Their faith, their patience, and their truth,
And sent them here through hard assays
With a crown of deathless praise,

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
Where day never shuts his eye,
Up in the broad fields of the sky.
There I suck the liquid air,

All amidst the gardens fair

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After her wandering labours long,
Till free consent the gods among
Make her his eternal bride,

And from her fair unspotted side
Two blissful twins are to be born,
Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.

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,
Love Vertue; she alone is free.
She can teach ye how to clime
Higher than the spheary chime;
Or, if Vertue feeble were,

Heav'n itself would stoop to her.

SONNETS
II

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!
My hasting dayes flie on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth
That I to manhood am arriv'd so near;

And inward ripenes doth much less appear,
That som more timely-happy spirits indu'th.

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.
All is, if I have grace to use it so,

As ever in my great Task-Master's eye.

ΠΟΙΟ

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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
Not of war only, but detractions rude,

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,
While Darwent stream, with blood of Scots imbru'd,
And Dunbar field, resound thy praises loud,
And Worcester's laureat wreath: yet much remains
To conquer still; Peace hath her victories

No less renowned than War: new foes arise,
Threatning to bind our souls with secular chains.

Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves, whose Gospel is their maw.

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,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need

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;
They also serve who only stand and waite."

XXII

TO MR. CYRIAC SKINNER

UPON HIS BLINDNESS

CYRIAC, this three years' day these eyes, though clear,
To outward view, of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot;
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year,
Yet I argue not

Or man, or woman.

Against Heav'n's hand or will, nor bate one jo*
Of heart or hope, but still bear up and steer
Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
The conscience, friend, to have lost them overply'd
In Libertie's defence, my noble task,

Of which all Europe rings from side to side,

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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