Their faith, their patience, and their truth, To triumph in victorious dance O'er sensual folly and intemperance. The dances ended, the SPIRIT epiloguizes, Spir. To the ocean now I fly, And those happy climes that ly All amidst the gardens fair 975 980 After her wandering labours long, And from her fair unspotted side But now my task is smoothly don : I can fly, or I can run Quickly to the green earth's end, Where the bow'd welkin slow doth bend, And from thence can soar as soon To the corners of the moon. Mortals, that would follow me, Heav'n itself would stoop to her. SONNETS ON HIS HAVING ARRIVED AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE How soon hath Time, the suttle theef of youth, Stoln on his wing my three-and-twentieth yeer! And inward ripenes doth much less appear, Yet, be it less or more, or soon or slow, It shall be still in strictest measure eev'n To that same lot, however mean or high, Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heav'n. As ever in my great Task-Master's eye. ΠΟΙΟ 1015 1020 5 10 XVI TO THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL, MAY, 1652 ON THE PROPOSALS OF CERTAIN MINISTERS AT THE COMMITTEE FOR PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL CROMWELL, our chief of men, that through a cloud Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, To peace and truth thy glorious way hast plough'd, And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud Hast rear'd God's trophies, and his work pursu'd, No less renowned than War: new foes arise, Help us to save free conscience from the paw XIX ON HIS BLINDNESS WHEN I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He returning chide, Either man's work or his own gifts. Who best Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best. Is kingly thousands at his bidding speed, : His state And post o're land and ocean without rest; XXII TO MR. CYRIAC SKINNER UPON HIS BLINDNESS CYRIAC, this three years' day these eyes, though clear, Or man, or woman. Against Heav'n's hand or will, nor bate one jo* Of which all Europe rings from side to side, 5 IO This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask Content, though blind, had I no better guide. 2. THE AGE OF THE RESTORATION The year 1660 is an important date in English history and literature. Cromwell was dead, Puritanism had lost its political ascendency, the Stuarts had been reseated upon the throne, and with the cessation of the internecine struggle for power a new and modern England had sprung into life. In many ways it was a strong and self-reliant England that now arose. Science and industry took vast strides. "Reason" and "intellect were hailed as watchwords of the coming time. Men centred their attention on the world of actual conditions rather than on that of emotional ideals and disputed rights. Though Englishmen of the mass treasured freedom and exalted self-reliance, individuality of thought and action gave place to a desire for conformity with fixed and generally approved standards. Though the Puritan leaven still worked in the lump, and always will work, the people as a whole frankly enjoyed life, and many turned to pleasures which contrasted oddly with the "other worldliness ” of the Puritan age. In the circles of court and of London society the temperance and re straint of the earlier time were only too gladly flung to the winds. The moral degradation of the king and his followers is almost beyond belief. In their estimation, to be honest and virtuous was to be held a Puritan ; and the Puritans were objects of unsparing ridicule and contempt. The effect of this social revolution upon literature may be easily imagined; it was at once apparent in a debased moral tone, especially of the drama. The theatres were again thrown open, and a school of dramatists arose, vigorous and witty in style, yet unparalleled in deliberate indecency. It must not be inferred, however, that this debasement of moral tone was the only effect of the Restoration upon literature. It was not, indeed, the principal effect. Charles II, on returning to his country, brought with him from his exile in France a taste for the literary style and literary models of the French. Literature in France, at this time the most brilliant on the continent, attached great importance to form, and was elaborating to a remarkable degree the theory and art of criticism. The poetry of England, save in the hands of Milton and a very few others, had, as we have remarked, become extravagant and fantastic in the extreme. Reform was evidently necessary; the new conditions made reform possible. Finish and neatness of expression were now desired; and the French masters of the critical art were busy devising rules by which this finish and neatness, this exactness and lucidity, might be obtained. All this was very congenial to the newly awakened critical intellectuality of England; and the result was that the Italian influence, which had been stimulating English poetry for over two centuries and a half, now gave way to a century of influence on the part of France. We shall find poetry, during the period of French influence, correct but cold, intellectual rather than emotional, satiric and didactic rather than lyric and passionate. Towering above the group of lesser writers who devoted themselves to this new fashion of literature, stands a splendidly intellectual representative of the spirit of his time: the poet, dramatist, and critic, JOHN DRYDEN. JOHN DRYDEN (1631-1700) "I confess," says Dryden, " that my chief endeavors are to delight the age in which I live. If the humor of this be for low comedy, small accidents, and raillery, I will force my genius to obey it." This statement explains why John Dryden, brilliant thinker and master-critic though he was, cannot be placed with the seers of English poetry, certainly not with that highest group of those who are seers and creators in one. He was incomparably the most distinguished author of his age; but it was not an imaginative age, therefore not an age favorable to the truest and most lasting kind of poetry. It was an age of criti |