Dryden, John (1631-1700)

To the Pious Memory of the Accomplished Young Lady Mrs. Anne Killigrew, Excellent in the Two Sister Arts of Poetry and Painting. An Ode. [from Poems by Mrs. Anne Killigrew]

1685

"Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find, / Than was the beauteous frame she left behind"

If by traduction came thy mind,
Our wonder is the less to find
A soul so charming from a stock so good;
Thy father was transfused into thy blood:
So wert thou born into a tuneful strain,
An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.
But if thy pre-existing soul
Was formed, at first, with myriads more,
It did through all the mighty poets roll,
Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,
And was that Sappho last, which once it was before.
If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind!
Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore:
Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find,
Than was the beauteous frame she left behind:
Return to fill or mend the choir of thy celestial kind.
(pp. 310-1, ll. 23-38)

Architecture::Mansion Architecture::Mansion

Searching in HDIS (Poetry)

John Dryden. The Oxford Authors. Ed. Keith Walker. Oxford University Press: Oxford and New York, 1987.

Metempsychosis; Preexistence of Soul

07/18/2005