It is to this world that she urges him to raise his mind, for all that earth has to offer is a vain shadow.
“But thou who vulgar footsteps dost not trace,
Learn to raise up thy mind unto this place,
And what earth-creeping mortals most affect,
If not at all to scorn, yet to neglect:
O chase not shadows vain, which when obtain’d,
Were better lost, than with such travail gain’d.”
(ll. 181–186.)
These shadows are worldly honor and fame.
At this point the poem naturally passes on to develop the second suggestion found in Platonism, that the beauty of earth is but a shadow or reflexion of the absolute beauty. As was common in that time, this absolute beauty is identified with God. Accordingly, the young woman appeals to Drummond to trust in God’s beauty, which alone can fill the soul with bliss. If the power of earthly beauty—the glance of an eye—can make him leave all else, what, she asks, must be the love kindled by the “only Fair”; for though the wonders of earth, of sea, and heaven are beautiful, they are but shadows of Him.