Songs In Albion And Albanius.

I.

    Cease, Augusta! cease thy mourning,
        Happy days appear,
    Godlike Albion is returning,
        Loyal hearts to cheer!
    Every grace his youth adorning,
    Glorious as the star of morning,
        Or the planet of the year.

II.

    Albion, by the nymph attended,
    Was to Neptune recommended,
        Peace and plenty spread the sails:
    Venus, in her shell before him,
    From the sands in safety bore him,
        And supplied Etesian gales.
    Archon on the shore commanding,
    Lowly met him at his landing,
        Crowds of people swarm'd around;
    Welcome, rang like peals of thunder,
    Welcome, rent the skies asunder,
        Welcome, heaven and earth resound.

III.

    Infernal offspring of the Night,
    Debarr'd of heaven your native right,
    And from the glorious fields of light,
    Condemn'd in shades to drag the chain,
    And fill with groans the gloomy plain;
    Since pleasures here are none below,
    Be ill our good, our joy be woe;
    Our work t' embroil the worlds above,
    Disturb their union, disunite their love,
    And blast the beauteous frame of our victorious foe.

IV.

    See the god of seas attends thee,
    Nymphs divine, a beauteous train:
    All the calmer gales befriend thee
    In thy passage o'er the main:
    Every maid her locks is binding,
    Every Triton's horn is winding,
    Welcome to the watery plain.

V.

    Albion, loved of gods and men,
    Prince of Peace too mildly reigning,
    Cease thy sorrow and complaining,
    Thou shalt be restored again:
    Albion, loved of gods and men.

    Still thou art the care of heaven,
    In thy youth to exile driven:
    Heaven thy ruin then prevented,
    Till the guilty land repented:
    In thy age, when none could aid thee,
    Foes conspired, and friends betray'd thee.
    To the brink of danger driven,
    Still thou art the care of heaven.

John Dryden

John Dryden was an influential English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who was made England’s first Poet Laureate in 1668. His work dominated the literary life of Restoration England and he is seen as a major figure in the literary history of the period. Dryden's notable works include the satirical poem 'Absalom and Achitophel' and the mock-heroic 'Mac Flecknoe.'

John Dryden

Prologue To "Don Sebastian." Spoken By A Woman.

John Dryden, Simple Poetry

Epilogue To "Albion And Albanius."

John Dryden, Simple Poetry

To Her Grace The Duchess Of Ormond,[1]

John Dryden, Simple Poetry

Song Of The Sea-Fight, In Amboyna.

John Dryden, Simple Poetry

English

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Songs In King Arthur.

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;
    Come, if you dare, the foes rebound:
    We come, we come, we come, we come,
    Says the double, double, double beat of the thundering drum.
        Now they charge on amain,
        Now they rally again:
    The gods from above the mad labour behold,
    And pity mankind, that will perish for gold.
    The fainting Saxons quit their ground,
    Their trumpets languish in the sound:
    They fly, they fly, they fly, they fly;
    Victoria, Victoria, the bold Britons cry.
        Now the victory's wo...

John Dryden

On Leaving Holland

I


Farewell to Leyden's lonely bound,
The Belgian Muse's sober seat;
Where dealing frugal gifts around
To all the favorites at her feet,
She trains the body's bulky frame
For passive, persevering toils;
And lest, from any prouder aim,
The daring mind should scorn her homely spoils,
She breathes maternal fogs to damp its restless flame.


Farewell the grave, pacific air,
Where never mountain zephyr blew:
The marshy levels lank and bare,
Which Pan, which Ceres never knew:
The Naiads, with obscene attire,
Urging in vain their urns to flow;
While round them chaunt the croking choir,
And haply sooth some lover's prudent woe,
Or prompt some restive bard and modulate his lyre.


Farewell, ye nymphs, whom sober care of gai...

Mark Akenside

Elegy I To Charles Diodati.1

At length, my friend, the far-sent letters come,
Charged with thy kindness, to their destin'd home,
They come, at length, from Deva's² Western side,
Where prone she seeks the salt Vergivian tide.³
Trust me, my joy is great that thou shouldst be,
Though born of foreign race, yet born for me,
And that my sprightly friend, now free to roam,
Must seek again so soon his wonted home.
I well content, where Thames with refluent tide
My native city laves, meantime reside,
Nor zeal nor duty, now, my steps impell
To reedy Cam,⁴ and my forbidden cell.⁵
Nor aught of pleasure in those fields have I,
That, to the musing bard, all shade deny.
Tis time, that I, a pedant's threats⁶ disdain,
And fly from wrongs, my soul will ne'e...

John Milton

To Her Grace The Duchess Of Ormond,[1]

WITH THE FOLLOWING POEM OF PALAMON AND ARCITE.


    MADAM,

    The bard who first adorn'd our native tongue,
    Tuned to his British lyre this ancient song:
    Which Homer might without a blush rehearse,
    And leaves a doubtful palm in Virgil's verse:
    He match'd their beauties, where they most excel;
    Of love sung better, and of arms as well.

        Vouchsafe, illustrious Ormond! to behold
    What power the charms of beauty had of old;
    Nor wonder if such deeds of arms were done,
    Inspired by two fair eyes that sparkled like your own.

        If Chaucer by the best idea wrought,
    And poets can divine each other's thought,
    The fairest nymph before his eyes he set;
    And then the fairest was Plantagenet;
 ...

John Dryden

Cadland,[1] Southampton River.

If ever sea-maid, from her coral cave,
Beneath the hum of the great surge, has loved
To pass delighted from her green abode,
And, seated on a summer bank, to sing
No earthly music; in a spot like this,
The bard might feign he heard her, as she dried
Her golden hair, yet dripping from the main,
In the slant sunbeam.
So the pensive bard
Might image, warmed by this enchanting scene,
The ideal form; but though such things are not,
He who has ever felt a thought refined;
He who has wandered on the sea of life,
Forming delightful visions of a home
Of beauty and repose; he who has loved,
With filial warmth his country, will not pass
Without a look of more than tenderness
On all the scene; from where the pensile birch
Bends on the bank, amid the clustered gr...

William Lisle Bowles

Ode to Liberty

(STROPHE)

Who shall awake the Spartan fife,
And call in solemn sounds to life
The youths, whose locks divinely spreading,
Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue,
At once the breath of Fear and Virtue shedding,
Applauding Freedom lov'd of old to view?
What new Alcæus, fancy-blest,
Shall sing the sword, in myrtles drest,
At Wisdom's shrine a-while its flame concealing,
(What place so fit to seal a deed renown'd?)
Till she her brightest lightnings round revealing,
It leap'd in glory forth, and dealt her prompted wound!
O Goddess, in that feeling hour,
When most its sounds would court thy ears,
Let not my shell's misguided pow'r,
E'er draw thy sad, thy mindful tears.
No, Freedom, no, I will not tell,
How Rome, before thy weeping face,
With heavie...

William Collins