Lines printed under the engraved portrait of Milton, in Tonson's folio edition of the Paradise Lost, 1688. Translations of Latin Hymns and Minor Miscellanies. John Dryden. 1913. The Poems of John Dryden

John Dryden (1631–1700). The Poems of John Dryden. 1913.

Translations of Latin Hymns and Minor Miscellanies

Lines printed under the engraved portrait of Milton, in Tonson’s folio edition of the Paradise Lost, 1688


THREE 1 Poets, in three distant Ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The first in Loftiness of Thought surpass’d,
The next in Majesty, in both the last:
The Force of Nature could no farther go;	5
To make a third she join’d the former two.

Note 1. Text from the original of 1688. [back]