TO CHLORIS.

[From Madrigals and Epigrams.

See, Chloris, how the clouds

Tilt in the azure lists,

And how with Stygian mists

Each horned hill his giant forehead shrouds ;
Jove thund'reth in the air,

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.

SONNET TO SIR W. ALEXANDER.

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 echos 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 designed,
I trust thee with the treasure of my mind.

VOL. II.

SONNETS.

[From Flowers of Sion.]

Look how the flower which ling'ringly doth fade,
The morning's darling late, the summer's queen,
Spoil'd of that juice which kept it fresh and green,
As high as it did raise, bows low the head:
Right so my life, contentments being dead,
Or in their contraries but only seen,

With swifter speed declines than erst it spread,
And, blasted, scarce now shows what it hath been.
And doth the pilgrim therefore, whom the night
By darkness would imprison on his way,
Think on thy home, my soul, and think aright
Of what yet rests thee of life's wasting day?
Thy sun posts westward, passed is thy morn,
And twice it is not given thee to be born.

For the 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 exil'd.
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 !'

To the Nightingale.

Sweet bird, that sing'st away the early hours,
Of winters past or coming void of care,

Well pleased with delights which present are,
Fair seasons, budding sprays, sweet-smelling flowers;
To rocks, to springs, to rills, from leafy bowers
Thou thy Creator's goodness dost declare,
And what dear gifts on thee he did not spare,
A stain to human sense in sin that lowers.
What soul can be so sick which by thy songs,
Attir'd in sweetness, sweetly is not driven
Quite to forget earth's turmoils, spites, and wrongs,
And lift a reverent eye and thought to heaven?
Sweet artless songster, thou my mind dost raise
To airs of spheres, yes, and to angels' lays.

MADRIGAL.

This world a hunting is,

The prey poor man, the Nimrod fierce is Death;

His speedy greyhounds are

Lust, sickness, envy, care,

Strife that ne'er falls amiss,

With all those ills which haunt us while we breathe.

Now, if by chance we fly

Of these the eager chase,

Old age with stealing pace

Casts up his nets, and there we panting die.

SONNET TO SIR W. ALEXANDER.

[Appended to The Cypresse Grove.]

Though I have twice been at the doors of death,
And twice found shut those gates which ever mourn,
This but a light'ning is, truce ta'en to breath,
For late-born sorrows augur fleet return.
Amidst thy sacred cares and courtly toils,
Alexis, when thou shalt hear wand'ring Fame
Tell Death hath triumph'd o'er my mortal spoils,
And that on earth I am but a sad name;
If thou e'er held me dear, by all our love,
By all that bliss, those joys Heaven here us gave,
I conjure thee, and by the maids of Jove,
To grave this short remembrance on my grave:
Here Damon lies, whose songs did sometime grace
The murmuring Esk; may roses shade the place!

SIR WILLIAM ALEXANDER,

EARL OF STIRLING (or STERLINE).

[Born about 1580, of a family which had for some time owned Menstrie in Clackmannan. In early life he travelled, and on his return, or during his absence, wrote Aurora, First Fancies of the Author's Youth, a small volume of sonnets and songs to a real or imaginary lady called Aurora. He became a courtier in 1603, and followed James to London. In 1603 he published at Edinburgh The Tragedie of Darius; in 1604 he reprinted it, adding The Tragedie of Cræsus and The Parænesis to Prince Henry; in 1607 he reprinted the two tragedies and added The Alexandrean Tragedy and Julius Cæsar, under the joint title of Four Monarchicke Tragedies.' He helped King James in his version of the Psalms. Knighted in 1621, and made Secretary of State for Scotland in 1626, he was raised to the peerage as Viscount Canada in 1630, and created Earl of Stirling 1633. He printed a folio edition of his tragedies and of the religious poem of Domesday in 1637, and died 1640.]

Mr. Masson in his life of Drummond pronounces a severe judgment over the grave of Drummond's friend, Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling. 'There he lies, I suppose, to this day, vaguely remembered as the second-rate Scottish sycophant of an inglorious despotism, and the author of a large quantity of fluent and stately English verse which no one reads.' He certainly played no very glorious part in the attempts of James and Charles to impose episcopacy on Scotland; unconscious all the while that he was one of those who were preparing the way for a 'Monarchicke Tragedie' as terrible as any of the four that he had put into That the bulk of his poetry deserves that neglect which, as Mr. Masson truly says, has befallen it, is not likely to be disputed by those who have tried to read it. The precocious solemnity of his tragedies, all written before his thirtieth year, is too much for the modern reader, however successfully it may have commended the poet to the literary confidences of his pedantic master. With all the sonorousness and wave-like beat of their stanzas, they are

verse.