IN that wild deluge where the world was drown'd,

When life and sin one common tomb had

found,

The first small prospect of a rising hill With various notes of joy the ark did fill: Yet when that flood in its own depths was drown'd,

It left behind it false and slipp'ry ground; And the more solemn pomp was still deferr'd

Till new-born nature in fresh looks appear'd. Thus, royal sir, to see you landed here, Was cause enough of triumph for a year; 10 Nor would your care those glorious joys repeat,

Till they at once might be secure and great; Till your kind beams by their continued stay Had warm'd the ground, and call'd the damps away.

Such vapors, while your pow'rful influence dries,

Then soonest vanish when they highest rise. Had greater haste these sacred rights prepar'd,

Some guilty months had in your triumphs

shar'd;

But this untainted year is all your own; Your glories may without our crimes be shown.

20

We had not yet exhausted all our store, When you refresh'd our joys by adding

Wrapp'd soft and warm your name is sent on high,

As flames do on the wings of incense fly: Music herself is lost, in vain she brings Her choicest notes to praise the best of kings;

Her melting strains in you a tomb have found,

And lie like bees in their own sweetness drown'd.

He that brought peace, and discord could

atone,

His name is music of itself alone.
Now while the sacred oil anoints your head,
And fragrant scents, begun from you, are

spread

60

Thro' the large dome, the people's joyful sound,

Sent back, is still preserv'd in hallow'd ground;

Which in one blessing mix'd descends on you,

As heighten'd spirits fall in richer dew.
Not that our wishes do increase your store:
Full of yourself, you can admit no more;
We add not to your glory, but employ
Our time, like angels, in expressing joy.
Nor is it duty, or our hopes alone,
Create that joy, but full fruition:
We know those blessings which we must

possess,

70

pretend,

And work by means as noble as your end; 70 Which should you veil, we might unwind the clue,

As men do nature, till we came to you. And as the Indies were not found before Those rich perfumes, which from the happy shore

The winds upon their balmy wings convey'd,

Whose guilty sweetness first their world betray'd;

So by your counsels we are brought to view
A rich and undiscover'd world in you.
By you our monarch does that fame assure
Which kings must have, or cannot live

While you so smoothly turn and roll our sphere,

That rapid motion does but rest appear.
For as in nature's swiftness, with the
throng

Of flying orbs while ours is borne along,
All seems at rest to the deluded eye,
(Mov'd by the soul of the same harmony,)
So carried on by your unwearied care,
We rest in peace, and yet in motion share.
Let Envy then those crimes within you see
From which the happy never must be free;
(Envy, that does with Misery reside,
The joy and the revenge of ruin'd Pride.)
Think it not hard, if at so cheap a rate
You can secure the constancy of Fate,
Whose kindness sent what does their malice

seem,

121

By lesser ills the greater to redeem.
Nor can we this weak show'r a tempest

call,

129

But drops of heat, that in the sunshine fall.
You have already wearied Fortune so,
She cannot farther be your friend or foe;
But sits all breathless, and admires to feel
A fate so weighty that it stops her wheel.
In all things else above our humble fate,
Your equal mind yet swells not into state;
But like some mountain in those happy
isles,

Where in perpetual spring young nature smiles,

Your greatness shows: no horror to affright,

But trees for shade, and flow'rs to court the

TO MY HONOR'D FRIEND, DR. CHARLETON

ON HIS LEARNED AND USEFUL WORKS; AND MORE PARTICULARLY THIS OF

STONEHENGE, BY HIM RESTOR'D TO THE TRUE FOUNDERS

[This epistle is prefixed to Chorea Gigantum ; or, The Most Famous Antiquity of Great Britain, vulgarly called Stoneheng, standing on Salisbury Plain, restored to the Danes: by Walter Charleton, Dr. in Physic, and Physician in Ordinary to His Majesty. London, 1663. Dryden's poem follows another epistle by Sir Robert Howard. Charleton, who was a man of mark both as physician and author, here presents an argument against the architect Inigo Jones. His summaries of his adversary's theory, and of his own, are as follows:

"Mr. Jones his opinion, then, of the founders, antiquity, and design of Stonehenge, is that it was a work of the Romans, built by them when they flourished here in greatest peace and prosperity. . not as a sepulchral monument, but as a temple, and particularly consecrated to the imaginary deity of Coelus, or Coelum, from whence their superstitious belief derived the original of all things." (P. 17.)

I am apt to believe that having then overrun the whole kingdom, except only Somersetshire, and encamping their main army in Wiltshire, for near upon two years together, and setting up their rest in a confidence to perpetuate their

newly acquired power; they [the Danes] imployed themselves, during that time of leisure and jollity, in erecting Stonehenge, as a place wherein to elect and inaugurate their supreme commander King of England." (P. 64.)

The censor's imprimatur in Charleton's volume is dated 11 Sept. 1662, and the book was probably published before the close of that year, though dated in the following. Of this edition two issues are known, one of them lacking the above imprimatur. There are a few variant readings in Dryden's epistle as printed in the two issues; the text below is that of the issue without the imprimatur, which is probably the later. A reprint in Poetical Miscellanies, the Fifth Part, 1704, introduces further variants, which may possibly be due to Dryden himself. The poem is principally important as showing Dryden's early enthusiasm for natural science.]