Poems by John Henry Dryden

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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A Prologue

Gallants, a bashful poet bids me say,

He's come to lose his maidenhead to-day.

Be not too fierce; for he's but green of age,

And ne'er, till now, debauched upon the stage.

He wants the suffering part of resolution,

And comes with blushes to his execution.

Ere you deflower his Muse, he hopes the pit

Will make some settlement upon his wit.

by John Henry Dryden

To The Memory Of Mr Oldham

Farewell, too little and too lately known,

Whom I began to think and call my own;

For sure our souls were near allied, and thine

Cast in the same poetic mould with mine.

One common note on either lyre did strike,

And knaves and fools we both abhorred alike.

To the same goal did both our studies drive;

The last set out the soonest did arrive.

by John Henry Dryden

To My Honoured Friend Dr Charleton, On His Learned and Useful Works, But More Particularly His Trea

The longest tyranny that ever swayed,

Was that wherein our ancestors betrayed

Their free-born reason to the Stagyrite,

And made his torch their universal light.

So truth, while only one supplied the state,

Grew scarce, and dear, and yet sophisticate.

Still it was bought, like emp'ric wares, or charms,

Hard words sealed up with Aristotle's arms.

by John Henry Dryden

Epilogue to The Husband His Own Cuckold

Like some raw sophister that mounts the pulpit,

So trembles a young poet at a full pit.

Unused to crowds, the parson quakes for fear,

And wonders how the devil he durst come there;

Wanting three talents needful for the place,

Some beard, some learning, and some little grace.

Nor is the puny poet void of care;

For authors, such as our new authors are,

by John Henry Dryden

Epitaph on the Monument of the Marquis of Winchester

He who, in impious times, undaunted stood,

And 'midst rebellion durst be just and good;

Whose arms asserted, and whose sufferings more

Confirmed the cause for which he fought before,

Rests here, rewarded by an heavenly prince,

For what his earthly could not recompence.

Pray, reader, that such times no more appear;

Or, if they happen, learn true honour here.

by John Henry Dryden

ASTRÆA REDUX A Poem, on the Happy Restoration and Return of His Sacred Majesty, Charles the Second

Now with a general peace the world was blest,

While ours, a world divided from the rest,

A dreadful quiet felt, and worser far

Than arms, a sullen interval of war.

Thus when black clouds draw down the lab'ring skies,

Ere yet abroad the winged thunder flies,

An horrid stillness first invades the ear,

And in that silence we the tempest fear.

by John Henry Dryden

By a dismal cypress lying: A Song from the Italian

By a dismal cypress lying,

Damon cried, all pale and dying,

Kind is death that ends my pain,

But cruel she I lov'd in vain.

The mossy fountains

Murmur my trouble,

And hollow mountains

My groans redouble:

by John Henry Dryden

Your hay it is mow'd, and your corn is reap'd

(Comus.) Your hay it is mow'd, and your corn is reap'd;

Your barns will be full, and your hovels heap'd:

Come, my boys, come;

And merrily roar out Harvest Home.

(Chorus.) Come, my boys, come;

Come, my boys, come;

And merrily roar out Harvest Home.

by John Henry Dryden

A Song Go Tell Amynta, Gentle Swain

Go tell Amynta, gentle swain,

I would not die, nor dare complain.

Thy tuneful voice with numbers join,

Thy voice will more prevail than mine;

For souls opprest and dumb with grief,

The gods ordain'd this kind relief.

That music should in sounds convey

by John Henry Dryden

Epitaph on the Lady Whitmore

Fair, kind, and true, a treasure each alone,

A wife, a mistress, and a friend, in one;

Rest in this tomb, raised at thy husband's cost,

Here sadly summing, what he had, and lost.

Come, virgins, ere in equal bands ye join,

Come first and offer at her sacred shrine;

Pray but for half the virtues of this wife,

Compound for all the rest, with longer life;

by John Henry Dryden

Happy the man

Happy the man, and happy he alone,

He who can call today his own:

He who, secure within, can say,

Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.

Be fair or foul or rain or shine

The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.

Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,

But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

by John Henry Dryden

Veni, Creator Spiritus

Creator Spirit, by whose aid

The world's foundations first were laid,

Come, visit ev'ry pious mind;

Come, pour thy joys on human kind;

From sin, and sorrow set us free;

And make thy temples worthy Thee.

O, Source of uncreated Light,

The Father's promis'd Paraclete!

by John Henry Dryden