Dryden's Tea Party

Whose differing Parties he could wisely Joyn,

For several Ends, to serve the same Design.

The Best, and of the Princes some were such,

Who thought the power of Monarchy too much:

Mistaken Men, and Patriots in their Hearts;

Not Wicked, but Seduc'd by Impious Arts.

By these the Springs of Property were bent,

And wound so high, they Crack'd the Government.

The next for Interest sought t'embroil the State,

TO sell their Duty at a dearer rate;

And make their Jewish Markets of the Throne,

Pretending puclick Good, to serve their own.

Others thought Kings an useless heavy Load,

Who Cost too much, and did too little Good.

These were for laying Honest David by,

On Principles of pure good Husbandry.

With them Joyn'd all th' Haranguers of the Throng,

That thought to get Preferment by the Tongue.

Who follows next, a double Danger bring,

Not only hating David, but the King,

The Solymæan Rout; well Verst of old,

In Godly Faction, and in Treason bold;

Cowring and Quaking at a Conqueror's Sword,

But Lofty to a Lawfull Prince Restor'd;

Saw with Disdain an Ethnick Plot begun,

And Scorn'd by Jebusites to be Out-done.

Hot Levites Headed these; who pul'd before

From the Ark, which in the Judges days they bore,

Resum'd their Cant, and with a Zealous Cry,

Pursu'd their old belov'd Theocracy.

Where Sanhedrin and Priest inslav'd the Nation,

And justifi'd their Spoils by Inspiration;

For who so fit for Reign as Aarons's race,

If once Dominion they could found in Grace?

These led the Pack; tho not of surest scent,

Yet deepest mouth'd against the Government.

A numerous Host of dreaming Saints succeed;

Of the true old Enthusiastick breed;

'Gainst Form and Order they their Power employ;

Nothing to Build and all things to Destroy.

But far more numerous was the herd of such,

Who think too little, and who talk too much.

These, out of meer instinct, they knew not why,

Ador'd their fathers God, and Property:

And, by the same blind benefit of Fate,

The Devil and the Jebusite did hate:

Born to be sav'd, even in their own despight;

Because they could not help believing right.

Such were the tools; but a whole Hydra more

Remains, of sprouting heads too long, to score.

- John Dryden, from Absalom and Achitophel

Reading Dryden this weekend, I am struck by how eerily contemporary the politics in his poems seems: the uneasy alliance between anti-government paranoia, corporate interest, religious fundamentalism and xenophobic bigotry that comprises what we now call the hard Right.

Does the perspicacity of the old masters come from a unique insight into the human condition, or is it just that history is so inherently repetitive that a moderately competent description of one age echoes familiarly in another? Either thought is depressing, though the former suggests a personal failure, and the latter a more general one.

These poems also render a much finer sense of the political in poetry, reminding us that the political poem can be more than an act of witness or protest, more than an impassioned outcry against perceived wrong. In the hands of Dryden, or Marvell, or (for that matter) Lucan, it can be a thoughtful argument for a point of view, laying out intelligently and forcefully the causes and consequences of the big picture.