Kitabı oku: «The Works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 18», sayfa 13

No. XIII.
VERSES
IN PRAISE OF MR DRYDEN

To Mr Dryden, by Jo. Addison, Esq

 
How long, great poet, shall thy sacred lays
Provoke our wonder, and transcend our praise!
Can neither injuries of time, or age,
Damp thy poetic heat, and quench thy rage?
Not so thy Ovid in his exile wrote;
Grief chilled his breast, and checked his rising thought;
Pensive and sad, his drooping muse betrays
The Roman genius in its last decays.
Prevailing warmth has still thy mind possest,
And second youth is kindled in thy breast.
Thou mak’st the beauties of the Romans known,
And England boasts of riches not her own:
Thy lines have heightened Virgil’s majesty,
And Horace wonders at himself in thee.
Thou teachest Persius to inform our isle
In smoother numbers, and a clearer style:
And Juvenal, instructed in thy page,
Edges his satire, and improves his rage.
Thy copy casts a fairer light on all,
And still outshines the bright original.
Now Ovid boasts the advantage of thy song,
And tells his story in the British tongue;
Thy charming verse, and fair translations show
How thy own laurel first began to grow;
How wild Lycaon, changed by angry Gods,
And frighted at himself, ran howling through the woods.
O may’st thou still the noble tale prolong,
Nor age, nor sickness interrupt thy song!
Then may we wond’ring read, how human limbs
Have watered kingdoms, and dissolved in streams,
Of those rich fruits that on the fertile mould
Turned yellow by degrees, and ripened into gold:
How some in feathers, or a ragged hide,
Have lived a second life, and different natures tried
Then will thy Ovid, thus transformed, reveal
A nobler change than he himself can tell.
 

Mag. Coll. Oxon. June 2, 1693.

The Confederates, or the First Happy Day of the Island Princess

 
Ye vile traducers of the female kind,
Who think the fair to cruelty inclined,
Recant your error, and with shame confess
Their tender care of Skipwith²⁰⁶ in distress:
For now to vindicate this monarch’s right,
The Scotch and English equal charms unite;
In solemn leagues contending nations join,
And Britain labours with the vast design.
An opera with loud applause is played,
Which famed Motteux in soft heroics made;
And all the sworn Confederates resort,
To view the triumph of their sovereign’s court.
In bright array the well-trained host appears;
Supreme command brave Derwentwater²⁰⁷ bears;
And next in front George Howard’s bride²⁰⁸ does shine,
The living honour of that ancient line.
The wings are led by chiefs of matchless worth;
Great Hamilton,²⁰⁹ the glory of the North,
Commands the left; and England’s dear delight,
The bold Fitzwalter²¹⁰ charges on the right.
The Prince, to welcome his propitious friends,
A throne erected on the stage ascends.
He said: – Blest angels! for great ends designed,
The best, and sure the fairest, of your kind,
How shall I praise, or in what numbers sing
Your just compassion of an injured king?
Till you appeared, no prospect did remain,
My crown and falling sceptre to maintain;
No noisy beaus in all my realm were found;
No beauteous nymphs my empty boxes crowned:
But still I saw, O dire heart-breaking woe!
My own sad consort²¹¹ in the foremost row.
But this auspicious day new empire gives;
And if by your support my nation lives,
For you my bards shall tune the sweetest lays,
Norton²¹² and Henley²¹³ shall resound your praise;
And I, not last of the harmonious train,
Will give a loose to my poetic vein.
To him great Derwentwater thus replied: —
Thou mighty prince, in many dangers tried,
Born to dispute severe decrees of fate,
The nursing-father of a sickly state;
Behold the pillars of thy lawful reign!
Thy regal rights we promise to maintain:
Our brightest nymphs shall thy dominions grace,
With all the beauties of the Highland race;
The beaus shall make thee their peculiar care,
For beaus will always wait upon the fair:
For thee kind Beereton and bold Webbe shall fight,²¹⁴
Lord Scott²¹⁵ shall ogle, and my spouse shall write:²¹⁶
Thus shall thy court our English youth engross,
And all the Scotch, from Drummond down to Ross.
Now in his throne the king securely sat;
But O! this change alarmed the rival state;
Besides he lately bribed, in breach of laws,
The fair deserter of her uncle’s cause.
This roused the monarch of the neighbouring crown,
A drowsy prince, too careless of renown.²¹⁷
Yet prompt to vengeance, and untaught to yield,
Great Scarsdale²¹⁸ challenged Skipwith to the field.
Whole shoals of poets for this chief declare,
And vassal players attend him to the war.
Skipwith with joy the dreadful summons took,
And brought an equal force; then Scarsdale spoke; —
Thou bane of empire, foe to human kind,
Whom neither leagues nor laws of nations bind;
For cares of high poetic sway unfit,
Thou shame of learning, and reproach of wit;
Restore bright Helen to my longing sight,
Or now my signal shall begin the fight. —
Hold, said the foe, thy warlike host remove,
Nor let our bards the chance of battle prove:
Should death deprive us of their shining parts,
What would become of all the liberal arts?
Should Dennis fall, whose high majestic wit,
And awful judgment, like two tallies, fit,
Adieu, strong odes, and every lofty strain,
The tragic rant, and proud Pindaric vein.
Should tuneful D’Urfey now resign his breath,
The lyric Muse would scarce survive his death;
But should divine Motteux untimely die,
The gasping Nine would in convulsions lie:
For these bold champions safer arms provide,
And let their pens the double strife decide.
The king consents; and urged by public good,
Wisely retreats to save his people’s blood:
The moving legions leave the dusty plain,
And safe at home poetic wars maintain.