Works

TO THE READER.
...

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;...

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:...

PROLOGUE

What flocks of critics hover here to-day,
As vultures wait on armies for their prey,
All gaping for the carcase of a play!
With croaking notes they bode some dire event,...

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....

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!
Philosophers and poets vainly strove...

The Year Of Wonders, 1666.

An Historical Poem.



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

...

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...

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,...

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...

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:
Preventing angels met it half the way,...

A Panegyrical Poem, Dedicated To The Memory Of The Late Countess Of Abingdon.

To The Right Honourable The Earl Of Abingdon, &C.
...

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....

As Jupiter I made my court in vain;
I'll now assume my native shape again.
I'm weary to be so unkindly used,
And would not be a god to be refused.
State grows uneasy when it hinders love;...

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
He sought for quiet, and content of mind;...

(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,...

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:
But the last heat, Plain Dealing won the race:...

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....

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....