The Poetical Works of John Dryden Volume I Part 4

Your cavalcade the fair spectators view, From their high standings, yet look up to you.

From your brave train each singles out a prey, And longs to date a conquest from your day. 40 Now charged with blessings while you seek repose, Officious slumbers haste your eyes to close; And glorious dreams stand ready to restore The pleasing shapes of all you saw before.

Next to the sacred temple you are led, Where waits a crown for your more sacred head: How justly from the church that crown is due, Preserved from ruin, and restored by you!

The grateful choir their harmony employ, Not to make greater, but more solemn joy. 50 Wrapt soft and warm your name is sent on high, As flames do on the wings of incense fly: Music herself is lost; in vain she brings Her choicest notes to praise the best of kings: Her melting strains in you a tomb have found, And lie like bees in their own sweetness drown'd.

He that brought peace, all discord could atone, His name is music of itself alone.

Now while the sacred oil anoints your head, And fragrant scents, begun from you, are spread 60 Through the large dome; the people's joyful sound, Sent back, is still preserved in hallow'd ground; Which in one blessing mix'd descends on you; As heighten'd spirits fall in richer dew.

Not that our wishes do increase your store, Full of yourself, you can admit no more: We add not to your glory, but employ Our time, like angels, in expressing joy.

Nor is it duty, or our hopes alone, Create that joy, but full fruition: 70 We know those blessings, which we must possess, And judge of future by past happiness.

No promise can oblige a prince so much Still to be good, as long to have been such.

A n.o.ble emulation heats your breast, And your own fame now robs you of your rest.

Good actions still must be maintain'd with good, As bodies nourish'd with resembling food.

You have already quench'd sedition's brand; And zeal, which burnt it, only warms the land. 80 The jealous sects, that dare not trust their cause So far from their own will as to the laws, You for their umpire and their synod take, And their appeal alone to Caesar make.

Kind Heaven so rare a temper did provide, That guilt, repenting, might in it confide.

Among our crimes oblivion may be set; But 'tis our king's perfection to forget.

Virtues unknown to these rough northern climes From milder heavens you bring, without their crimes. 90 Your calmness does no after-storms provide, Nor seeming patience mortal anger hide.

When empire first from families did spring, Then every father govern'd as a king: But you, that are a sovereign prince, allay Imperial power with your paternal sway.

From those great cares when ease your soul unbends, Your pleasures are design'd to n.o.ble ends: Born to command the mistress of the seas, Your thoughts themselves in that blue empire please. 100 Hither in summer evenings you repair To taste the _fraicheur_ of the purer air: Undaunted here you ride, when winter raves, With Caesar's heart that rose above the waves.

More I could sing, but fear my numbers stays; No loyal subject dares that courage praise.

In stately frigates most delight you find, Where well-drawn battles fire your martial mind.

What to your cares we owe, is learnt from hence, When even your pleasures serve for our defence. 110 Beyond your court flows in th' admitted tide, Where in new depths the wondering fishes glide: Here in a royal bed[30] the waters sleep; When tired at sea, within this bay they creep.

Here the mistrustful fowl no harm suspects, So safe are all things which our king protects.

From your loved Thames a blessing yet is due, Second alone to that it brought in you; A queen, near whose chaste womb, ordain'd by fate, The souls of kings unborn for bodies wait. 120 It was your love before made discord cease: Your love is destined to your country's peace.

Both Indies, rivals in your bed, provide With gold or jewels to adorn your bride.

This to a mighty king presents rich ore, While that with incense does a G.o.d implore.

Two kingdoms wait your doom, and, as you choose, This must receive a crown, or that must lose.

Thus from your royal oak, like Jove's of old, Are answers sought, and destinies foretold: 130 Propitious oracles are begg'd with vows, And crowns that grow upon the sacred boughs.

Your subjects, while you weigh the nation's fate, Suspend to both their doubtful love or hate: Choose only, Sir, that so they may possess, With their own peace their children's happiness.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 30: 'Royal bed:' the river led from the Thames through St James' Park.]

TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR HYDE.[31]

PRESENTED ON NEW YEAR'S DAY, 1662.

My Lord, While flattering crowds officiously appear To give themselves, not you, a happy year; And by the greatness of their presents prove How much they hope, but not how well they love; The Muses, who your early courts.h.i.+p boast, Though now your flames are with their beauty lost, Yet watch their time, that, if you have forgot They were your mistresses, the world may not: Decay'd by time and wars, they only prove Their former beauty by your former love; 10 And now present, as ancient ladies do, That, courted long, at length are forced to woo.

For still they look on you with such kind eyes, As those that see the church's sovereign rise; From their own order chose, in whose high state, They think themselves the second choice of fate.

When our great monarch into exile went, Wit and religion suffer'd banishment.

Thus once, when Troy was wrapp'd in fire and smoke, The helpless G.o.ds their burning shrines forsook; 20 They with the vanquish'd prince and party go, And leave their temples empty to the foe.

At length the Muses stand, restored again To that great charge which Nature did ordain; And their loved Druids seem revived by fate, While you dispense the laws, and guide the state.

The nation's soul, our monarch, does dispense, Through you, to us his vital influence: You are the channel where those spirits flow, And work them higher, as to us they go. 30

In open prospect nothing bounds our eye, Until the earth seems join'd unto the sky: So, in this hemisphere, our utmost view Is only bounded by our king and you: Our sight is limited where you are join'd, And beyond that no farther heaven can find.

So well your virtues do with his agree, That, though your orbs of different greatness be, Yet both are for each other's use disposed, His to enclose, and yours to be enclosed. 40 Nor could another in your room have been, Except an emptiness had come between.

Well may he then to you his cares impart, And share his burden where he shares his heart.

In you his sleep still wakes; his pleasures find Their share of business in your labouring mind.

So when the weary sun his place resigns, He leaves his light, and by reflection s.h.i.+nes.

Justice, that sits and frowns where public laws Exclude soft mercy from a private cause, 50 In your tribunal most herself does please; There only smiles because she lives at ease; And, like young David, finds her strength the more, When disenc.u.mber'd from those arms she wore.

Heaven would our royal master should exceed Most in that virtue which we most did need; And his mild father (who too late did find All mercy vain but what with power was join'd) His fatal goodness left to fitter times, Not to increase, but to absolve, our crimes: 60 But when the heir of this vast treasure knew How large a legacy was left to you (Too great for any subject to retain), He wisely tied it to the crown again: Yet, pa.s.sing through your hands, it gathers more, As streams, through mines, bear tincture of their ore.

While empiric politicians use deceit, Hide what they give, and cure but by a cheat; You boldly show that skill which they pretend, And work by means as n.o.ble as your end: 70 Which should you veil, we might unwind the clew, As men do nature, till we came to you.

And as the Indies were not found, before Those rich perfumes, which, from the happy sh.o.r.e, The winds upon their balmy wings convey'd, Whose guilty sweetness first their world betray'd; So by your counsels we are brought to view A rich and undiscover'd world in you.

By you our monarch does that fame a.s.sure, Which kings must have, or cannot live secure: 80 For prosperous princes gain their subjects' heart, Who love that praise in which themselves have part.

By you he fits those subjects to obey, As heaven's eternal Monarch does convey His power unseen, and man to his designs, By his bright ministers the stars, inclines.

Our setting sun, from his declining seat, Shot beams of kindness on you, not of heat: And, when his love was bounded in a few That were unhappy that they might be true, 90 Made you the favourite of his last sad times, That is a sufferer in his subjects' crimes: Thus those first favours you received, were sent, Like heaven's rewards in earthly punishment.

Yet fortune, conscious of your destiny, Even then took care to lay you softly by; And wrapp'd your fate among her precious things, Kept fresh to be unfolded with your king's.

Shown all at once, you dazzled so our eyes, As new born Pallas did the G.o.ds surprise, 100 When, springing forth from Jove's new-closing wound, She struck the warlike spear into the ground; Which sprouting leaves did suddenly enclose, And peaceful olives shaded as they rose.

How strangely active are the arts of peace, Whose restless motions less than war's do cease!

Peace is not freed from labour but from noise; And war more force, but not more pains employs; Such is the mighty swiftness of your mind, That, like the earth, it leaves our sense behind; 110 While you so smoothly turn and roll our sphere, That rapid motion does but rest appear.

For, as in nature's swiftness, with the throng Of flying orbs while ours is borne along, All seems at rest to the deluded eye, Moved by the soul of the same harmony,-- So, carried on by your unwearied care, We rest in peace, and yet in motion share.

Let envy then those crimes within you see, From which the happy never must be free; 120 Envy, that does with misery reside, The joy and the revenge of ruin'd pride.

Think it not hard, if at so cheap a rate You can secure the constancy of fate, Whose kindness sent what does their malice seem, By lesser ills the greater to redeem.

Nor can we this weak shower a tempest call, But drops of heat, that in the suns.h.i.+ne fall.

You have already wearied fortune so, She cannot further be your friend or foe; 130 But sits all breathless, and admires to feel A fate so weighty, that it stops her wheel.

In all things else above our humble fate, Your equal mind yet swells not into state, But, like some mountain in those happy isles, Where in perpetual spring young nature smiles, Your greatness shows: no horror to affright, But trees for shade, and flowers to court the sight: Sometimes the hill submits itself a while In small descents, which do its height beguile: 140 And sometimes mounts, but so as billows play, Whose rise not hinders, but makes short our way.

Your brow, which does no fear of thunder know, Sees rolling tempests vainly beat below; And, like Olympus' top, the impression wears Of love and friends.h.i.+p writ in former years.

Yet, unimpair'd with labours, or with time, Your age but seems to a new youth to climb.

Thus heavenly bodies do our time beget, And measure change, but share no part of it. 150 And still it shall without a weight increase, Like this new year, whose motions never cease.

For since the glorious course you have begun Is led by Charles, as that is by the sun, It must both weightless and immortal prove, Because the centre of it is above.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 31: 'Hyde:' the far-famed historian Clarendon.]

SATIRE ON THE DUTCH.[32]

WRITTEN IN THE YEAR 1662.

As needy gallants, in the scrivener's hands, Court the rich knaves that gripe their mortgaged lands; The first fat buck of all the season's sent, And keeper takes no fee in compliment; The dotage of some Englishmen is such, To fawn on those who ruin them--the Dutch.

They shall have all, rather than make a war With those, who of the same religion are.

The Straits, the Guinea-trade, the herrings too; Nay, to keep friends.h.i.+p, they shall pickle you. 10 Some are resolved not to find out the cheat, But, cuckold-like, love them that do the feat.