English Poetry I: From Chaucer to Gray.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
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| 193. Saint John Baptist |
| | | William Drummond (1585–1649) |
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| THE LAST and greatest Herald of Heaven’s King | |
| Girt with rough skins, hies to the deserts wild, | |
| Among that savage brood the woods forth bring, | |
| Which he more harmless found than man, and mild. | |
| His food was locusts, and what there doth spring, | 5 |
| With honey that from virgin hives distill’d; | |
| Parch’d body, hollow eyes, some uncouth thing | |
| Made him appear, long since from earth exiled. | |
| There burst he forth: All ye whose hopes rely | |
| On God, with me amidst these deserts mourn, | 10 |
| Repent, repent, and from old errors turn! | |
| —Who listen’d to his voice, obey’d his cry? | |
| Only the echoes, which he made relent, | |
| Rung from their flinty caves, Repent! Repent! | |
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