ON SPRING.
Sweet Spring, thou com’st with all thy goodly train,
Thy head with flames, thy mantle bright with flow’rs,
The zephyrs curl the green locks of the plain,
The clouds for joy in pearls weep down their show’rs.
Sweet Spring, thou com’st—but, ah! my pleasant hours
And happy days with thee come not again;
The sad memorials only of my pain
Do with thee come, which turns my sweets to sours.
Thou art the same which still thou wert before,
Delicious, lusty, amiable, fair;
But she whose breath embalm’d thy wholesome air
Is gone; nor gold, nor gems, can her restore.
Neglected virtues, seasons go and come,
When thine forgot lie closed in a tomb.
What doth it serve to see the sun’s bright face,
And skies enamell’d with the Indian gold?
Or the moon in a fierce chariot roll’d,
And all the glory of that starry place?
What doth it serve earth’s beauty to behold,
The mountain’s pride, the meadow’s flow’ry grace,
The stately comeliness of forests old,
The sport of floods which would themselves embrace?
What doth it serve to hear the sylvans’ songs,
The cheerful thrush, the nightingale’s sad strains,
Which in dark shades seem to deplore my wrongs?
For what doth serve all that this world contains,
Since she for whom those once to me were dear,
Can have no part of them now with me here?
William Drummond, 1585–1649.