Henry Charles Beeching, ed. (1859–1919). Lyra Sacra: A Book of Religious Verse. 1903.

By William Drummond (1585–1649)

A Hymn of the Resurrection


LIFE 1 out of death, light out of darkness springs,
From a base jail forth comes the King of kings.
What late was mortal, thrall’d to every woe
That lackeys life, or upon sense doth grow,
Immortal is of an eternal stamp,	5
Far brighter beaming than the morning lamp:
So from a black eclipse outpeers the sun:
Such (when her course of days have on her run
In a far forest in the pearly east,
And she herself hath burnt her spicy nest)	10
The lonely bird with youthful pens and comb,
Doth soar from out her cradle and her tomb:
So a small seed that in the earth lies hid
And dies, reviving bursts her cloddy side,
Adorn’d with yellow locks of new is born,	15
And doth become a mother great with corn,
Of grains brings hundreds with it, which when old
Enrich the furrows with a sea of gold.

Note 1. Drummond’s religious poetry is, for the most part, picturesque rather than devotional; but the lines here printed have a true ring about them. [back]

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