Song From Marriage-A-La-Mode

Why should a foolish marriage vow,

Which long ago was made,

Oblige us to each other now,

When passion is decayed?

We loved, and we loved, as long as we could,

Till our love was loved out in us both;

But our marriage is dead when the pleasure is fled:

'Twas pleasure first made it an oath.

Troilus And Cressida

Can life be a blessing,

    Or worth the possessing,

    Can life be a blessing if love were away?

    Ah no! though our love all night keep us waking,

    And though he torment us with cares all the day,

    Yet he sweetens, he sweetens our pains in the taking,

    There's an hour at the last, there's an hour to repay.

    In ev'ry possessing,

Song From Amphitryon

Fair Iris I love, and hourly I die,

But not for a lip, nor a languishing eye:

She's fickle and false, and there we agree,

For I am as false and as fickle as she.

We neither believe what either can say;

And, neither believing, we neither betray.

'Tis civil to swear, and say things of course;

We mean not the taking for better or worse.

A Song To A Fair Young Lady Going Out Of Town In The Spring

1.

Ask not the cause why sullen spring

So long delays her flowers to bear;

Why warbling birds forget to sing,

And winter storms invert the year;

Chloris is gone, and Fate provides

To make it spring where she resides.

2.

A Song High State And Honours To Others Impart

High state and honours to others impart,

    But give me your heart:

  That treasure, that treasure alone,

    I beg for my own.

  So gentle a love, so fervent a fire,

    My soul does inspire;

  That treasure, that treasure alone,

    I beg for my own.

Epitaph On a Nephew, In Catworth Church, Huntingdonshire

Stay, stranger, stay, and drop one tear.

She always weeps, who laid him here;

And will do till her race is run;

His father's fifth, her only son.

This Epitaph, printd for the first time in Sir James Prior's "Life of Malone" from Malone's MS. additions to his own Life of Dryden, which are in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, was accidentally omitted in printing the "Epitaphs." The nephew, for whom the Epitaph was written, was the only son of Dryden's sister, Rose, who was the second wife of the Rev. Dr. Laughton of Catworth.~Globe Edition of the Works of Dryden, 1921.

Epitaph on Sir Palmes Fairborne's Tomb in Westminster Abbey

Ye sacred relics, which your marble keep,

Here, undisturbed by wars, in quiet sleep;

Discharge the trust, which, when it was below,

Fairborne's undaunted soul did undergo,

And be the town's palladium from the foe.

Alive and dead these walls he will defend:

Great actions great examples must attend.

The Candian siege his early valour knew,

Epitaph on Mrs Margaret Paston, of Barningham, in Norfolk

So fair, so young, so innocent, so sweet,

So ripe a judgment, and so rare a wit,

Require at least an age in one to meet.

In her they met; but long they could not stay,

'Twas gold too fine to fix without allay.

Heaven's image was in her so well exprest,

Her very sight upbraided all the rest;

Too justly ravished from an age like this,

Upon the Death of Lord Hastings

Must noble Hastings immaturely die,

The honour of his ancient family,

Beauty and learning thus together meet,

To bring a winding for a wedding sheet?

Must virtue prove death's harbinger? must she,

With him expiring, feel mortality?

Is death, sin's wages, grace's now? shall art

Make us more learned, only to depart?

To The Pious Memory Of The Accomplished Young Lady Mrs Anne Killigrew, Excellent in the Two Sister

I.

Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,

Made in the last promotion of the Blest;

Whose palms, new pluck'd from Paradise,

In spreading branches more sublimely rise,

Rich with immortal green above the rest:

Whether, adopted to some neighbouring star,

Thou roll'st above us, in thy wand'ring race,

Epitaph on the Monument of a Fair Maiden Lady, Who Died at Bath, and is There Interred

Below this marble monument is laid

All that heaven wants of this celestial maid.

Preserve, O sacred tomb, thy trust consigned;

The mould was made on purpose for the mind:

And she would lose, if, at the latter day,

One atom could be mixed with other clay;

Such were the features of her heavenly face,

Her limbs were formed with such harmonious grace:

Epilogue on the Same Occasion (Princess of Cleves)

New ministers, when first they get in place,

Must have a care to please; and that's our case:

Some laws for public welfare we design,

If you, the power supreme, will please to join.

There are a sort of prattlers in the pit,

Who either have, or who pretend to wit;

These noisy sirs so loud their parts rehearse,

That oft the play is silenced by the farce.