When mortals formed of common clay expire, These vulgar souls an elegy require; But some hero of more heavenly frame, Exerts his valour, and extends his fame; Below the spheres impatient to abide, With universal joy is deified. Thus our triumphant Bard from hence is fled. But let us never, never say he’s dead; Let poetasters make the Muses mourn, And common-place it o’er his sacred urn; The public voice exalts him to the sky, And fate decrees him immortality; Ordains, instead of tears or mournful hearse, His apotheosis be sung in verse. Great poets sure are formed of heavenly race, And with great heroes justly claim a place. As Cæsar’s pen did Cæsar best commend, And all the elegies of Rome transcend; So Dryden’s muse alone, like Phœbus bright, Outshines all human praise, or borrowed light; To form his image, and to make it true, There must be art, and inspiration too. Auspicious stars had doomed him to the trade, By nature framed, by art a poet made: Thus Maro’s words and sense in him we see, And Ovid’s teeming vein of poesy. In his vast miscellaneous works we find, What charms at once, and edifies the mind: His pregnant muse has in the offspring shown What’s rare for use, or beauty to be known: In monumental everlasting verse Epitomised, he grasped the universe. No power but his could tune a British lyre To sweeter notes than any Tuscan quire, Teutonic words to animate and raise, Strong, shining, musical, as attic lays; Rude matter indisposed he formed polite, His muse seemed rather to create than write. His nervous eloquence is brighter far Than florid pulpit, or the noisy bar. His periods shine harmonious in the close, As if a muse presided in his prose; Yet unaffected plain, but strong his style, It overflows to fructify, like Nile. The God of wit conspires with all the Nine, To make the orator and poet join. We’re charmed when he the lady or the friend, Pleased in majestic numbers to commend. The panegyric flows in streams profuse, When worth or beauty sublimates the muse. His notes are moving, powerful, and strong, As Orpheus’ lyre, or as a Syren’s song; Sweet as the happy Idumean fields, And fragrant as the flowers that Tempe yields. Thrice happy she to whom such tribute’s paid, And has such incense at her altar laid; A sacrifice that might with envy move Jove’s consort, or the charming Queen of Love. His lasting lines will give a sacred name, (Eternal records in the book of fame,) His favourites are doom’d by Jove’s decree, To share with him in immortality. The wealthy muse on innate mines could live, Though no Mecenas any smile would give; His light not borrowed, but was all his own; His rays were bright and warm without the sun.