Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 2.djvu/136

130 The winds upon their balmy wings convey'd; Whose guilty sweetness first their world betray'd; So by your counsels we are brought to view A new and undiscover'd world in you.

There is another comparison, for there is little else in the poem, of which, though perhaps it cannot be explain'd into plain prosaic meaning, the mind perceives enough to be delighted, and readily forgives its obscurity, for its magnificence:

How strangely active are the arts of peace, Whose restless motions less than wars do cease! Peace is not freed from labour, but from noise; And war more force, but not more pains employs. Such is the mighty swiftness of your mind, That, like the earth's, it leaves our sense behind; While you so smoothly turn and roll our sphere, That rapid motion does but rest appear. For as in nature's swiftness, with the throng Of flying orbs while ours is borne along, All seems at rest to the deluded eye, Mov'd by the soul of the same harmony: So carry'd on by your unwearied care, We rest in peace, and yet in motion share.

To this succeed four lines, which perhaps afford Dryden's first attempt at those penetrating remarks on human nature, for which he seems to have been peculiarly formed: Rh