FROM "THE COCK AND THE FOX."

149. DREAMS.

Dreams are but interludes which Fancy makes;
When monarch Reason sleeps, this mimic wakes:
Compounds a medley of disjointed things,
A mob of cobblers, and a court of kings:
Light fumes are merry, grosser fumes are sad:
Both are the reasonable soul run mad;
And many monstrous forms in sleep we see,
That neither were, nor are, nor ne'er can be.
Sometimes forgotten things long cast behind
Rush forward in the brain, and come to mind.
The nurse's legends are for truths received,
And the man dreams but what the boy believed.
Sometimes we but rehearse a former play,
The night restores our actions done by day;
As hounds in sleep will open for their prey.
In short, the farce of dreams is of a piece,
Chimeras all; and more absurd, or less.

150. ALEXANDER'S FEAST.

AN ODE IN HONOR OF ST. CECILIA'S DAY.

'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won

By Philip's warlike son;

Aloft in awful state

The godlike hero sate

On his imperial throne:

His valiant peers were placed around;

Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound (So should desert in arms be crowned):

The lovely Thais, by his side,

Sate, like a blooming Eastern bride,

In flower 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.

Timotheus, placed on high

Amid the tuneful quire,

With flying fingers touched the lyre:

The trembling notes ascend the sky,
And heavenly joys inspire.

The song began - from Jove,
Who left his blissful seats above

(Such is the power of mighty love). A dragon's fiery form belied the god, Sublime on radiant spires he rode.

The listening crowd admire the lofty sound,
A present deity! they shout around:

A present deity! the vaulted roofs rebound:
With ravished ears

The monarch hears,
Assumes the god,

Affects to nod,

And seems to shake the spheres.

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;
Flushed with a purple grace,

He shows his honest face;

Now give the hautboys breath: he comes! he comes!
Bacchus, ever fair and young,

Drinking joys did first ordain;
Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldier's pleasure:

Rich the treasure,

Sweet the pleasure;

Sweet is pleasure after pain.

Soothed 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;
And, while he Heaven and Earth defied,
Changed his hand, and checked his pride.
He chose a mournful Muse,

Soft pity to infuse :

He sung Darius great and good,

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,
By those his former bounty fed:
On the bare earth exposed he lies,
With not a friend to close his eyes.
With downcast looks the joyless victor sate,

Revolving in his altered soul

The various turns of Chance below;
And, now and then, a sigh he stole;
And tears began to flow.

The mighty master smiled, to see
That love was in the next degree:
Twas but a kindred sound to move,
For pity melts the mind to love.

Softly sweet, in Lydian measures,
Soon he soothed his soul to pleasures.
War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honor, but an empty bubble;
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,

Take the good the gods provide thee!
The many rend the skies with loud applause;
So Love was crowned, but Music won the cause.
The prince, unable to conceal his pain,

Gazed on the fair

Who caused his care,

And sighed and looked, sighed and looked, Sighed and looked, and sighed again :

At length, with love and wine at once oppressed, The vanquished victor sunk upon her breast.

Now strike the golden lyre again:

A louder yet, and yet a louder strain.

Break his bands of sleep asunder,

And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.

Hark, hark, the horrid sound

Has raised up his head!

As awaked from the dead,

And amazed, he stares around.

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.

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:

Give the vengeance due

To the valiant crew!

Behold how they toss their torches on high,
How they point to the Persian abodes,

And glittering temples of their hostile gods!
The princes applaud, with a furious joy;

And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;
Thais led the way,

To light him to his prey,

And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.

Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
At last divine Cecilia came,

Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

With Nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before.
Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown;
He raised a mortal to the skies,
She drew an angel down.

Dryden's Prose.

151. CHAUCER AND COWLEY.

In the first place, as he is the father of English poetry, so I hold him in the same degree of veneration as the Grecians held Homer, or the Romans Virgil. He is a perpetual fountain of good sense, learned in all sciences, and therefore speaks properly on all subjects. As he knew what to say, so he knows also when to leave off; a continence which is practised by few writers, and scarcely by any of the ancients, excepting Virgil and Horace. One of our late great poets1 is sunk in his reputation, because he could never forgive any conceit which came in his way; but swept, like a drag-net, great and small. There was plenty enough, but the dishes were ill sorted; whole pyramids of sweetmeats for boys and women, but little of solid meat for men. All this proceeded not from any want of knowledge, but of judgment. Neither did he want that in discerning the beauties and faults of other

1 Cowley.

THE OPPOSITION IN THE LONG PARLIAMENT.

Are these the fruits o' th' protestation,

The prototype of reformation,

Which all the saints, and some, since martyrs,

Wore in their hats like wedding garters,
When 'twas resolvéd by their house
Six members' quarrel to espouse?

Did they for this draw down the rabble,
With zeal, and noises formidable;
And make all cries about the town
Join throats to cry the bishops down?
Who having round begirt the palace,
(As once a month they do the gallows,)
As members gave the sign about,
Set up their throats with hideous shout. ·
When tinkers bawled aloud, to settle
Church discipline, for patching kettle:
The oyster women locked their fish up,
And trudged away to cry No Bishop;
The mousetrap-men laid save-alls by,
And 'gainst evil counsellors did cry;
Botchers left old clothes in the lurch,
And fell to turn and patch the church;
Some cried the covenant, instead

Of pudding-pies, and gingerbread;

And some for brooms, old boots, and shoes,
Bawled out to purge the common's-house :
Instead of kitchen-stuff, some cry

A gospel-preaching ministry;

And some for old suits, coats, or cloak,

No surplices nor service-book.

A strange harmonious inclination

Of all degrees to reformation.

JOHN DRYDEN. 1631-1700. (Manual, pp. 212-221.)

FROM THE "ANNUS MIRABILIS."

142. LONDON AFTER THE FIRE.

Methinks already from this chymic flame,
I see a city of more precious mould:
Rich as the town which gives the Indies name,
With silver paved, and all divine with gold.