from Troilus and Cressida

By John Dryden 1631–1700 John Dryden

Can life be a blessing,

Or worth the possessing,

Can life be a blessing if love were away?

Ah no! though our love all night keep us waking,

And though he torment us with cares all the day,

Yet he sweetens, he sweetens our pains in the taking,

There's an hour at the last, there's an hour to repay.

In ev'ry possessing,

The ravishing blessing,

In ev'ry possessing the fruit of our pain,

Poor lovers forget long ages of anguish,

Whate'er they have suffer'd and done to obtain;

'Tis a pleasure, a pleasure to sigh and to languish,

When we hope, when we hope to be happy again.

Biography

After John Donne and John Milton, John Dryden was the greatest English poet of the seventeenth century. After William Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, he was the greatest playwright. And he has no peer as a writer of prose, especially literary criticism, and as a translator. Other figures, such as George Herbert or Andrew Marvell or William Wycherley or William Congreve, may figure more prominently in anthologies and literary . . .

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