Nay, you were not guilty of so much as of the knowledge of this my wicked intentions; wicked. I mean, if it should offend you and my other friends, who need not blush for me, since I have already such a terror upon my conscience for this aggression, as is, I think, a punishment in some measure equal to any crime; and all that I can urge in my defence is, that it was pure respect to the dear memory of this great man, to whom I had the honour to be known, that provoked, or, let me rather say, obliged me to expose myself on this occasion. I never attempted any thing in this measure for the public before; and I doubt not that I shall do yet severer penance for it, in the censures of our awful wits, which I already fear; but your judgment is still more dreadful than all, by
Worthy Sir, Your most obliged obedient and humble servant, Alexander Oldys.
AN
ODE ON THE DEATH
OF
MR DRYDEN.
I.
On a soft bank of camomel I sate,
O’ershaded by two mournful yews;
(Doubtless it was the will of fate
I this retreat should chuse.)
Where on delicious poetry I fed,
Amazing thoughts chilled all my blood,
And almost stopt the vital flood,
As Dryden’s sacred verse I read.
Whilst killing raptures seized my head,
I shook, as if I had foreknown
What all-commanding fate had done;
What for our sovereign Dryden had designed,
Till sleep o’erwhelmed my brain, as sorrow had my mind;
To think that all the great, even he, must die,
And here, in fame alone, have immortality.
When in my dream the fatal muse,
With hair dishevell’d, and in tears,
Melpomene appears;
Upon my throbbing heart her hand she laid,
Her hand as cold as death, and thus she said,—
“Least of my care, be calmed! No more just heaven accuse!
II.
“Eternal fate has said,—He must remove;
The bards triumphant wait for him above.
To everlasting day and blest abodes
(The seats of poets and of gods)
He’s gone, to fill the throne
Which none could fill but he alone;
The glorious throne for him prepared;
Of glorious acts the glorious, just reward.
See, see, as he ascends on high,
The sacred bards attending in the sky!
So low do they descend
To meet their now immortal friend!
Immortal there above, and here below,
As long as men shall wit and English know,
The unequalled Dryden must be so,
Immortal in his verse, in verse unequalled too.”—
She said,—then disappear’d; when I
Could plainly see all that was done on high.
III.
I saw above an universal joy,
Perfect without alloy;
(So great as ne’er till then had been
Since the sweet Waller entered in,)
When all that sacred company
Brought the triumphant bard from ours to heaven’s great jubilee;
That was the occasion of his happiness,
And of our sorrows, surely that the cause,
Called hence heaven’s monarch’s praise to help to express,
And to receive for that his own deserved applause.
There wanted still one in the heavenly quire,
Dryden alone was their desire,
Whom for the sacred song th’ Almighty did inspire
’Twas pity to us that so long delayed
His blest translation to eternal light;
Or, otherwise may we not be afraid,
’Twas for the sins of some who durst presume to write;
Who durst in verse, in sacred poetry,
Even heaven’s own design bely,
And damn themselves with utmost industry!
For this may we not dread
The mighty prophet’s taken from our head?
And though the fate of these I fear,
I in respect must venture here.
A long and racking war was sent,
Of common sins, a common punishment;
To the unthinking crowd the only curse,
Who feel no loss but in their purse:
But ah! what loss can now be worse?
The mighty Pan has left our mournful shore;
The mighty Pan is gone, Dryden is here no more.