Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/507

 JOHN DRYDEN

Hear, then, a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse,

In no ignoble verse;

But such as thy own voice did practise here, When thy first-fruits of Poesy were given, To make thyself a welcome inmate there; While yet a young probationer,

And candidate of Heaven.

If by traduction came thy mind,

Our wonder is the less, to find A soul so charming from a stock so good; Thy father was transfus'd into thy blood: So wert thou born into the tuneful strain, An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.

But if thy pre-existing soul

Was form'd at first with myriads more, It did through all the mighty poets roll

Who Greek or Latin laurels wore, And was that Sappho last, which once it was before.

If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind'

Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore. Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find,

Than was the beauteous frame she left behind' Return, to fill or mend the quire of thy celestial kind.

May we presume to say, that, at thy birth, New joy was sprung in heaven as well as here on earth ? For sure the milder planets did combine On thy auspicious horoscope to shine, And even the most malicious were in trine. Thy brother-angels at thy birth Strung each his lyre, and tun'd it high, That all the people of the sky

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