The Works of the English Poets: Dryden

Front Cover

From inside the book

Selected pages

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 143 - A man so various that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome : Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts and nothing long; But in the course of one revolving moon Was chymist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon ; Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Page 131 - Refuse his age the needful hours of rest? Punish a body which he could not please ; Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease ? And all to leave what with his toil he won, To that unfeather'd two-legg'd thing, a son ; Got, while his soul did huddled notions try ; And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
Page 127 - An idol monarch, which their hands had made ; Thought they might ruin him they could create, Or melt him to that golden calf, a state.
Page 256 - Which each presum'd he best could understand, The common rule was made the common prey ; And at the mercy of the rabble lay. The tender page with...
Page 178 - Hast shamefully defied the Lord's anointed. I will not rake the dunghill of thy crimes, For who would read thy life that reads thy rhymes ? But of King David's foes, be this the doom, May all be like the young man Absalom ; And, for my foes, may this their blessing be, To talk like Doeg, and to write like thee...
Page 131 - Oh ! had he been content to serve the crown With virtues only proper to the gown, Or had the rankness of the soil been freed From cockle that oppressed the noble seed, David for him his tuneful harp had strung And Heaven had wanted one immortal song.
Page 7 - Jove Now burns with glory, and then melts with love; Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow, Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow: Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found.
Page 28 - Behold th' approaching cliffs of Albion : It is no longer motion cheats your view, As you meet it, the land approacheth you. The land returns, and, in the white it wears, The marks of penitence and sorrow bears.
Page 152 - If ancient fabrics nod and threat to fall, To patch the flaws and buttress up the wall, Thus far 'tis duty : but here fix the mark ; For all beyond it is to touch our ark. To change foundations, cast the frame anew, Is work for rebels who base ends pursue, At once divine and human laws control, And mend the parts by ruin of the whole.
Page 127 - Of men, by laws less circumscribed and bound ; They led their wild desires to woods and caves, And thought that all but savages were slaves.

Bibliographic information