locks than thou was wont before, With diadem of pearl thy temples fair: Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light. This is that happy morn, (If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn, An everlasting diamond should it mark. But show thy blushing beams, Shalt see than those which by Peneus' streams A voice surpassing, far, Amphion's lyre, Beyond the hills, to shun his flaming wheels. And nothing wanting is, save she, alas! Each stroke a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear; For which be silent as in woods before: THE PRAISE OF A SOLITARY LIFE. THRICE happy he who by some shady grove, But doth converse with that eternal love. O how more sweet is bird's harmonious moan, Which good make doubtful, do the evil approve! O how more sweet is Zephyr's wholesome breath, And sighs embalmed which new-born flowers unfold, Than that applause vain honor doth bequeath! How sweet are streams to poison drank in gold! The world is full of horror, troubles, slights: Woods' harmless shades have only true delights. THE NIGHTINGALE. DEAR Chorister, who from those shadows sends- Who ne'er (not in a dream) did taste delight, Since Winter's gone, and sun in dappled sky love." SONNETS. IN Mind's pure glass when I myself behold, All the best reasons reason could invent. I KNOW that all beneath the moon decays, Know what I list, all this cannot me move. TRIUMPHING chariots, statues, crowns of bays, moon; Wherefore, my mind, above time, motion, place, Rise up, and steps unknown to Nature trace. A GOOD that never satisfies the mind, A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours, |