John Henry Dryden

Gallants, a bashful poet bids me say,
He's come to lose his maidenhead to-day
Be not too fierce; for he's but green of age,
And ne'er, till now, debauched upon the stage

Dreams are but interludes which Fancy makes;
When monarch Reason sleeps, this mimic wakes:
Compounds a medley of disjointed things,
A mob of cobblers, and a court of kings:

He who, in impious times, undaunted stood,
And 'midst rebellion durst be just and good;
Whose arms asserted, and whose sufferings more Confirmed the cause for which he fought before,
Rests here, rewarded by an heavenly prince,

Like some raw sophister that mounts the pulpit,
So trembles a young poet at a full pit
Unused to crowds, the parson quakes for fear,
And wonders how the devil he durst come there;

Dedicated to the Memory of the Late Countess of Abingdon
As when some great and gracious monarch dies,
Soft whispers first and mournful
Among the sad attendants; then the

I
ED a flame within, which so torments me That it both pains my heart, and yet contents me: 'Tis such a pleasing smart, and I so love it,
That I had rather die than once remove it
Yet he, for whom I grieve, shall never know it;

Stay, stranger, stay, and drop one tear
She always weeps, who laid him here;
And will do till her race is run;
His father's fifth, her only son