Thou bring'st us an estate, yet leav'st us poor, The joys which we entire should wed, For joy, like wine, kept close does better taste; If it take air before, its spirits waste. Hope! Fortune's cheating lottery! Where for one prize an hundred blanks there be; Thin, empty cloud, which th' eye deceives Brother of Fear, more gayly clad! The merrier fool o' th' two, yet quite as mad: By the strange witchcraft of "anon!" And th' other chases woman, whilst she goes More ways and turns than hunted Nature knows. FOR HOPE. HOPE! of all ills that men endure, Hope! thou first-fruits of happiness! Thou gentle dawning of a bright success! Whether she her bargain break or else fulfil; Brother of Faith! 'twixt whom and thee The joys of Heaven and Earth divided be! Though Faith be heir, and have the fixt estate, Thy portion yet in movables is great. Happiness itself's all one In thee, or in possession! Thine's the more hard and noble bliss: Hope! thou sad lovers' only friend! Thou Way, that may'st dispute it with the End! For love, I fear, 's a fruit that does delight The taste itself less than the smell and sight. Fruition more deceitful is Than thou canst be, when thou dost miss; Men leave thee by obtaining, and straight flee Some other way again to thee; And that's a pleasant country, without doubt To which all soon return that travel out. CLAUDIAN'S OLD MAN OF VERONA. DE SENE VERONENSI, QUI SUBURBIUM NUNQUAM EGRESSUS EST. FELIX, qui patriis, &c. . HAPPY the man, who his whole time doth bound THE WISH. WELL, then; I now do plainly see Does of all meats the soonest cloy; Ah, yet, ere I descend to th' grave, Only belov'd, and loving me! Oh, fountains! when in you shall I Myself, eas'd of unpeaceful thoughts, espy? Oh fields! oh woods! when, when shall I be made The happy tenant of your shade? Here's the spring-head of Pleasure's flood; Where all the riches lie, that she Had coined and stamped for good. Pride and ambition here Only in far-fetched metaphors appear; Here naught but winds can hurtful murmurs scatter, And naught but Echo flatter. The gods, when they descended, hither From Heaven did always choose their way; And therefore we may boldly say, That 't is the way too thither. How happy here should I, And one dear she, live, and embracing die! I should have then this only fear- Ah, wretched We! poets of earth! but thou Wert living the same poet which thou'rt now; Whilst angels sing to thee their airs divine, And joy in an applause so great as thine, Equal society with them to hold, Thou need'st not make new songs, but say the old: And they, kind spirits! shall all rejoice to see How little less than they exalted man may be. LIBERTY. WHERE honor or where conscience does not bind, No other law shall shackle me; Slave to myself I will not be: Nor shall my future actions be confined By my own present mind. Who by resolves and vows engaged does stand For days that yet belong to Fate, Does, like an unthrift, mortgage his estate The bondman of the cloister so All that he does receive does always owe; Unhappy slave! and pupil to a bell! Which his hour's work, as well as hours, does Ir mine eyes do e'er declare They 've seen a second thing that's fair; Or ears that they have music found, Besides thy voice, in any sound; If my taste do ever meet, After thy kiss with aught that's sweet; If my abused touch allow Aught to be smooth or soft but thou! If what seasonable springs Or the eastern summer brings, Do my smell persuade at all Aught perfume but thy breath to call; If all my senses objects be Not contracted into thee, And so through thee more powerful pase, As beams do through a burning-glass; If all things that in Nature are Be not in thee so epitomized, That naught material's not comprised, LOVE IN HER SUNNY EYES. LOVE in her sunny eyes does basking play; Love walks the pleasant mazes of her hair; Love does on both her lips for ever stray, And sows and reaps a thousand kisses there; In all her outward parts Love's always seen, But, oh! he never went within. JOHN DRYDEN. JOHN DRYDEN was born at Aldwinckle, Northamptonshire, August 9, 1631. He was educated first at Westminster School, under Dr. Busby, and then at Cambridge, where he took the master's degree in 1657. He inherited a small estate, and went to London under the patronage of Sir Gilbert Pickering. At the age of twenty he had published an elegy and some epigrams; but his first poem that attracted attention was "Heroic Stanzas on the Death of Cromwell." | On the restoration, he changed his politics, and sang in praise of Charles II., in " Astræa Redux" and "A Panegyric on the Coronation." This cost him the friendship of Pickering, and he then became an author by profession. He wrote for the stage with considerable success. But his rhymed tragedies were deservedly ridiculed by the Duke of Buckingham in "The Rehearsal" In 1663 Dryden married Elizabeth Howard, daughter of the Earl of Berkshire, and in 1670 he was appointed poet-laureate and historiographer. In 1681 he wrote "Absalom and Achitophel," an elaborate political satire, and the next year "Mac Flecknoe," a continuation of it. On the accession of James II. he became, with that monarch, a convert to the Roman Catholic faith, and in 1687 published his "Hind and Panther," a most absurd defence of his adopted church. His pension was now largely increased, his poems were universally read, and he seemed at the very height of prosperity. But the revolution deprived him of his laureateship, and reduced him to the necessity of writing again for bread. He produced more plays, which were put upon the stage, but are now, like his earlier ones, almost forgotten. Dryden was unlike Milton in that he did his best work in the last years of his life. The translation of Virgil was begun in 1694, and occupied two years. Soon after, appeared his "Ode on Alexander's Feast," and then he spent a year and a half in writing his "Fables." He died May 1, 1700, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. In Dryden's character and conduct as a man there is little to admire; but the student of English poetry will never cease to regret that such noble powers were so largely wasted on ephemeral and unworthy themes. ANNUS MIRABILIS: THE YEAR OF WONDERS, 1666. Is thriving arts long time had Holland grown, Trade, which like blood should circularly flow, For them alone the Heavens had kindly heat; The Sun but seem'd the laborer of the year; Thus, mighty in her ships, stood Carthage long, What peace can be, where both to one pretend? (But they more diligent, and we more strong) Or if a peace, it soon must have an end; For they would grow too powerful were it long Behold two nations, then, engag'd so far, That each seven years the fitmust shake each land Where France will side to weaken us by war, Who only can his vast designs withstand. See how he feeds th' Iberian with delays, To render us his timely friendship vain : And while his secret soul on Flanders preys, He rocks the cradle of the babe of Spain. Such deep designs of empire does he lay O'er them, whose cause he seems to take in hand And prudently would make them lords at sea, To whom with ease he can give laws by land . This saw our king; and long within his breast His generous mind the fair ideas drew Of fame and honor, which in dangers lay; Where wealth, like fruit on precipices, grew Not to be gather'd but by birds of prev And now approach'd their fleet from India, fraught Happy, who never trust a stranger's will, Like hunted castors, conscious of their store, [bring: And Winter brooded on the eastern Spring. Whose friendship's in his interest understood Since money given but tempts him to be ill, When power is too remote to make him good. Till now, alone the mighty nations strove; The rest, at gaze, without the lists did stand; And threatening France, plac'd like a painted Jove Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand. That eunuch guardian of rich Holland's trade, Who envies us what he wants power t'enjoy; Whose noiseful valor does no foe invade, And weak assistance will his friends destroy. Offended that we fought without his leave, He takes this time his secret hate to show: Which Charles does with a mind so calm receive As one that neither seeks nor shuns his foe. With France, to aid the Dutch, the Danes unite: France as their tyrant, Denmark as their slave. But when with one three nations join to fight, They silently confess that one more brave. Lewis had chas'd the English from his shore; Were subjects so but only by their choice, And not from birth did forc'd dominion take, Our prince alone would have the public voice; And all his neighbors' realms would deserts make. He without fear a dangerous war pursues, Which without rashness he began before: As honor made him first the danger choose, So still he makes it good on virtue's score. The doubled charge his subjects' love supplies, Who in that bounty to themselves are kind: So glad Egyptians see their Nilus rise, And in his plenty their abundance find. With equal power he does two chiefs create, Since both had found a greater in their own. Both great in courage, conduct, and in fame, Yet neither envious of the other's praise; The prince long time had courted Fortune's love, The duke beheld, like Scipio, with disdain, That Carthage, which he ruin'd, rise once more; And shook aloft the fasces of the main, To fright those slaves with what they felt before. Together to the watery camp they haste, Whom matrons passing to their children show: Infants' first vows for them to Heaven are cast, And future people bless them as they go. With them no riotous pomp, nor Asian train, Diffusive of themselves, where'er they pass, Our fleet divides, and straight the Dutch appear, In number, and a fam'd commander, bold: The narrow seas can scarce their navy bear, Or crowded vessels can their soldiers hold. The duke, less numerous, but in courage more. Both furl their sails, and strip them for the fight; Borne each by other in a distant line, The sea-built forts in dreadful order move: So vast the noise, as if not fleets did join, But lands unfix'd, and floating nations strove. Now pass'd, on either side they nimbly tack; Both strive to intercept and guide the wind: And, in its eye, morc c'csely they come back, To finish all the deaths they left behind On high-rais'd decks the haughty Belgians ride, And as the built, so different is the fight Their mounting shot is on our sails design'd; Deep in their hulls our deadly bullets light, And through the yielding planks a passage find Our dreaded admiral from far they threat, Whose batter'd rigging their whole war receives All bare, like some old oak which tempests beat, He stands, and sees below his scatter'd leaves Heroes of old, when wounded, shelter sought; But he who meets all danger with disdain, Ev'n in their face his ship to anchor brought, And steeple-high stood propt upon the main. At this excess of courage, all amaz'd, The foremost of his foes awhile withdraw: With such respect in enter'd Rome they gaz'd, Who on high chairs the godlike fathers saw. And now, as where Patroclus' body lay, Here Trojan chiefs advanc'd, and there the Greek Ours o'er the duke their pious wings display, And theirs the noblest spoils of Britain seek. Meantime his busy mariners he hastes, His shatter'd sails with rigging to restore; And willing pines ascend his broken masts, Whose lofty heads rise higher than before. Straight to the Dutch he turns his dreadful prow More fierce th' important quarrel to decide: Like swans, in long array his vessels show, Whose crests advancing do the waves divide. They charge, recharge, and all along the sca Did a like fate with lost Creusa meet |