SONNETS.

MORE chaste than fair Diana, first in place;
From whose fair eyes flows love's alluring springs;
Second to none in bounty, beauty grace,

Whose heavenly hands holds proud Cupid's stings. Endless report, upon aspiring wings,

Thy high heroic virtues hath stored; Admired, but maik, even in a thousand things: To eternize thee Fame hath endeavor'd. Miraculous, matchless Margarite! decoir'd With all preferments nature can afford; Favour'd from heavens above, on earth adored! Extoll'd by truth of thy most loyal word. With virtue graced far more than form of face, Yet Venus, in the same, doth yield thee place.

MAIR GRAIT than I can any ways deserve,
Mair rair than fair, yet matchless in the same;
Who with thy eyes, least my poor life should starve,
Vouchsafes to look with pity on my pain.

Here, I avow, thine ever to remain,

To serve thee still, till breath and life depart, Revived by virtue of thy sacred name:

Come death or life, in love I find no smart.
Let Cupid wreck him on my martyr'd heart,
Let fortune frown, and all the world envy,
If I be thine, no grief can death impart,

Shall make me seem thy service to deny.
I live mair weil contended thine to die,
Than crown'd with honour and disdain'd by thee.

ROWALLAN'S POEMS.

125

CAN any cross, shall ever intervene,

Make me to change my never-changing mind?
Can ought that my poor eyes hath ever seen
Make me to her, who holds my life, unkind?
O no! even though the world's beauty shined,
To try my truth, and tempt my loyal love;
I more esteem for her to live still pined
Than any other, be preferr'd above.
My constant heart no torture shall remove:

Though duilful death, and frowning fortune threat,
No grief at all, no pain that I can prove,
Shall make me ever loathe of my estate.

I gladly yield me, let her save or kill—
I hate to live except it be her will.

ALACE! sweet love, that ever my poor eyes
Presum❜d to gaze on that most heavenly face!
Alace! that fortune ever seem'd to ease

My endless woes, but now would me deface.
Alace! that ever I expected grace;

To snare myself, in hope to be relieved!
Alace! alace! that Love would now disgrace
My loyal heart, which once to serve him lived!
Alace! alace! that ever I survived

The fatal time, when first appear'd my joy:
For now, alace, I die: but yet revived

In hope, thy love my luck shall once enjoy.
Still to remain, resolved then shall I live,
Thy humble servant, even till breath me leave!

Thir Sonets, maid 1612.

We have been able to obtain no revealings whatever of the particular object of our author's inspiration, and "pleasant dying," so ardently breathed forth in the four preceding Sonnets. However viewed by modern critics, such seems the almost invariable style of Rowallan's musings: and but rarely, if indeed ever, seems he to have devoted them to other than the two grand concernments-religion and love. The three succeeding should possibly still be viewed as a continuation of the same subject; in its scope, the concluding Sonnet seems a little more general.

SONNETS.

LIKE as Acteon found the fatal bounds,
Whereas Diana bath'd her by a well;

Which high attempt-punish'd by his own hounds-
Turn'd in a timorous hart, he fled, but fell.
So while my Cynthia, who doth her excel,
I did behold cruel Cupid envied,

And mine own eyes to cross me did compel,—
Still gazing on the goddess they espied.

At liberty before, alace! now tied,

I live expecting my Diana's doom-
Either to be preferr'd, or die denied!
Unworthy of the honour to presume.
Yet, though I die—for so I ever do—
Had I more lives, them should I hazard too.

Finis-1612.

ADIEU, my love, my life, my bliss, my being!
My hope, my hap, my joy, my all, adieu!
Adieu, sweet subject of my pleasant dying,
And most delightful object of my view!

ROWALLAN'S POEMS.

127

Bright spark of beauty! paragon'd by few;
Unspotted pearl! which doth thy sex adorn;
Loadstar of love! whose pure vermilion hue,
Makes pale the rose, and stains the blushing morn!
That zeal to thee which I have ever borne,

Sole essence, life, and vigour of my spreit!
By track of time shall never be outworn:

My second self, my charming Syren sweet!
And so, my Phoenix and my turtle true,
A thousand thousand times adieu, adieu!

W. M. ROWALLANE, Younger, 1615.

SOME gallant spirits, desirous of renown,
To climb, with pain, Parnassus do aspire:
By nature some do wear the laurel crown,
And some the poet proves for hope of hire!
But none of those my spirits doth inspire;

My Muse is more admired than all the Nine,
Who doth infuse my breast with sacred fire,
To paint her forth most heavenly and divine!
Her worth I raise in elegiac line,

In lyrics sweet, her beauties I extol,
The brave heroic doth her rare ingine

In time's immortal register enrol.
Since thou of me hath made thy poet then,
Be bold, sweet lady, to employ my pen!

Finis-1616.

IN beauty, love's sweet object, ravish'd sight,
Doth some peculiar perfection prize,

In which most worth and admiration lies;
The senses charming with most dear delight:
Some eyes adore like stars, clear, glist'ring, bright;
Some, wrapp'd in black those comets most entice;
Some are transported with pureayn dyes,1
And some most value green about the light.
Aurora's flaming hair some fondly love;

White dangling tresses-yellow curls of gold,
Others in greatest estimation hold:

All eyes alike,—each beauty doth not move.
Eyes lovely brown, brown chesnut-colour'd hair,
Inflame my heart, and senses all ensnare.

TUA SONETS SENT BY MY FREIND, A. S.

THOU kno's, braue gallant, that our Scottich braines Hawe ay bein England's equals ewery way; Quhair als rair muse, and martiall myndis remaines, With als renouned records to this day.

Thoght we be not enrol'd so rich as they,

Yit haue we wits of worth enrich'd more rare: As for thair Sidneyes science, quhich they say, Surpasseth all in his Arcadian air,

Cum, I haue found our westerne feelds als fair;
Go thou to work, and I schall be thy guyde,
And schew the of a sueitar subject thair—
Borne Beuties wonder on the banks of Clyd!
Philocle and Pamela, those sueit twain,
Quho lake bot thee to eternize thair name.

1 Purple, or blue.