Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (120 page)

Song to a Fair Young Lady, Going Out of the Town in the Spring

John Dryden (1639–1701)

ASK not the cause why sullen Spring
 
So long delays her flowers to bear;
Why warbling birds forget to sing,
 
And winter storms invert the year:
Chloris is gone; and fate provides
  
5
To make it Spring where she resides.

Chloris is gone, the cruel fair;
 
She cast not back a pitying eye:
But left her lover in despair
 
To sigh, to languish, and to die:
  
10
Ah! how can those fair eyes endure
To give the wounds they will not cure?

Great God of Love, why hast thou made
 
A face that can all hearts command,
That all religions can invade,
  
15
 
And change the laws of every land?
Where thou hadst placed such power before,
 
Thou shouldst have made her mercy more.

When Chloris to the temple comes,
 
Adoring crowds before her fall;
  
20
She can restore the dead from tombs
 
And every life but mine recall.
I only am by Love design’d
To be the victim for mankind.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Song for St. Cecilia’s Day

1687

John Dryden (1639–1701)

FROM Harmony, from heavenly Harmony
 
This universal frame began:
 
When Nature underneath a heap
 
Of jarring atoms lay
 
And could not heave her head,
  
5
The tuneful voice was heard from high,
 
‘Arise, ye more than dead!’
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry
In order to their stations leap,
 
And Music’s power obey.
  
10

From harmony, from heavenly harmony
 
This universal frame began:
 
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in Man.
  
15

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?
 
When Jubal struck the chorded shell
 
His listening brethren stood around,
 
And, wondering, on their faces fell
 
To worship that celestial sound.
  
20
Less than a god they thought there could not dwell
 
Within the hollow of that shell
 
That spoke so sweetly and so well.
What passion cannot Music raise and quell?

The trumpet’s loud clangor
  
25
 
Excites us to arms,
With shrill notes of anger
 
And mortal alarms.

 
The double double double beat
 
Of the thundering drum
  
30
 
Cries ‘Hark! the foes come;
Charge, charge, ’tis too late to retreat!’

 
The soft complaining flute
 
In dying notes discovers
 
The woes of hopeless lovers,
  
35
Whose dirge is whisper’d by the warbling lute.

 
Sharp violins proclaim
Their jealous pangs and desperation,
Fury, frantic indignation,
Depth of pains, and height of passion
  
40
 
For the fair disdainful dame.

But oh! what art can teach,
What human voice can reach
 
The sacred organ’s praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
  
45
Notes that wing their heavenly ways
 
To mend the choirs above.

Orpheus could lead the savage race,
And trees unrooted left their place
 
Sequacious of the lyre:
  
50
But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher;
When to her Organ vocal breath was given
An Angel heard, and straight appear’d —
 
Mistaking Earth for Heaven.

Grand Chorus

As from the power of sacred lays
  
55
 
The spheres began to move,
And sung the great Creator’s praise
 
To all the blest above;
So when the last and dreadful hour
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
  
60
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
The dead shall live, the living die,
And Music shall untune the sky.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Alexander’s Feast

Or the Power of Music; An Ode in Honor of St. Cecilia’s Day

John Dryden (1639–1701)

I

‘T WAS at the royal feast, for Persia won
 
By Philip’s warlike son:
 
Aloft in awful state
 
The godlike hero sate
 
On his imperial throne:
  
5
 
His valiant peers were plac’d around;
 
Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound:
 
(So should desert in arms be crown’d.)
 
The lovely Thais, by his side,
 
Sate like a blooming Eastern bride
  
10
 
In flow’r of youth and beauty’s pride.
 
Happy, happy, happy pair!
 
None but the brave,
 
None but the brave,
 
None but the brave deserves the fair!
  
15

CHORUS

 
Happy, happy, happy pair!
 
None but the brave,
 
None but the brave,
 
None but the brave deserves the fair!

II

 
Timotheus, plac’d on high
  
20
Amid the tuneful choir,
With flying fingers touch’d the lyre:
The trembling notes ascend the sky,
And heav’nly joys inspire.
The song began from Jove,
  
25
Who left his blissful seats above,
Such is the pow’r of mighty love.
A dragon’s fiery form belied the god:
Sublime on radiant spires he rode,
When he to fair Olympia press’d;
  
30
And while he sought her snowy breast:
Then, round her slender waist he curl’d,
And stamp’d an image of himself, a sov’reign of the world.
The list’ning crowd admire the lofty sound;
“A present deity,” they shout around;
  
35
“A present deity,” the vaulted roofs rebound:
With ravish’d ears
The monarch hears,
Assumes the god,
Affects to nod,
  
40
And seems to shake the spheres.

CHORUS

 
With ravish’d ears
 
The monarch hears,
 
Assumes the god,
 
Affects to nod,
  
45
 
And seems to shake the spheres.

III

 
The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,
Of Bacchus ever fair and ever young:
The jolly god in triumph comes;
Sound the trumpets; beat the drums;
  
50
Flush’d with a purple grace
He shews his honest face:
Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes.
Bacchus, ever fair and young,
Drinking joys did first ordain;
  
55
Bacchus’ blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure:
Rich the treasure,
Sweet the pleasure,
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
  
60

CHORUS

 
Bacchus’ blessings are a treasure,
 
Drinking is the soldier’s pleasure:
 
Rich the treasure,
 
Sweet the pleasure,
 
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
  
65

IV

 
Sooth’d with the sound, the king grew vain;
Fought all his battles o’er again;
And thrice he routed all his foes; and thrice he slew the slain.
The master saw the madness rise;
His glowing cheeks, his ardent eyes;
  
70
And, while he heav’n and earth defied,
Chang’d his hand, and check’d his pride.
He chose a mournful Muse,
Soft pity to infuse.
He sung Darius great and good,
  
75
By too severe a fate,
Fallen, fallen, fallen, fallen,
Fallen from his high estate,
And welt’ring in his blood;
Deserted, at his utmost need,
  
80
By those his former bounty fed;
On the bare earth expos’d he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.

 
— With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,
Revolving in his alter’d soul
  
85
The various turns of chance below;
And, now and then, a sigh he stole;
And tears began to flow.

CHORUS

 
Revolving in his alter’d soul
 
The various turns of chance below;
  
90
 
And, now and then, a sigh he stole;
 
And tears began to flow.

V

 
The mighty master smil’d, to see
That love was in the next degree:
‘T was but a kindred-sound to move,
  
95
For pity melts the mind to love.
Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he sooth’d his soul to pleasures.
“War,” he sung, “is toil and trouble;
Honor, but an empty bubble;
  
100
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying:
If the world be worth thy winning,
Think, O think it worth enjoying;
Lovely Thais sits beside thee,
  
105
Take the good the gods provide thee.”

 
— The many rend the skies with loud applause;
So love was crown’d, but Music won the cause.
The prince, unable to conceal his pain,
Gaz’d on the fair
  
110
Who caus’d his care,
And sigh’d and look’d, sigh’d and look’d,
Sigh’d and look’d, and sigh’d again:
At length, with love and wine at once oppress’d,
The vanquish’d victor sunk upon her breast.
  
115

CHORUS

The prince, unable to conceal his pain,
Gaz’d on the fair
Who caus’d his care,
And sigh’d and look’d, sigh’d and look’d,
Sigh’d and look’d, and sigh’d again:
  
120
At length, with love and wine at once oppress’d,
The vanquish’d victor sunk upon her breast.

VI

 
Now strike the golden lyre again:
A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.
Break his bands of sleep asunder,
  
125
And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark, hark, the horrid sound
Has rais’d up his head:
As awak’d from the dead,
And amaz’d, he stares around.
  
130
“Revenge, revenge!” Timotheus cries,
“See the Furies arise!
See the snakes that they rear,
How they hiss in their hair,
And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!
  
135
Behold a ghastly band,
Each a torch in his hand!
Those are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,
And unburied remain
Inglorious on the plain:
  
140
Give the vengeance due
To the valiant crew.
Behold how they toss their torches on high,
How they point to the Persian abodes,
And glitt’ring temples of their hostile gods!”
  
145
 
— The princes applaud, with a furious joy;
And the king seiz’d a flambeau with zeal to destroy;
Thais led the way,
To light him to his prey,
And, like another Helen, fir’d another Troy.
  
150

CHORUS

And the king seiz’d a flambeau with zeal to destroy;
Thais led the way,
To light him to his prey,
And, like another Helen, fir’d another Troy.

VII

 
— Thus, long ago,
  
155
Ere heaving bellows learn’d to blow,
While organs yet were mute;
Timotheus, to his breathing flute,
And sounding lyre,
Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
  
160
At last, divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal frame;
The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarg’d the former narrow bounds,
And added length to solemn sounds,
  
165
With nature’s mother wit, and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
Or both divide the crown;
He rais’d a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down.
  
170

GRAND CHORUS

At last, divine Cecilia came,
Inventress of the vocal frame;
The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarg’d the former narrow bounds,
And added length to solemn sounds,
  
175
With nature’s mother wit, and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,
Or both divide the crown;
He rais’d a mortal to the skies;
She drew an angel down.
  
180

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order