TO MR. DRYDEN

by: Joseph Addison (1672-1719)

OW long, great Poet, shall thy sacred lays

Provoke our wonder, and transcend our praise?

Can eneither injuries of time, or age,

Damp thy poetic heat, and quench thy rage?

No so thy Ovid in his exile wrote,

Grief chill'd his breast,and check'd his rising thought:

Pensive and sad, his drooping Muse betrays

The Roman genius in its last decays.

Prevailing warmth has still thy mind possest,

And second youth is kindled in thy breast;

Thou mak'st the beauties of the Romans known,

And England boasts of riches not her own;

Thy lines have heighten'd Virgil's majesty,

And Horace wonders at himself in thee.

Thou teachest Persius to inform our isle

In smoother numbers, and a clearer style;

And Juvenal, instructed in thy page,

Edges his satire, and improves his rage,

Thy copy casts a fairer light on all,

And still out-shines, the bright original.

Now Ovid boasts th' advanage of thy song,

And tells his story in the British tongue;

Thy charming verse, and fair translations, show

How thy own laurel first began to grow:

How wild Lycaon, chang'd by angry gods,

And frighted at himself, ran howling through the woods.

O may'st thou still the noble talk prolong,

Nor age, nor sickness, interrupt thy song:

Then may we wondering read, how human limbs

Have water'd kingdoms, and dissolv'd in streams;

Of those rich fruits that on the fertile mold

Turn'd yellow by degrees, and ripen'd into gold:

How some in feathers, or a ragged hide,

Have liv'd a second life, and different natures try'd.

Then will thy Ovid, thus transform'd, reveal

A nobler change than he himself can tell.

• Joseph Addison - A biography of the English dramatist.
• Joseph Addison: Bibliography - A bibliography of the works of Joseph Addison; includes a list of critical resources.
• Poems by 18th Century Dramatists - An index of poems by some of the greatest dramatists of the eighteenth century.
• Purchase books by Joseph Addison