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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TO MR. DRYDEN, ON HIS TRANSLATIONS. |
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 | The works of John Dryden |  |
290
TO MR. DRYDEN, ON HIS TRANSLATIONS.
As flowers, transplanted from a southern sky,
But hardly bear, or in the raising die,
Missing their native sun,—at best retain
But a faint odour, and but live with pain;
So Roman poetry, by moderns taught,
Wanting the warmth with which its author wrote,
Is a dead image, and a worthless draught.
While we transfuse, the nimble spirit flies,
Escapes unseen, evaporates, and dies.
But hardly bear, or in the raising die,
Missing their native sun,—at best retain
But a faint odour, and but live with pain;
So Roman poetry, by moderns taught,
Wanting the warmth with which its author wrote,
Is a dead image, and a worthless draught.
While we transfuse, the nimble spirit flies,
Escapes unseen, evaporates, and dies.
Who then attempts to show the ancients' wit,
Must copy with the genius that they writ:
Whence we conclude from thy translated song,
So just, so warm, so smooth, and yet so strong,
Thou heavenly charmer! soul of harmony!
That all their geniuses revived in thee.
Must copy with the genius that they writ:
Whence we conclude from thy translated song,
So just, so warm, so smooth, and yet so strong,
Thou heavenly charmer! soul of harmony!
That all their geniuses revived in thee.
Thy trumpet sounds: the dead are raised to light;
New-born they rise, and take to heaven their flight;
Deck'd in thy verse, as clad with rays, they shine,
All glorified, immortal, and divine.
New-born they rise, and take to heaven their flight;
Deck'd in thy verse, as clad with rays, they shine,
All glorified, immortal, and divine.
As Britain, in rich soil abounding wide,
Furnished for use, for luxury, and pride,
Yet spreads her wanton sails on every shore,
For foreign wealth, insatiate still of more;
To her own wool, the silks of Asia joins,
And to her plenteous harvests, Indian mines;
So Dryden, not contented with the fame
Of his own works, though an immortal name—
To lands remote he sends his learned Muse,
The noblest seeds of foreign wit to choose.
Feasting our sense so many various ways,
Say, is't thy bounty, or thy thirst of praise,
That, by comparing others, all might see,
Who most excelled, are yet excelled by thee?
Furnished for use, for luxury, and pride,
Yet spreads her wanton sails on every shore,
For foreign wealth, insatiate still of more;
To her own wool, the silks of Asia joins,
And to her plenteous harvests, Indian mines;
So Dryden, not contented with the fame
Of his own works, though an immortal name—
291
The noblest seeds of foreign wit to choose.
Feasting our sense so many various ways,
Say, is't thy bounty, or thy thirst of praise,
That, by comparing others, all might see,
Who most excelled, are yet excelled by thee?
George Granville.
| The works of John Dryden | |