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.'

August 9, 1631

May 1, 1700

English

John Dryden

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A Letter To Sir George Etherege.[1]

    To you who live in chill degree,
    As map informs, of fifty-three,
    And do not much for cold atone,
    By bringing thither fifty-one,
    Methinks all climes should be alike,
    From tropic e'en to pole arctique;
    Since you have such a constitution
    As nowhere suffers diminution.
    You can be old in grave debate,
    And young in love-affairs of state;
    And both to wives and husbands show
    The vigour of a plenipo.
    Like mighty missioner you come

    "Ad Partes Infidelium."
    A work of wondrous merit sure,
    So far to go, so much t' endure;
    And all to preach to German dame,
    Where sound of Cupid never came.
    Less had you done, had you been sent
    As far as Drake or Pinto went,
    For cloves ...

John Dryden

A Song For St Cecilia's Day,[1] 1687.

FROM harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began:
When nature underneath a heap
Of jarring atoms lay,
And could not heave her head,
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
Arise, ye more than dead.
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And Music's power obey.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony
This universal frame began:
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it rail,
The diapason closing full in Man.

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
When Jubal struck the chorded shell,
His listening brethren stood around,
And, wondering, on their faces fell
To worship that celestial sound.
Less than a God they thought there could not dwell
Within the hollow of that ...

John Dryden

A Song To A Fair Young Lady, Going Out Of Town In The Spring.

        Ask not the cause, why sullen Spring
            So long delays her flowers to bear;
        Why warbling birds forget to sing,
            And winter storms invert the year:
        Chloris is gone, and fate provides
        To make it Spring, where she resides.

        Chloris is gone, the cruel fair;
            She cast not back a pitying eye;
        But left her lover in despair,
            To sigh, to languish, and to die:
        Ah, how can those fair eyes endure
        To give the wounds they will not cure?

        Great God of love, why hast thou made
            A face that can all hearts command,
        That all religions can evade,
            And change the laws of every land?
        Where thou hadst placed such power bef...

John Dryden

A Song.

    High state and honours to others impart,
        But give me your heart:
    That treasure, that treasure alone,
        I beg for my own.

    So gentle a love, so fervent a fire,
        My soul does inspire;
    That treasure, that treasure alone,
        I beg for my own.
    Your love let me crave;
            Give me in possessing
        So matchless a blessing;
    That empire is all I would have.
            Love's my petition,
                All my ambition;
            If e'er you discover
            So faithful a lover,
            So real a flame,
            I'll die, I'll die,
            So give up my game.

John Dryden

A Song.

        Go tell Amynta, gentle swain,
        I would not die, nor dare complain:
        Thy tuneful voice with numbers join,
        Thy words will more prevail than mine.
        To souls oppress'd and dumb with grief,
        The gods ordain this kind relief;
        That music should in sounds convey,
        What dying lovers dare not say.

        A sigh or tear perhaps she'll give,
        But love on pity cannot live.
        Tell her that hearts for hearts were made,
        And love with love is only paid.
        Tell her my pains so fast increase,
        That soon they will be past redress;
        But ah! the wretch that speechless lies,
        Attends but death to close his eyes.

John Dryden

A Song.

        Fair, sweet, and young, receive a prize
        Reserved for your victorious eyes:
        From crowds, whom at your feet you see,
        O pity, and distinguish me!
        As I from thousand beauties more
        Distinguish you, and only you adore.

        Your face for conquest was design'd,
        Your every motion charms my mind;
        Angels, when you your silence break,
        Forget their hymns, to hear you speak;
        But when at once they hear and view,
        Are loth to mount, and long to stay with you.

        No graces can your form improve,
        But all are lost, unless you love;
        While that sweet passion you disdain,
        Your veil and beauty are in vain:
        In pity then prevent my fate,
    ...

John Dryden

Alexander's Feast; Or, The Power Of Music.

AN ODE, IN HONOUR OF ST CECILIA'S DAY.


    'Twas at the royal feast, for Persia won
    By Philip's warlike son:
    Aloft in awful state
    The godlike hero sate
    On his imperial throne:
    His valiant peers were placed around;
    Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound
    (So should desert in arms be crown'd).
    The lovely Thais, by his side,
    Sate like a blooming Eastern bride
    In flower of youth and beauty's pride.
    Happy, happy, happy pair!
    None but the brave,
    None but the brave,
    None but the brave deserves the fair.

    CHORUS.

    Happy, happy, happy pair!
    None but the brave,
    None but the brave,
    None but the brave deserves the fair.

    Timotheus, plac...

John Dryden

An Epilogue.

    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,
    You think no woman true, but in a play.
    Love once did make a pretty kind of show:
    Esteem and kindness in one breast would grow:
    But 'twas Heaven knows how many years ago.
    Now some small chat, and guinea expectation,
    Gets all the pretty creatures in the nation:
    In comedy your little selves you meet;
    'Tis Covent Garden drawn in Bridges Street.
    Smile on our author then, if he has shown
    A jolly nut-brown bastard of your own.
    Ah! happy you, with ease and with delight,
    Who act those follies, Poets toil to write!
    The sweating Muse does almost leave the chase;
    She pu...

John Dryden

Epilogue For "The King's House."[1]

    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;
    For never men lived more on Providence.
    Not lottery cavaliers are half so poor,
    Nor broken cits, nor a vacation whore;
    Not courts, nor courtiers living on the rents
    Of the three last ungiving parliaments:
    So wretched, that, if Pharaoh could divine,
    He might have spared his dream of seven lean kine,
    And changed his vision for the Muses Nine.
    The comet that, they say, portends a dearth,
    Was but a vapour drawn from play-house earth:
    Pent there since our last fire, and, Lilly says,
    Foreshows our change of state, and thin third-days.
    'Tis not our want of wit that keeps us...

John Dryden

Epilogue To "Albion And Albanius."

    After our Æsop's fable shown to-day,
    I come to give the moral of the play.
    Feign'd Zeal, you saw, set out the speedier pace:
    But the last heat, Plain Dealing won the race:
    Plain Dealing for a jewel has been known;
    But ne'er till now the jewel of a crown.
    When Heaven made man, to show the work divine,
    Truth was His image stamp'd upon the coin:
    And when a king is to a god refined,
    On all he says and does he stamps his mind:
    This proves a soul without alloy, and pure;
    Kings, like their gold, should every touch endure.
    To dare in fields is valour; but how few
    Dare be so thoroughly valiant,--to be true!
    The name of great let other kings affect:
    He's great indeed, the prince that is direct.
    His subj...

John Dryden

Epilogue To "All For Love."

    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;
    And this is all their equipage of wit.
    We wonder how the devil this difference grows,
    Betwixt our fools in verse, and yours in prose:
    For, 'faith, the quarrel rightly understood,
    'Tis civil war with their own flesh and blood.
    The threadbare author hates the gaudy coat;
    And swears at the gilt coach, but swears afoot:
    For 'tis observed of every scribbling man,
    He grows a fop as fast as e'er he can;
    Prunes up, and asks his oracle, the glass,
    If pink and purple best become his face.
    For our poor wretch, he neither rails nor prays;
    Nor likes your wit, just as you like ...

John Dryden

Epilogue To "Mithridates, King Of Pontus;" By Nathan Lee, 1678.

    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.
    For, heaven be thank'd, we live in such an age,
    When no man dies for love, but on the stage:
    And even those martyrs are but rare in plays;
    A cursed sign how much true faith decays.
    Love is no more a violent desire;
    'Tis a mere metaphor, a painted fire.
    In all our sex, the name examined well,
    Tis pride to gain, and vanity to tell.
    In woman, 'tis of subtle interest made:
    Curse on the punk that made it first a trade!
    She first did wit's prerogative remove,
    And made a fool presume to prate of love.
    Let honour and preferment go for gold;
    But glorious beauty is not to be ...

John Dryden

Epilogue To "Oedipus."

    What Sophocles could undertake alone,
    Our poets found a work for more than one;
    And therefore two lay tugging at the piece,
    With all their force, to draw the ponderous mass from Greece;
    A weight that bent e'en Seneca's strong Muse,
    And which Corneille's shoulders did refuse:
    So hard it is the Athenian harp to string!
    So much two consuls yield to one just king!
    Terror and pity this whole poem sway;
    The mightiest machines that can mount a play.
    How heavy will those vulgar souls be found,
    Whom two such engines cannot move from ground!
    When Greece and Rome have smiled upon this birth,
    You can but damn for one poor spot of earth:
    And when your children find your judgment such,
    They'll scorn their sires, and...

John Dryden

Epilogue To "The Husband His Own Cuckold." By Mr John Dryden, Jun., 1696.[1]

    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,
    And wonders how the devil he durst come there;
    Wanting three talents needful for the place--
    Some beard, some learning, and some little grace.
    Nor is the puny Poet void of care;
    For authors, such as our new authors are,
    Have not much learning, nor much wit to spare:
    And as for grace, to tell the truth, there's scarce one
    But has as little as the very Parson:
    Both say, they preach and write for your instruction:
    But 'tis for a third day, and for induction.
    The difference is, that though you like the play,
    The Poet's gain is ne'er beyond his day.
    But with the Parson 'tis a...

John Dryden

Epilogue To "The Man Of Mode; Or, Sir Fopling Flutter;" By Sir George Etherege, 1676.

    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;
    But there goes more to a substantial ass:
    Something of man must be exposed to view,
    That, gallants, they may more resemble you.
    Sir Fopling is a fool so nicely writ,
    The ladies would mistake him for a wit;
    And, when he sings, talks loud, and cocks, would cry,
    I vow, methinks, he's pretty company:
    So brisk, so gay, so travell'd, so refined,
    As he took pains to graff upon his kind.
    True fops help nature's work, and go to school
    To file and finish God Almighty's fool.
    Yet none Sir Fopling him, or him can call;
    He's knight o' the shire, and represents ye all.
...

John Dryden

Epilogue To "The Pilgrim."

    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
    Received the first infection from the stage.
    But sure, a banish'd court, with lewdness fraught,
    The seeds of open vice, returning, brought.
    Thus lodged (as vice by great example thrives)
    It first debauch'd the daughters and the wives.
    London, a fruitful soil, yet never bore
    So plentiful a crop of horns before.
    The poets, who must live by courts, or starve,
    Were proud so good a government to serve:
    And, mixing with buffoons and pimps profane,
    Tainted the stage, for some small snip of gain.
    For they, like harlots under bawds profess'd,
    Took all the ungodly pains, and g...

John Dryden

Epilogue To Amboyna.

    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,
    Showing your tortured fathers in his play.
    To one well born the affront is worse, and more,
    When he's abused and baffled by a boor:
    With an ill grace the Dutch their mischiefs do,
    They've both ill nature and ill manners too.
    Well may they boast themselves an ancient nation,
    For they were bred ere manners were in fashion,
    And their new commonwealth has set them free,
    Only from honour and civility.
    Venetians do not more uncouthly ride,
    Than did their lubber state mankind bestride;
    Their sway became them with as ill a mien,
    As their own paunches swell above their chin:
    Yet is ...

John Dryden

Epilogue To The Indian Emperor, By A Mercury.

    To all and singular in this full meeting,
    Ladies and gallants, Phoebus sends ye greeting.
    To all his sons, by whate'er title known,
    Whether of court, or coffee-house, or town;
    From his most mighty sons, whose confidence
    Is placed in lofty sound, and humble sense,
    Even to his little infants of the time,
    Who write new songs, and trust in tune and rhyme
    Be 't known, that Phoebus (being daily grieved
    To see good plays condemn'd, and bad received)
    Ordains your judgment upon every cause,
    Henceforth, be limited by wholesome laws.
    He first thinks fit no sonnetteer advance
    His censure farther than the song or dance,
    Your wit burlesque may one step higher climb,
    And in his sphere may judge all doggrel rhyme;

John Dryden

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