TO HIS SACRED MAJESTY A PANEGYRIC ON HIS CORONATION [Charles II was crowned on St. George's Day, April 23, 1661. This poem was published in 1661 and reprinted in 1688: see note on Astræa Redux, p. 7, above. There are no significant variant readings. The present edition follows the text of 1661.] IN that wild deluge where the world was drown'd, When life and sin one common tomb had found, The first small prospect of a rising hill With various notes of joy the ark did fill: Yet when that flood in its own depths was drown'd, It left behind it false and slipp'ry ground; And the more solemn pomp was still deferr'd Till new-born nature in fresh looks appear'd. Thus, royal sir, to see you landed here, Was cause enough of triumph for a year; 10 Nor would your care those glorious joys repeat, Till they at once might be secure and great; Till your kind beams by their continued stay Had warm'd the ground, and call'd the damps away. Such vapors, while your pow'rful influence dries, Then soonest vanish when they highest rise. Had greater haste these sacred rights prepar'd, Some guilty months had in your triumphs shar'd; But this untainted year is all your own; Your glories may without our crimes be shown. 20 We had not yet exhausted all our store, When you refresh'd our joys by adding Wrapp'd 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, and discord could atone, His name is music of itself alone. spread 60 Thro' the large dome, the people's joyful sound, Sent back, is still preserv'd in hallow'd ground; Which in one blessing mix'd descends on you, As heighten'd spirits fall in richer dew. 70 And judge of future by past happiness. 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 god 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 nations' fate, Suspend to both their doubtful love or hate: Choose only, sir, that so they may possess With their own peace their children's hap piness. TO MY LORD CHANCELLOR PRESENTED ON NEW YEAR'S DAY [The person addressed in this poem is Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, the greatest statesman of the earlier years of Charles the Second's reign. The poem was published in 1662 and reprinted in 1688: see note on Astræa Redux, p. 7, above. There are only small variations between the two copies; the 1662 text is the basis of the present edition.] 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 heav'n can find. So well your virtues do with his agree, That, tho' your orbs of different greatness be, Yet both are for each other's use dispos'd, His to inclose, and yours to be inclos'd. 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 And work by means as noble as your end; 70 As men do nature, till we came to you. The winds upon their balmy wings con- Whose guilty sweetness first their world betray'd; So by your counsels we are brought to view secure: 80 For prosp'rous princes gain their subjects' heart, Who love that praise in which themselves have part. By you he fits those subjects to obey, 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 fav'rite of his last sad times, Like Heav'n's rewards, in earthly punish ment. Yet Fortune, conscious of your destiny, 101 She struck the warlike spear into the Which sprouting leaves did suddenly in- And peaceful olives shaded as they rose. peace, Whose restless motions less than war's do cease! Peace is not freed from labor, but from noise; And war more force, but not more pains employs: Such is the mighty swiftness of your mind, That, like the earth's, it leaves our sense behind, 110 While you so smoothly turn and roll our sphere, That rapid motion does but rest appear. Of flying orbs while ours is borne along, But drops of heat, that in the sunshine fall. Where in perpetual spring young nature Your greatness shows: no horror to affright, But trees for shade, and flow'rs to court the Sometimes the hill submits itself a while guile; 140 [Dryden's career as a dramatist began with the production of The Wild Gallant early in 1663. From that time until the publication of Absalom and Achitophel in November, 1681, his work, with the relatively unimportant exceptions of Annus Mirabilis (1666), the translations from Ovid's Epistles (1680), and possibly a few songs, was exclusively concerned with the theater; and hence, since the text of the dramas is excluded from this volume, can be here represented only in the scantiest manner.] TO MY HONOR'D FRIEND, DR. CHARLETON OF ON HIS LEARNED AND USEFUL WORKS; AND MORE PARTICULARLY THIS STONEHENGE, BY HIM RESTOR'D TO THE TRUE FOUNDERS [This epistle is prefixed to Chorea Gigantum; or, The Most Famous Antiquity of Great Britain, vulgarly called Stoneheng, standing on Salisbury Plain, restored to the Danes: by Walter Charleton, Dr. in Physic, and Physician in Ordinary to His Majesty. London, 1663. Dryden's poem follows another epistle by Sir Robert Howard. Charleton, who was a man of mark both as physician and author, here presents an argument against the architect Inigo Jones. His summaries of his adversary's theory, and of his own, are as follows: : "Mr. Jones his opinion, then, of the founders, antiquity, and design of Stonehenge, is that it was a work of the Romans, built by them when they flourished here in greatest peace and prosperity.. not as a sepulchral monument, but as a temple, and particularly consecrated to the imaginary deity of Cœlus, or Cœlum, from whence their superstitious belief derived the original of all things." (P. 17.) "I am apt to believe that having then overrun the whole kingdom, except only Somersetshire, and encamping their main army in Wiltshire, for near upon two years together, and setting up their rest in a confidence to perpetuate their newly acquired power; they [the Danes] imployed themselves, during that time of leisure and jollity, in erecting Stonehenge, as a place wherein to elect and inaugurate their supreme commander King of England." (P. 64.) The censor's imprimatur in Charleton's volume is dated 11 Sept. 1662, and the book was probably published before the close of that year, though dated in the following. Of this edition two issues are known, one of them lacking the above imprimatur. There are a few variant readings in Dryden's epistle as printed in the two issues; the text below is that of the issue without the imprimatur, which is probably the later. A reprint in Poetical Miscellanies, the Fifth Part, 1704, introduces further variants, which may possibly be due to Dryden himself. The poem is principally important as showing Dryden's early enthusiasm for natural science.] |