Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/285

 WILLIAM DRUMMOND

Kissing sometimes these purple ports of death.

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 arc deck'd in every hue,

The clouds bespangle with bright gold their blue

Here is the pleasant place

And everything, save Her, who all should grace.

��255 Madrigal

ECE the Idalian queen, Her hair about her eyne, With neck and breast's ripe apples to be seen,

At first glance of the morn In Cyprus' gardens gathering those fair flow'rs

Which of her blood were born, I saw, but fainting saw, my paramours. The Graces naked danced about the place,

The winds and trees amazed

With silence on her gazed,

The flowers did smile, like those upon her face; And as their aspen stalks those fingers band,

That she might read my case, A hyacinth I wibh'd me in her hand.

2 33 paramours] = sing, paramour. band] bound.

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