MAC FLECKNOE
by: John Dryden
- LL human things are subject to
decay,
- And, when fate summons, monarchs must obey.
- This Flecknoe found, who, like Augustus, young
- Was called to empire, and had governed long;
- In prose and verse was found without dispute,
- Through all the realms of Nonsense, absolute.
- This agèd prince, now flourished in peace,
- And blessed with issue of a large increase,
- Worn out with business, did at length debate
- To settle the succession of the state;
- And, pondering which of all his sons was fit
- To reign, and wage immortal war with wit,
- Cried,--"'Tis resolved! for nature pleads, that he
- Should only rule, who most resembles me.
- Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
- Mature in dulness from his tender years;
- Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he,
- Who stands confirmed in full stupidity.
- The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
- But Shadwell never deviates into sense;
- Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
- Strike through, and make a lucid interval;
- But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray,
- His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
- Besides, his goodly fabric fills the eye,
- And seems designed for thoughtless majesty;
- Thoughtless as monarch oaks, that shade the plain,
- And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign.
- Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee,
- Thou last great prophet of tautology!
- Even I, a dunce of more renown than they,
- Was sent before but to prepare the way;
- And, coarsely clad in Norwich drugget, came
- To teach the nation in thy greater name."
'Mac Flecknoe' is reprinted from
English Poems. Ed. Edward Chauncey Baldwin. New York:
American Book Company, 1908. |
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