Page:Miscellanies (IA miscellanies00swinrich).pdf/380
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
366
A RELIC OF DRYDEN
Ask if nine. Winters Cold, nine Summers Heats,
And almost a continual emptiness
Can chuse but alter th' Organs of the Voice?
Oh! Madam, Madam, did you know my Story,
You'd rather wonder I can speak at all,
Then [Than] that my Tone is chang'd: if that be all
The scruple, from this hour I will be dumb;
And give no food to your distrust.
Mrs. Man. It must be he.
Sir, you may spare that Pennance; I'le delight
To hear you tell with this Voice, how your old one
Departed from you, and by frequent hearing
Forget the difference of their sounds. Believe me!
My heart shall ever be so full of joyes
For your deliverance; I will not weep
When you relate your Sorrows.
And almost a continual emptiness
Can chuse but alter th' Organs of the Voice?
Oh! Madam, Madam, did you know my Story,
You'd rather wonder I can speak at all,
Then [Than] that my Tone is chang'd: if that be all
The scruple, from this hour I will be dumb;
And give no food to your distrust.
Mrs. Man. It must be he.
Sir, you may spare that Pennance; I'le delight
To hear you tell with this Voice, how your old one
Departed from you, and by frequent hearing
Forget the difference of their sounds. Believe me!
My heart shall ever be so full of joyes
For your deliverance; I will not weep
When you relate your Sorrows.
If this pretty passage be thought too gentle in its tone for the generally untender Muse of Dryden, I would refer the objector to an equally simple and graceful dialogue in verse between Leonidas and Palmyra in the chaotic tragicomedy of Marriage à la Mode.
Haz. Love, I am now thy Sacrifice, on this
Thy living Alter I lay down my life.
Mrs. Man. May the same fire that burns the Victim, seize
The Altar too, since I am it.
Haz. How charming she looks now?
When she was conceiv'd, her Mother look't on Lillies.
O! I could stare for ever here! Wild Poetry!
Creatrix of Impossibilities,
Shew me but such another 'mong thy Quire
Of Goddesses, and I'le forgo my Conquest.
Act II, Scene I.
Thy living Alter I lay down my life.
Mrs. Man. May the same fire that burns the Victim, seize
The Altar too, since I am it.
Haz. How charming she looks now?
When she was conceiv'd, her Mother look't on Lillies.
O! I could stare for ever here! Wild Poetry!
Creatrix of Impossibilities,
Shew me but such another 'mong thy Quire
Of Goddesses, and I'le forgo my Conquest.
Act II, Scene I.
A fellow-student whose verdict on such a question carries no light weight with it would assign to Dryden rather this than the scene which I proceed to transcribe at full length, literatè as before and punctatim, having been inclined for my own part to exclaim on a first reading of it, 'either John Dryden or the Devil.'