John Dryden

To you who live in chill degree, As map informs, of fifty-three, And do not much for cold atone,

Stanza 1 From harmony, from Heav'nly harmony This universal frame began.

Ask not the cause, why sullen Spring So long delays her flowers to bear; Why warbling birds forget to sing,

Fair, sweet, and young, receive a prize Reserved for your victorious eyes: From crowds, whom at your feet you see,

Go tell Amynta, gentle swain, I would not die, nor dare complain: Thy tuneful voice with numbers join,

TO THE READER. It is not my intention to make an apology for my poem: some will think it needs no excuse, and others will receive none. The design I am sure is honest: but he who draws his pen for one party, must expect to make enemies of the other. For wit and fool are consequence of Whig and Tory; and every man is a knave or an ass to the contrary side. There is a treasury of merits in the Fanatic church, as well as in the Popish; and a pennyworth to be had of saintship, honesty, and poetry, for the lewd, the factious, and the blockheads: but the longest chapter in Deuteronomy has not curses enough for an Anti-Bromingham. My comfort is, their manifest prejudice to my cause will render their judgment of less authority against me. Yet if a poem have genius, it will force its own reception in the world. For there is a sweetness in good verse, which tickles even while it hurts; and no man can be heartily angry with him who pleases him against his will. The commendation    of adversaries is the greatest triumph of a writer, because it never comes unless extorted. But I can be satisfied on more easy terms: if I happen to please the more moderate sort, I shall be sure of an honest party, and, in all probability, of the best judges; for the least concerned are commonly the least corrupt. And I confess I have laid in for those, by rebating the satire (where justice would allow it), from carrying too sharp an edge. They who can criticise so weakly as to imagine I have done my worst, may be convinced, at their own cost, that I can write severely, with more ease than I can gently. I have but laughed at some men's follies, when I could have declaimed against their vices; and other men's virtues I have commended, as freely as I have taxed their crimes. And now, if you are a malicious reader, I expect you should return upon me that I affect to be thought more impartial than I am. But if men are not to be judged by their professions, God forgive you Commonwealth's-men for professing so plausibly for the government. You cannot be so unconscionable as to charge me for not subscribing my name; for that would reflect too grossly upon your own party, who never dare, though they have the advantage of a jury to secure them. If you like not my poem, the fault may possibly be in my writing (though it is hard for an author to judge against himself); but more probably it is in your morals, which cannot bear the truth of it. The violent on both sides will condemn the character of Absalom, as either too favourably or too hardly drawn. But they are not the violent whom I desire to please. The fault on the right hand is to extenuate, palliate, and indulge; and to confess freely, I have endeavoured to commit it. Besides the respect which I owe his birth, I have a greater for his heroic virtues; and David himself could not be more tender of the young man's life, than I would be of his reputation. But since the most excellent natures are always the most easy, and, as being such, are the soonest perverted by ill counsels, especially when baited with fame and glory; it is no more a wonder that he withstood not the temptations of Achitophel, than it was for Adam not to have resisted the two devils, the serpent and the woman. The conclusion of the story I purposely forbore to prosecute, because I could not obtain from myself to show Absalom unfortunate. The frame of it was cut out but for a picture to the waist; and if the draught be so far true, it is as much as I designed.

AN ODE, IN HONOUR OF ST CECILIA'S DAY. 'Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won By Philip's warlike son:

PROLOGUE What flocks of critics hover here to-day, As vultures wait on armies for their prey,

You saw our wife was chaste, yet thoroughly tried, And, without doubt, ye are hugely edified; For, like our hero, whom we show'd to-day,

By Me Dryden And The Earl Of Mulgrave,[1] 1679. How dull, and how insensible a beast Is man, who yet would lord it o'er the rest!

The Year Of Wonders, 1666. An Historical Poem. An Account Of The Ensuing Poem, In A Letter To The Honourable Sir Robert Howard.

A Poem On The Happy Restoration And Return Of His Sacred Majesty Charles Ii., 1660. "Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna."--VIRG. "The last great age, foretold by sacred rhymes,

A Poem On The Prince, Born June 10, 1688. Our vows are heard betimes! and Heaven takes care To grant, before we can conclude the prayer:

A Panegyrical Poem, Dedicated To The Memory Of The Late Countess Of Abingdon. To The Right Honourable The Earl Of Abingdon, &C. MY LORD,--The commands, with which you honoured me some months ago, are now performed: they had been sooner; but betwixt ill health, some business, and many troubles, I was forced to defer them till this time. Ovid, going to his banishment, and writing from on shipboard to his friends, excused the faults of his poetry by his misfortunes; and told them, that good verses never flow but from a serene and composed spirit. Wit, which is a kind of Mercury, with wings fastened to his head and heels, can fly but slowly in a damp air. I therefore chose rather to obey you late than ill: if at least I am capable of writing anything, at any time, which is worthy your perusal and your patronage. I cannot say that I have escaped from a shipwreck; but have only gained a rock by hard swimming, where I may pant a while and gather breath: for the doctors give me a sad assurance, that my disease never took its leave of any man, but with a purpose to return. However, my lord, I have laid hold on the interval, and managed the small stock, which age has left me, to the best advantage, in performing this inconsiderable service to my lady's memory. We, who are priests of Apollo, have not the inspiration when we please; but must wait until the god comes rushing on us, and invades us with a fury which we are not able to resist: which gives us double strength while the fit continues, and leaves us languishing and spent at its departure. Let me not seem to boast, my lord, for I have really felt it on this occasion, and prophesied beyond my natural power. Let me add, and hope to be believed, that the excellency of the subject contributed much to the happiness of the execution; and that the weight of thirty years was taken off me while I was writing. I swam with the tide, and the water under me was buoyant. The reader will easily observe that I was transported by the multitude and variety of my similitudes; which are generally the product of a luxuriant fancy, and the wantonness of wit. Had I called in my judgment to my assistance, I had certainly retrenched many of them. But I defend them not; let them pass for beautiful faults amongst the better sort of critics: for the whole poem, though written in that which they call Heroic verse, is of the Pindaric nature, as well in the thought as the expression; and, as such, requires the same grains of allowance for it. It was intended, as your lordship sees in the title, not for an elegy, but a panegyric: a kind of apotheosis, indeed, if a heathen word may be applied to a Christian use. And on all occasions of praise, if we take the ancients for our patterns, we are bound by prescription to employ the magnificence of words, and the force of figures, to adorn the sublimity of thoughts. Isocrates amongst the Grecian orators, and Cicero, and the younger Pliny, amongst the Romans, have left us their precedents for our security; for I think I need not mention the inimitable Pindar, who stretches on these pinions out of sight, and is carried upward, as it were, into another world.

We act by fits and starts, like drowning men, But just peep up, and then pop down again. Let those who call us wicked change their sense;

After our 'sop's fable shown to-day, I come to give the moral of the play. Feign'd Zeal, you saw, set out the speedier pace:

Poets, like disputants, when reasons fail, Have one sure refuge left--and that's to rail. Fop, coxcomb, fool, are thunder'd through the pit;

You've seen a pair of faithful lovers die: And much you care; for most of you will cry, 'Twas a just judgment on their constancy.

What Sophocles could undertake alone, Our poets found a work for more than one; And therefore two lay tugging at the piece,

Like some raw sophister that mounts the pulpit, So trembles a young Poet at a full pit. Unused to crowds, the parson quakes for fear,

Most modern wits such monstrous fools have shown, They seem not of Heaven's making, but their own. Those nauseous harlequins in farce may pass;

Perhaps the parson[1] stretch'd a point too far, When with our Theatres he waged a war. He tells you, that this very moral age

A Poet once the Spartans led to fight, And made them conquer in the muse's right; So would our poet lead you on this day,

To all and singular in this full meeting, Ladies and gallants, Phoebus sends ye greeting. To all his sons, by whate'er title known,

SPOKEN BY MONTEZUMA. You see what shifts we are enforced to try, To help out wit with some variety;

They who have best succeeded on the stage, Have still conform'd their genius to their age. Thus Jonson did mechanic humour show,

Of all dramatic writing, comic wit, As 'tis the best, so 'tis most hard to hit, For it lies all in level to the eye,

As Jupiter I made my court in vain; I'll now assume my native shape again. I'm weary to be so unkindly used,

Oft has our poet wish'd, this happy seat Might prove his fading Muse's last retreat: I wonder'd at his wish, but now I find

(Prologue To The University Of Oxford, Spoken By Mr Hart, At The Acting Of "The Silent Woman.") No poor Dutch peasant, wing'd with all his fear, Flies with more haste, when the French arms draw near,

So fair, so young, so innocent, so sweet, So ripe a judgment, and so rare a wit, Require at least an age in one to meet.

Sacred To The Immortal Memory Of Sir Palmes Fairbone, Knight, Governor Of Tangier; In Execution Of Which Command, He Was Mortally Wounded By A Shot From The Moors, Then Besieging The Town, In The Forty-Sixth Year Of His Age. October 24, 1680. Ye sacred relics, which your marble keep, Here, undisturb'd by wars, in quiet sleep:

Fair, kind, and true, a treasure each alone, A wife, a mistress, and a friend in one, Rest in this tomb, raised at thy husband's cost,

And now 'tis time; for their officious haste, Who would before have borne him to the sky, Like eager Romans, ere all rites were past,

TIR. Choose the darkest part o' th' grove, Such as ghosts at noonday love. Dig a trench, and dig it nigh

All human things are subject to decay, And when fate summons, monarchs must obey. This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young

He who could view the book of destiny, And read whatever there was writ of thee, O charming youth, in the first opening page,

A Pastoral Elegy. 'Twas on a joyless and a gloomy morn, Wet was the grass, and hung with pearls the thorn;

Must noble Hastings immaturely die, The honour of his ancient family; Beauty and learning thus together meet,

(Set To Music By Dr Blow.) Mark how the lark and linnet sing; With rival notes

Below this marble monument is laid All that heaven wants of this celestial maid. Preserve, O sacred tomb! thy trust consign'd;

He who in impious times undaunted stood, And 'midst rebellion durst be just and good; Whose arms asserted, and whose sufferings more

CLARENDON had law and sense, Clifford was fierce and brave; Bennet's grave look was a pretence,

BOOK I. In days of old, there lived, of mighty fame, A valiant prince, and Theseus was his name:

Full twenty years and more, our labouring stage Has lost on this incorrigible age: Our poets, the John Ketches of the nation,

To say, this comedy pleased long ago, Is not enough to make it pass you now. Yet, gentlemen, your ancestors had wit;

BY LODOWICK CARLELL, ESQ., 1690. SPOKEN BY MR HART. With sickly actors and an old house too,

Our author, by experience, finds it true, 'Tis much more hard to please himself than you; And out of no feign'd modesty, this day

The unhappy man, who once has trail'd a pen, Lives not to please himself, but other men; Is always drudging, wastes his life and blood,

Were you but half so wise as you're severe, Our youthful poet should not need to fear: To his green years your censures you would suit,

The judge removed, though he's no more my lord, May plead at bar, or at the council board: So may cast poets write; there's no pretension

Sure there's a dearth of wit in this dull town, When silly plays so savourily go down; As, when clipt money passes, 'tis a sign

True wit has seen its best days long ago; It ne'er look'd up, since we were dipp'd in show: When sense in doggerel rhymes and clouds was lost,

When Athens all the Grecian state did guide, And Greece gave laws to all the world beside; Then Sophocles with Socrates did sit,

ACTED AT OXFORD, 1680. WRITTEN BY NATHAN LEE. Thespis,[1] the first professor of our art,

SPOKEN TO THE KING AND QUEEN AT THEIR COMING TO THE HOUSE. When first the ark was landed on the shore, And Heaven had vow'd to curse the ground no more;

UPON THE UNION OF THE TWO COMPANIES IN 1686. Since faction ebbs, and rogues grow out of fashion, Their penny scribes take care to inform the nation,

POETS, like lawful monarchs, ruled the stage, Till critics, like damn'd Whigs, debauch'd our age. Mark how they jump: critics would regulate

If yet there be a few that take delight In that which reasonable men should write; To them alone we dedicate this night.

[Enter Mr Bright.] Gentlemen, we must beg your pardon; here's no Prologue to be had to-day; our new play is like to come on, without a frontispiece;

REVIVED FOR OUR AUTHOR'S BENEFIT, ANNO 1700. How wretched is the fate of those who write! Brought muzzled to the stage, for fear they bite.

SPOKEN BY MR BETTERTON. 1690. What Nostradame, with all his art, can guess The fate of our approaching Prophetess?

SPOKEN BY MR BETTERTON, REPRESENTING THE GHOST OF SHAKSPEARE. See, my loved Britons, see your Shakspeare rise, An awful ghost, confess'd, to human eyes!

As needy gallants in the scrivener's hands, Court the rich knave that gripes their mortgaged lands, The first fat buck of all the season's sent,

Fools, which each man meets in his dish each day, Are yet the great regalios of a play; In which to poets you but just appear,

As the music plays a soft air, the curtain rises slowly and discovers an Indian boy and girl sleeping under two plantain-trees; and, when the curtain is almost up, the music turns into a tune expressing an alarm, at which the boy awakes, and speaks: BOY. Wake, wake, Quevira! our soft rest must cease, And fly together with our country's peace!

'Tis much desired, you judges of the town Would pass a vote to put all prologues down: For who can show me, since they first were writ,

As when a tree's cut down, the secret root Lives under ground, and thence new branches shoot; So from old Shakspeare's honour'd dust, this day

SPOKEN BY MR HART. Poets, your subjects have their parts assign'd To unbend, and to divert their sovereign's mind:

What Greece, when learning flourish'd, only knew, Athenian judges, you this day renew; Here too are annual rites to Pallas done,

Though actors cannot much of learning boast, Of all who want it, we admire it most: We love the praises of a learned pit,

Discord and plots, which have undone our age, With the same ruin have o'erwhelm'd the stage. Our house has suffer'd in the common woe,

Self-love, which, never rightly understood, Makes poets still conclude their plays are good, And malice in all critics reigns so high,

A plain-built[1] house, after so long a stay, Will send you half unsatisfied away; When, fallen from your expected pomp, you find

So shipwreck'd passengers escape to land, So look they, when on the bare beach they stand, Dropping and cold, and their first fear scarce o'er,

UPON HIS FIRST APPEARANCE AT THE DUKE'S THEATRE, AFTER HIS RETURN FROM SCOTLAND, 1682. In those cold regions which no summers cheer, Where brooding darkness covers half the year,

The famed Italian Muse, whose rhymes advance Orlando and the Paladins of France, Records, that, when our wit and sense is flown,

AN EPISTLE. THE PREFACE. A Poem with so bold a title, and a name prefixed from which the handling of so serious a subject would not be expected, may reasonably oblige the author to say somewhat in defence, both of himself and of his undertaking. In the first place, if it be objected to me, that, being a layman, I ought not to have concerned myself with speculations which belong to the profession of divinity; I could answer, that perhaps laymen, with equal advantages of parts and knowledge, are not the most incompetent judges of sacred things; but in the due sense of my own weakness and want of learning, I plead not this: I pretend not to make myself a judge of faith in others, but only to make a confession of my own. I lay no unhallowed hand upon the ark, but wait on it, with the reverence that becomes me, at a distance. In the next place, I will ingenuously confess, that the helps I have used in this small treatise, were many of them taken from the works of our own reverend divines of the Church of England: so that the weapons with which I combat irreligion, are already consecrated; though I suppose they may be taken down as lawfully as the sword of Goliah was by David, when they are to be employed for the common cause against the enemies of piety. I intend not by this to entitle them to any of my errors, which yet I hope are only those of charity to mankind; and such as my own charity has caused me to commit, that of others may more easily excuse. Being naturally inclined to scepticism in philosophy, I have no reason to impose my opinions in a subject which is above it; but whatever they are, I submit them with all reverence to my mother church, accounting them no farther mine, than as they are authorised, or at least uncondemned by her. And, indeed, to secure myself on this side, I have used the necessary precaution of showing this paper, before it was published, to a judicious and learned friend, a man indefatigably zealous in the service of the church and state; and whose writings have highly deserved of both.

Chloe found Amyntas lying, All in tears upon the plain; Sighing to himself, and crying,

Written In The Year 1662. As needy gallants, in the scrivener's hands, Court the rich knaves that gripe their mortgaged lands;

I feed a flame within, which so torments me, That it both pains my heart, and yet contents me: 'Tis such a pleasing smart, and I so love it,

Who, Being Crossed By Their Friends, Fell Mad For One Another; And Now First Meet In Bedlam. [Music within.] The Lovers enter at opposite doors, each held by a keeper.

What state of life can be so blest As love, that warms a lover's breast? Two souls in one, the same desire

Who ever saw a noble sight, That never view'd a brave sea-fight! Hang up your bloody colours in the air,

Farewell, fair Armida, my joy and my grief, In vain I have loved you, and hope no relief; Undone by your virtue, too strict and severe,

I. Wherever I am, and whatever I do, My Phyllis is still in my mind;

I. Cease, Augusta! cease thy mourning, Happy days appear,

Where a battle is supposed to be given behind the scenes, with drums, trumpets, and military shouts and excursions; after which, the Britons, expressing their joy for the victory, sing this song of triumph. I. Come, if you dare, our trumpets sound;

Ah, fading joy, how quickly art thou past! Yet we thy ruin haste. As if the cares of human life were few,

A parish priest was of the pilgrim train; An awful, reverend, and religious man. His eyes diffused a venerable grace,

There lived, as authors tell, in days of yore, A widow somewhat old, and very poor: Deep in a cell her cottage lonely stood,

A Song. Happy and free, securely blest, No beauty could disturb my rest;

A VISION. Now turning from the wintry signs, the sun, His course exalted, through the Ram had run,

A Poem, In Three Parts. --Antiquam exquirite matrem. Et vera incessa patuit Dea.

A Choir of bright beauties in spring did appear, To choose a May-lady to govern the year; All the nymphs were in white, and the shepherds in green;

A SATIRE AGAINST SEDITION. EPISTLE TO THE WHIGS. For to whom can I dedicate this poem with so much justice as to you? It is the representation of your own hero: it is the picture drawn at length, which you admire and prize so much in little. None of your ornaments are wanting; neither the landscape of your Tower, nor the rising sun; nor the Anno Domini of your new sovereign's coronation. This must needs be a grateful undertaking to your whole party; especially to those who have not been so happy as to purchase the original. I hear the graver has made a good market of it: all his kings are bought up already; or the value of the remainder so enhanced, that many a poor Polander, who would be glad to worship the image, is not able to go to the cost of him, but must be content to see him here. I must confess I am no great artist; but sign-post painting    will serve the turn to remember a friend by, especially when better is not to be had. Yet, for your comfort, the lineaments are true; and though he sat not five times to me, as he did to B., yet I have consulted history, as the Italian painters do when they would draw a Nero or a Caligula: though they have not seen the man, they can help their imagination by a statue of him, and find out the colouring from Suetonius and Tacitus. Truth is, you might have spared one side of your Medal: the head would be seen to more advantage if it were placed on a spike of the Tower, a little nearer to the sun, which would then break out to better purpose.

Enter JANUS. Janus. Chronos, Chronos, mend thy pace; An hundred times the rolling sun

On a bank, beside a willow, Heaven her covering, earth her pillow, Sad Amynta sigh'd alone:

In days of old, when Arthur fill'd the throne, Whose acts and fame to foreign lands were blown; The king of elves and little fairy queen

A FUNERAL PINDARIC POEM, SACRED TO THE HAPPY MEMORY OF KING CHARLES II. I. Thus long my grief has kept me dumb:

The Grecian wits, who Satire first began, Were pleasant Pasquins on the life of man; At mighty villains, who the state oppress'd,

WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM OF PALAMON AND ARCITE. MADAM, The bard who first adorn'd our native tongue,

On The Memorable Victory Gained By The Duke Over The Hollanders, June 3, 1665. And On Her Journey Afterwards Into The North. Madam, When, for our sakes, your hero you resign'd

Thou hast inspired me with thy soul, and I Who ne'er before could ken of poetry, Am grown so good proficient, I can lend

A Panegyric On His Coronation. In that wild deluge where the world was drown'd, When life and sin one common tomb had found,

Auspicious poet, wert thou not my friend, How could I envy, what I must commend! But since 'tis nature's law, in love and wit,

The blast of common censure could I fear, Before your play my name should not appear; For 'twill be thought, and with some colour too,

Sure there's a fate in plays, and 'tis in vain To write, while these malignant planets reign. Some very foolish influence rules the pit,

Well, then, the promised hour is come at last, The present age of wit obscures the past: Strong were our sires, and as they fought they writ,

So Joseph, yet a youth, expounded well The boding dream, and did the event foretell; Judged by the past, and drew the Parallel.

'Tis hard, my friend, to write in such an age, As damns, not only poets, but the stage. That sacred art, by Heaven itself infused,

On His Learned And Useful Works; But More Particularly His Treatise Of Stonehenge,[1] By Him Restored To The True Founder. The longest tyranny that ever sway'd, Was that wherein our ancestors betray'd

As there is music uninform'd by art In those wild notes, which, with a merry heart, The birds in unfrequented shades express,

How bless'd is he who leads a country life, Unvex'd with anxious cares, and void of strife! Who studying peace, and shunning civil rage,

Once I beheld the fairest of her kind, And still the sweet idea charms my mind: True, she was dumb; for Nature gazed so long,

When factious rage to cruel exile drove The queen of beauty,[1] and the court of love, The Muses droop'd, with their forsaken arts,

Whether the fruitful Nile, or Tyrian shore, The seeds of arts and infant science bore, 'Tis sure the noble plant, translated first,

As seamen, shipwreck'd on some happy shore, Discover wealth in lands unknown before; And, what their art had labour'd long in vain,

Presented On New Year's Day, 1662. My Lord, While flattering crowds officiously appear

Farewell, too little, and too lately known, Whom I began to think, and call my own: For sure our souls were near allied, and thine

An Ode. 1685. I. Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,

Three Poets, in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn. The first, in loftiness of thought surpass'd;

Oh, last and best of Scots! who didst maintain Thy country's freedom from a foreign reign; New people fill the land now thou art gone,

Of gentle blood, his parents' only treasure, Their lasting sorrow, and their vanish'd pleasure, Adorn'd with features, virtues, wit, and grace,

CREATOR SPIRIT, by whose aid The world's foundations first were laid, Come, visit every pious mind;