The works of John Dryden Illustrated with notes, historical, critical, and explanatory, and a life of the author, by Sir Walter Scott |
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 | The works of John Dryden |  |
The Silver Age.
But when good Saturn, banished from above,Was driven to hell, the world was under Jove.
Succeeding times a Silver Age behold,
Excelling brass, but more excelled by gold.
Then Summer, Autumn, Winter did appear,
And Spring was but a season of the year.
The sun his annual course obliquely made,
Good days contracted, and enlarged the bad.
Then air with sultry heats began to glow,
The wings of winds were clogged with ice and snow;
And shivering mortals, into houses driven,
Sought shelter from the inclemency of heaven.
Those houses, then, were caves, or homely sheds,
With twining osiers fenced, and moss their beds.
Then ploughs for seed the fruitful furrows broke,
And oxen laboured first beneath the yoke.
| The works of John Dryden | |