Page 276

John Dryden. (1631–1700) (continued)

3006

Death in itself is nothing; but we fear
To be we know not what, we know not where.

Aurengzebe. Act iv. Sc. 1.

3007

When I consider life, ’t is all a cheat.
Yet fool’d with hope, men favour the deceit;
Trust on, and think to-morrow will repay.
To-morrow ’s falser than the former day;
Lies worse, and while it says we shall be blest
With some new joys, cuts off what we possest.
Strange cozenage! none would live past years again,
Yet all hope pleasure in what yet remain; 1
And from the dregs of life think to receive
What the first sprightly running could not give.

Aurengzebe. Act iv. Sc. 1.

3008

’T is not for nothing that we life pursue;
It pays our hopes with something still that ’s new.

Aurengzebe. Act iv. Sc. 1.

3009

All delays are dangerous in war.

Tyrannic Love. Act i. Sc. 1.

3010

Pains of love be sweeter far
Than all other pleasures are.

Tyrannic Love. Act iv. Sc. 1.

3011

Whatever is, is in its causes just. 2

Œdipus. Act iii. Sc. 1.

3012

His hair just grizzled,
As in a green old age. 3

Œdipus. Act iii. Sc. 1.

3013

Of no distemper, of no blast he died,
But fell like autumn fruit that mellow’d long,—
Even wonder’d at, because he dropp’d no sooner.
Fate seem’d to wind him up for fourscore years,
Yet freshly ran he on ten winters more;
Till like a clock worn out with eating time,
The wheels of weary life at last stood still.

Œdipus. Act iv. Sc. 1.

3014

She, though in full-blown flower of glorious beauty,
Grows cold even in the summer of her age.

Œdipus. Act iv. Sc. 1.

Note 1.
There are not eight finer lines in Lucretius—Thomas B. Macaulay: History of England, chap. xviii. [back]

Note 2.
Whatever is, is right.—Alexander Pope: Essay on Man, epistle i. line 289. [back]

Note 3.
A green old age unconscious of decay.—Alexander Pope: The Iliad, book xxiii. line 929. [back]

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