Doth Then The World Go Thus?

Doth then the world go thus? doth all thus move?
Is this the justice which on earth we find?
Is this that firm decree which all doth bind?
Are these your influences, Powers above?
Those souls, which vices moody mists most blind,
Blind Fortune, blindly, most their friend doth prove;
And they who thee, poor idol Virtue! love,
Ply like a feather tossed by storm and wind.
Ah! if a Providence doth sway this all,
Why should best minds groan under most distress?
Or why should pride humility make thrall,
And injuries the innocent oppress?
Heavens! hinder, stop this fate; or grant a time
When good may have, as well as bad, their prime!

William Henry Drummond

William Henry Drummond was a Canadian poet, best known for his humor-filled verse that captured the dialect and lifestyle of French Canadian habitants. Born on April 13, 1854, in Ireland, he immigrated to Canada during his childhood. Drummond pursued a career in medicine but garnered fame for his poetry, which was rich with character and wit. He passed away on April 6, 1907, leaving behind a cherished legacy in Canadian literature.

William Henry Drummond

Spring Bereaved I

William Henry Drummond, Simple Poetry

Her Passing

William Henry Drummond, Simple Poetry

Maxime Labelle

William Henry Drummond, Simple Poetry

Dreams

William Henry Drummond, Simple Poetry

English

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I

Who rises on the banks of Seine,
And binds her temples with the civic wreath?
What joy to read the promise of her mien!
How sweet to rest her wide-spread wings beneath
But they are ever playing,
And twinkling in the light,
And, if a breeze be straying,
That breeze she will invite;
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Melt, Principalities, before her melt!
Her love ye hailed her wrath have felt!
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A Sequel To The Foregoing

List, the winds of March are blowing;
Her ground-flowers shrink, afraid of showing
Their meek heads to the nipping air,
Which ye feel not, happy pair!
Sunk into a kindly sleep.
We, meanwhile, our hope will keep;
And if Time leagued with adverse Change
(Too busy fear!) shall cross its range,
Whatsoever check they bring,
Anxious duty hindering,
To like hope our prayers will cling.

Thus, while the ruminating spirit feeds
Upon the events of home as life proceeds,
Affections pure and holy in their source
Gain a fresh impulse, run a livelier course;
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Are in the experienced Grandsire's slow to fail;
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Inexorable

My thoughts hold mortal strife;
I do detest my life,
And with lamenting cries
Peace to my soul to bring
Oft call that prince which here doth monarchise:
But he, grim-grinning King,
Who caitiffs scorns, and doth the blest surprise,
Late having deckd with beautys rose his tomb,
Disdains to crop a weed, and will not come.

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Humanity

What though the Accused, upon his own appeal
To righteous Gods when man has ceased to feel,
Or at a doubting Judge's stern command,
Before the Stone of Power no longer stand
To take his sentence from the balanced Block,
As, at his touch, it rocks, or seems to rock;
Though, in the depths of sunless groves, no more
The Druid-priest the hallowed Oak adore;
Yet, for the Initiate, rocks and whispering trees
Do still perform mysterious offices!
And functions dwell in beast and bird that sway
The reasoning mind, or with the fancy play,
Inviting, at all seasons, ears and eyes
To watch for undelusive auguries:
Not uninspired appear their simplest ways;
Their voices mount symbolical of praise
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That Nature Is Not Subject To Decay.

Ah, how the Human Mind wearies herself
With her own wand'rings, and, involved in gloom
Impenetrable, speculates amiss!
Measuring, in her folly, things divine
By human, laws inscrib'd on adamant
By laws of Man's device, and counsels fix'd
For ever, by the hours, that pass, and die.
How?--shall the face of Nature then be plow'd
Into deep wrinkles, and shall years at last
On the great Parent fix a sterile curse?
Shall even she confess old age, and halt
And, palsy-smitten, shake her starry brows?
Shall foul Antiquity with rust and drought
And famine vex the radiant worlds above?
Shall Time's unsated maw crave and engulf
The very heav'ns that regulate his flight?
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To My Noble Friend Master William Browne, Of The Euill Time

Deare friend, be silent and with patience see,
What this mad times Catastrophe will be;
The worlds first Wisemen certainly mistooke
Themselues, and spoke things quite beside the booke,
And that which they haue of said of God, vntrue,
Or else expect strange iudgement to insue.
This Isle is a meere Bedlam, and therein,
We all lye rauing, mad in euery sinne,
And him the wisest most men use to call,
Who doth (alone) the maddest thing of all;
He whom the master of all wisedome found,
For a marckt foole, and so did him propound,
The time we liue in, to that passe is brought,
That only he a Censor now is thought;
And that base villaine, (not an age yet gone,)
Which a good man would not haue look'd vpon;
Now like a God, with diuine worship follow'd,
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