Poem by William Drummond

Summons to Love

           PHOEBUS, arise! 
    And paint the sable skies 
    With azure, white, and red: 
Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bed
That she thy cáreer may with roses spread;
The nightingales thy coming each-where sing:
    Make an eternal spring, 
Give life to this dark world which lieth dead;
    Spread forth thy golden hair 
In larger locks than thou wast wont before,
    And emperor-like decore 
With diadem of pearl thy temples fair:
    Chase hence the ugly night 
Which serves but to make dear thy glorious light.

    --This is that happy morn, 
    That day, long-wishèd day 
    Of all my life so dark, 
(If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn
    And fates my hopes betray), 
An everlasting diamond should it mark.
This is the morn should bring unto this grove
My Love, to hear and recompense my love.
    Fair King, who all preserves, 
    But show thy blushing beams, 
    And thou two sweeter eyes 
Shalt see than those which by Peneüs' streams
    Did once thy heart surprise. 
Now, Flora, deck thyself in fairest guise:
    If that ye, winds, would hear 
A voice surpassing far Amphion's lyre,
    Your furious chiding stay; 
    Let Zephyr only breathe, 
    And with her tresses play. 
    --The winds all silent are, 
    And Phoebus in his chair 
    Ensaffroning sea and air 
    Makes vanish every star: 
    Night like a drunkard reels 
Beyond the hills, to shun his flaming wheels:
The fields with flowers are deck'd in every hue,
The clouds with orient gold spangle their blue;
    Here is the pleasant place-- 
And nothing wanting is, save She, alas! 

1. Like the Idalian Queen
2. Now While the Night Her Sable Veil Hath Spread
3. For the Baptist
4. I Know That All Beneath the Moon Decays
5. Who Hath Not Seen into Her Saffron Bed

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