For Lycidas your sorrow is not dead, Sunk though he be beneath the watry floar; So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore 170 Flames in the forehead of the morning sky. So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, Through the dear might of Him that walk'd the waves, Where other groves and other streams along, 175 With nectar pure his oozy lock's he laves, In the blest kingdoms meek of Joy and Love. Thus sang the uncouth swain to th' okes and rills, 180 185 190 DRYDEN. MAC FLECKNO E. ALL humane things are subject to decay, 'Besides, his goodly fabrick fills the eye "And seems designed for thoughtless majesty, 66 66 'Thoughtless as monarch oakes that shade the plain 'And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign. 5 ΤΟ 15 20 25 66 Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee, "Thou last great prophet of tautology. "Even I, a dunce of more renown than they, "Was sent before but to prepare thy way, "And coursly clad in Norwich drugget came "To teach the nations in thy greater name. "My warbling lute, the lute I whilom strung "When to King John of Portugal I sung, "Was but the prelude to that glorious day, "When thou on silver Thames did'st cut thy way, "With well-tim'd oars before the royal barge, "Swell'd with the pride of thy celestial charge, "And, big with hymn, commander of an host; "The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets tost. "Methinks I see the new Arion sail, "The lute still trembling underneath thy nail. "At thy well-sharpned thumb from shore to shore "The treble squeaks for fear, the basses roar; "About thy boat the little fishes throng, "As at the morning toast that floats along. 66 Sometimes, as prince of thy harmonious band, “Thou_weildst_thy papers in thy threshing hand. "St. André's feet ne'er kept more equal time, "Not ev'n the feet of thy own 'Psyche's' rhyme, Though they in number as in sense excell; "So just, so like tautology, they fell 66 66 That, pale with envy, Singleton forswore "The lute and sword which he in triumph bore, "And vowed he ne'er would act Villerius more." 30 35 40 45 50 55 Here stopped the good old syre and wept for joy, 60 Close to the walls which fair Augusta bind, Of all the pile an empty name remains. Where queens are formed and future hero's bred, 65 70 Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here, To whom true dulness should some "Psyches" owe, Now empress Fame had publisht the renown So Shadwell swore, nor should his vow be vain, As king by office and as priest by trade. In his sinister hand, instead of ball, He plac'd a mighty mug of potent ale; "Love's Kingdom" to his right he did convey, At once his sceptre and his rule of sway; 105 110 Whose righteous lore the prince had practis'd young The syre then shook the honours of his head, 115 120 125 At length burst out in this prophetick mood: "Heavens bless my son! from Ireland let him reign 130 "To far Barbadoes on the western main; "Of his dominion may no end be known "And greater than his father's be his throne; 66 'Beyond 'Love's Kingdom' let him stretch his pen!" He paus'd, and all the people cry'd 135 "Amen." Then thus continu'd he: "My son, advance Pangs without birth and fruitless industry. "Let Virtuoso's' in five years be writ, "Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit. "Let gentle George in triumph tread the stage, "Make Dorimant betray, and Loveit rage; "Let Cully, Cockwood, Fopling, charm the pit, "And in their folly show the writers wit. "Yet still thy fools shall stand in thy defence "And justify their author's want of sense. "Let 'em be all by thy own model made "Of dulness, and desire no foreign aid, "That they to future ages may be known, "Not copies drawn, but issue of thy own. 140 145 150 "All full of thee and differing but in name. "But let no alien Sedley interpose "To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose. 155 "And when false flowers of rhetoric thou would'st cull, "Trust nature, do not labour to be dull; |