"Why asks he what avails him not in fight, And would but cumber and retard his flight, In which his only excellence is placed? You give him death that interrupt his haste."
John Dryden was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate. He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the period came to be known in literary circles as the Age of Dryden. Romantic writer Sir Walter Scott called him "Glorious John".
"A man so various, that he seem’d to be Not one, but all mankind’s epitome; Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, Was everything by starts, and nothing long; But in the course of one revolving moon Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon."
"And that one hunting, which the Devil designd For one fair female, lost him half the kind."
"I have a soul that like an ample shield Can take in all, and verge enough for more."
"With ravished ears The monarch hears; Assumes the god, Affects the nod, And seems to shake the spheres."
"Sound the trumpets; beat the drums... Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he comes."
"Arms, and the man I sing, who, forced by Fate, And haughty Junos unrelenting hate, Expelld and exild, left the Trojan shore; Long labours both by sea and land he bore."