How long, great Poet, shall thy sacred lays <br />Provoke our wonder, and transcend our praise? <br />Can eneither injuries of time, or age, <br />Damp thy poetic heat, and quench thy rage? <br />No so thy Ovid in his exile wrote, <br />Grief chill'd his breast,and check'd his rising thought: <br />Pensive and sad, his drooping Muse betrays <br />The Roman genius in its last decays. <br />Prevailing warmth has still thy mind possest, <br />And second youth is kindled in thy breast; <br />Thou mak'st the beauties of the Romans known, <br />And England boasts of riches not her own; <br />Thy lines have heighten'd Virgil's majesty, <br />And Horace wonders at himself in thee. <br />Thou teachest Persius to inform our isle <br />In smoother numbers, and a clearer style; <br />And Juvenal, instructed in thy page, <br />Edges his satire, and improves his rage, <br />Thy copy casts a fairer light on all, <br />And still out-shines, the bright original. <br />Now Ovid boasts th' advanage of thy song, <br />And tells his story in the British tongue; <br />Thy charming verse, and fair translations, show <br />How thy own laurel first began to grow: <br />How wild Lycaon, chang'd by angry gods, <br />And frighted at himself, ran howling through the woods. <br />O may'st thou still the noble talk prolong, <br />Nor age, nor sickness, interrupt thy song: <br />Then may we wondering read, how human limbs <br />Have water'd kingdoms, and dissolv'd in streams; <br />Of those rich fruits that on the fertile mold <br />Turn'd yellow by degrees, and ripen'd into gold: <br />How some in feathers, or a ragged hide, <br />Have liv'd a second life, and different natures try'd. <br />Then will thy Ovid, thus transform'd, reveal <br />A nobler change than he himself can tell.<br /><br />Joseph Addison<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-mr-dryden/
