John Dryden Poems

Consecrated to the Glorious Memory of His
Most Serene and Renowned Highness, Oliver,
Late Lord Protector of This Commonwealth, etc.
Written After the Celebration of his Funeral
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1.
Ask not the cause why sullen spring
So long delays her flowers to bear;
Why warbling birds forget to sing
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Now with a general peace the world was blest,
While ours, a world divided from the rest,
A dreadful quiet felt, and worser far
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Sylvia the fair, in the bloom of fifteen,
Felt an innocent warmth as she lay on the green:
She had heard of a pleasure, and something she guessed
By the towsing and tumbling and touching her breast:
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Thus you the sad catastrophe have seen,
Occasioned by a mistress and a queen.
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A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchang'd,
Fed on the lawns, and in the forest rang'd;
Without unspotted, innocent within,
She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin.
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Dedicated to the Memory of the Late Countess of Abingdon.

As when some great and gracious monarch dies,
Soft whispers first and mournful rise
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High state and honours to others impart,
But give me your heart:
That treasure, that treasure alone,
I beg for my own.
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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,
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Stay, stranger, stay, and drop one tear.
She always weeps, who laid him here;
And will do till her race is run;
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