"As callow birds,
Whose mother's killed in seeking of the prey,
Cry in their nest and think her long away,
And, at each leaf that stirs, each blast of wind,
Gape for the food which they must never find."
And this, of the anger with which the Maiden Queen, striving to hide her jealousy, betrays her love, is vigorous:—
"Her rage was love, and its tempestuous flame,
Like lightning, showed the heaven from whence it came."
The following simile from the "Conquest of Grenada" is as well expressed as it is apt in conception:—
"I scarcely understand my own intent;
But, silk-worm like, so long within have wrought,
That I am lost in my own web of thought."
In the "Rival Ladies," Angelina, walking in the dark, describes her sensations naturally and strikingly:—
"No noise but what my footsteps make, and they
Sound dreadfully and louder than by day:
They double too, and every step I take
Sounds thick, methinks, and more than one could make."
In all the rhymed plays[64] there are many passages which one is rather inclined to like than sure he would be right in liking them. The following verses from "Aurengzebe" are of this sort:—
"My love was such it needed no return,
Rich in itself, like elemental fire,
Whose pureness does no aliment require."
This is Cowleyish, and pureness is surely the wrong word; and yet it is better than mere commonplace. Perhaps what oftenest turns the balance in Dryden's favor, when we are weighing his claims as a poet, is his persistent capability of enthusiasm. To the last he kindles, and sometimes almost flashes out that supernatural light which is the supreme test of poetic genius. As he himself so finely and characteristically says in "Aurengzebe," there was no period in his life when it was not true of him that