Worldly designs, fears, hopes, farewell!
Farewell all earthly joys and cares!
On nobler thoughts my soul shall dwell.
Worldly designs, fears, hopes, farewell!
All quiet, in my peaceful cell

I'll think on God, free from your snares.
Worldly designs, fears, hopes, farewell!
Farewell all earthly joys and cares.

I'll seek my God's law to fulfil,
Riches and power I'll set at nought.
Let others strive for them that will;
I'll seek my God's law to fulfil :
Lest sinful pleasures my soul kill,
By folly's vain delights first caught,
I'll seek my God's law to fulfil,—
Riches and power I'll set at naught.

Yes, my dear God, I've found it so ;
No joys but Thine are purely sweet;
Other delights come mixed with woe.
Yes, my dear Lord, I've found it so.
Pleasure at Courts is but a show:
With true content in cells we meet ;
Yes, my dear Lord, I've found it so,
No joys but Thine are purely sweet.

Open thyself and then look in;

Consider what thou mightst have been,
And what thou art now made by sin.

Ashamed o' th' state to which th'art brought,
Detest and grieve for each past fault,

Sigh, weep, and blush for each foul thought.

Fear, but despair not, and still love ;
Look humbly up to God above,
And Him thou 'lt soon to pity move.

Resolve on that which prudence shows,
Reform what thou dost well propose,
And keep i' th' way thou hast once chose.
Vice, and what looks like vicious shun;
Let use make good acts eas❜ly done :
Have zeal, as when th' hadst first begun.
Hope strongly, yet be humble still :
Thy good is God's; what's thine, is ill;
Do thus, and thee affect He will.

William Drummond (1585-1649) 'the first Scotch poet who wrote in English with purity and elegance,' was son of Sir John Drummond, an officer in the Court of James VI. He lived a retired, tranquil life in his pleasant home at Hawthornden, where he devoted much of his time to classical studies, to poetry, and to writing the history of his country. He kept up a friendly intercourse with Ben Jonson and other English poets, also with several eminent men abroad, whose acquaintance he had made in a visit to France, Germany, and Italy. Without taking much personal share in the great struggle of his time, he was a thorough Cavalier in sympathy, and frequently had to suffer molestation on that account. His great grief at the King being brought to the scaffold is said to have shortened his life.

Drummond's Flowers of Sion were published in 1630. The Divine Poems, and the rest of his poetry, appeared partly in 1616, and partly in the complete edition of his works, which did not appear tlll 1711. The following are from the Flowers of Sion:

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 all our designs commove :
Among those powers 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.1

Why, worldlings, do ye trust frail honour's dreams,
And lean to gilded glories which decay?
Why do ye toil to registrate your names
On icy pillars which soon melt away?

True honour is not here; that place it claims
Where black-browed night doth not exile the day
Nor no far-shining lamp dives in the sea,
But an eternal sun spreads lasting beams ;
There it attendeth you where spotless bands
Of spirits stand gazing on their sovereign Bliss,
Where years not hold it in their cank'ring hands,
But who once noble ever noble is.

Look home, lest he your weakened wit make thrall,
Who Eden's foolish gardener erst made fall.

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
(Attired 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, yea, and to angels' lays.

Among the Divine Poems are various hymns, as for the several days of the week, the Sundays in Lent, the chief festivals of the Church, the Dedication of a Church, etc.

1 Drummond's Works, Anderson's English Poets, vol. iv.

Joseph Beaumont, Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and Master of Peterhouse, wrote during the civil troubles, and published soon after the Restoration, his poem of Psyche, or Love's Mystery. It is an inordinately long poem, of some four or five hundred thousand lines, telling in allegory the history of a human soul and its redemption by Christ. The soul is led by Grace and by her Guardian Angel. Lust, Pride, Heresy, Persecution, Spiritual Dereliction, beset her on her way, till she reaches eternal felicity at last. In proof and testimony of the Saviour's love to the soul, several of the cantos are devoted to a history of Christ's life on earth. This, at all events to a modern reader, constitutes far the most interesting part of the book, the incidents of the Gospel history, especially those of the Passion, being told with no small degree of imaginative force, and with a strong and powerful colouring, which is sometimes rather coarse, and sometimes too histrionic, but exceedingly vivid, and, where it tells of suffering, terribly so. The rest of the narrative, however unreadable a great part of it now is, may, when books were comparatively few, and when allegory was still popular, have been to the taste of many, a sort of Pilgrim's Progress. In the preface to the second folio edition, Charles Beaumont, son of the author, says that the first edition had become very scarce and very dear, and that its republication had been ‘earnestly and often desired by many.' Out of this great sea of verse I extract a few short quotations of man and his passion :

What boots it, man, that nature's courtesy,
Lifting his awful looks high towards heaven,
Hath built his temples up with majesty,
And into his hand imperial power given?
What royal non-sense is a diadem

Abroad-for one who's not at home supreme?

How does this wild world mock him, when it lays
Its universal homage at his feet;

Whom, whilst the air, the earth, the sea obeys,
A saucy pack of passions dare to meet

With plain defiance, and presume to hope

His pleasure shall go down, their pleasure up.1

Of 'the holy travellers through cold and frost' reaching Bethlehem :—

The men were ice; so were their doors, for both
Hard frozen stood against poor-looking guests:
Where'er they knocked the surly host was wroth,
Crying 'My house is full.' Indeed those nests

Were only courteous traps, which barred out
All birds but such as store of feathers brought.

Thus was the Universe's King shut out
Of his own world as he was entering in :
Long had the noble pilgrims patient sought,
And yet could at no door admission win,

And now night crowded on apace, and drew
Their curtain, who as yet no lodging knew.2

Of the demoniac healed :

:

But ne'er did air put on so calm a face,
When every wind to its own home was blown,
And heaven of all its storms delivered, as
Redeemed he, now once again his own,

Finding the furies which his heart did swell
Had left himself within himself to dwell.

Of zeal, fired by the Cup of Life :—

Oft have I seen brave spirits when they rose
From this great Banquet, filled with generous rage,
Fly in the face of vice, and nobly choose
Against its stoutest ramparts to engage

Their heavenly confidence: nor has their high
Adventure failed to reach down victory.

Oft have I seen them smile in sweet disdain
Upon misfortune's most insulting look,

Oft have I seen them kindly entertain

Those guests faint human nature worst can brook,
Grief, sickness, loss, oppression, calumny,
Shame, plunder, banishment and poverty. 4

1 Psyche, Canto v., stanzas I, 2. 3 Id. Canto x. stanza 297.

2 Id. Canto vii., stanzas 134-6. 4 Id. Canto xii. stanzas 151-2.