And while the face of outward things we find SIR J. DAVIES. He heard a grave philosopher maintain 407 Stand before her in a golden dream; Leave for a while thy costly country-seat; DRYDEN. My tender age in luxury was train'd, Which with our sense of pleasure not conspired. 'Tis pleasant safely to behold from shore SIR J. DENHAM. DRYDEN. The rolling ships, and hear the tempest roar; DRYDEN. What pleasure can there be in that estate From those great cares when ease your soul unbends, Your pleasures are design'd to noble ends. DRYDEN. For every want that stimulates the breast Who mix'd reason with pleasure, and wisdom with mirth. GOLDSMITH: Retaliation. Acquit thee bravely, play the man: Eve, thy contempt of life and pleasure seems Pleasures which nowhere else were to be found, To argue in thee something more sublime And all Elysium in a spot of ground. Pleasure that comes unlook'd for is thrice welcome; We may roam through this world like a child at a feast, Who but sips of a sweet, and then flies to the And if it stir the heart, if aught be there rest, That may hereafter in a thoughtful hour And when pleasure begins to grow dull in the Wake but a sigh, 'tis treasured up among east, The things most precious; and the day it came We may order our wings and be off to the Is noted as a white day in our lives. YOUNG: Night Thoughts. Whate'er the motive, pleasure is the mark: For her the black assassin draws his sword; 409 But is't not presumption to write verse to you, My earliest mistress, now my ancient muse, That strong Circean liquor cease t' infuse Wherewith thou didst intoxicate my youth. SIR J. DENHAM. Th' eternal cause in their immortal lines For her dark statesmen trim their midnight Was taught, and poets were the first divines, lamp; For her the saint abstains; the miser starves; O the dark days of vanity! while here The spirit walks of every day deceased, SIR J. DENHAM. 'Tis still the same, although their shape All but a quick poetic sight escape. SIR J. DENHAM. These are the labour'd births of slavish brains; Not the effect of poetry, but pains. SIR J. DENHAM. Love first invented verse, and form'd the rhyme, The motion measured, harmonized the chime. DRYDEN. And smiles an angel, or a fury frowns. YOUNG: Night Thoughts. Thy first-fruits of poesy were giv'n And candidate of heav'n. POETRY. DRYDEN. Is my muse controll'd By servile awe? Born free, and not be bold! At least I'll dig a hole within the ground, And to the trusty earth commit the sound. DRYDEN: Persius. The charms of poetry our souls bewitch; The curse of writing is an endless itch. DRYDEN. The hand and head were never lost of those Who dealt in dogg'rel, or who punn'd in prose. DRYDEN. Where mice and rats devour'd poetic bread, Verse sweetens toil, however rude the sound; And thou, sweet poetry, thou loveliest maid, Knowing when a muse should be indulged ROSCOMMON. Chaste moral writing we may learn from hence; Be subjects great, and worth a poet's voice: For men of sense despise a trivial choice. ROSCOMMON. 'Tis dangerous tampering with a muse, ROSCOMMON. But hear, oh, hear, in what exalted strains Sicilian muses, through these happy plains, Proclaim Saturnian times, our own Apollo reigns. ROSCOMMON. Folly and vice are easy to describe, Heaps of huge words, uphoarded hideously, They think to be chief praise of poetry; And thereby, wanting due intelligence, Have marr'd the face of goodly poesie. 411 What may be hoped, When not from Helicon's imagined spring, Things of deep sense we may in prose unfold, I shall no more decline that sacred bow'r We send the graces and the muses forth Verse makes heroic virtue live, WALLER. WALLER. WALLER. |