Poem of the day-120: SUMMONS TO LOVE by William Drummond of Hawthornden

Phoebus, arise!

     And paint the sable skies

     With azure, white, and red:

     Rouse Memnon's mother from her Tithon's bed

     That she may thy career with roses spread:

     The nightingales thy coming eachwhere 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 wishéd day

     Of all my life so dark,

     (If cruel stars have not my ruin sworn

     And fates not hope betray),

     Which, purely white, deserves

     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 Penéus' streams

     Did once thy heart surprize.

     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.