Waked, as her custom was, before the day,
    To do the observance due to sprightly May;
    For sprightly May commands our youth to keep
    The vigils of her night, and breaks their sluggard sleep;
    Each gentle breast with kindly warmth she moves;
    Inspires new flames, revives extinguished loves. 
    In this remembrance, Emily, ere day,
    Arose, and dressed herself in rich array;
    Fresh as the month, and as the morning fair,
    Adown her shoulders fell her length of hair;
    A ribbon did the braided tresses bind,
    The rest was loose, and wantoned in the wind: 
    Aurora had but newly chased the night,
    And purpled o’er the sky with blushing light,
    When to the garden walk she took her way,
    To sport and trip along in cool of day,
    And offer maiden vows in honour of the May. 
        At every turn she made a little stand,
    And thrust among the thorns her lily hand
    To draw the rose, and every rose she drew,
    She shook the stalk, and brushed away the dew;
    Then party-coloured flowers of white and red
    She wove, to make a garland for her head. 
    This done, she sang and carolled out so clear,
    That men and angels might rejoice to hear;
    Even wondering Philomel forgot to sing,
    And learned from her to welcome in the Spring.”

That is Dryden’s, and this is how Chaucer tells of the same May morning:—­

    “This passeth yeer by yeer, and day by day,
    Till it fel oones in a morwe of May
    That Emelie, that farier was to seene
    Than is the lilie on his stalke grene,
    And fressher than the May with floures newe—­
    For with the rose colour strof hire hewe,
    I not which was the fairer of hem two—­
    Er it were day, as was hir wone to do,
    She was arisen and al redy dight. 
    For May wol have no sloggardy anight. 
    The seson priketh every gentil herte,
    And maketh him out of his sleep to sterte,
    And seith, ‘Arise and do thin observance’. 
    This maked Emelye have remembraunce
    To don honour to May, and for to rise. 
    I-clothed was she fressh for to devise,
    Hir yelowe heer was broyded in a tresse,
    Behinde hir bak, a yerde long I gesse;
    And in the gardyn at the sunne upriste
    She walketh up and doun, and as hir liste

    She gadereth floures, party white and rede,
    To make a subtil garland for hir hede,
    And as an angel hevenly she song.”

In this quotation from Chaucer I have not changed the old spelling into modern as I did in the chapter on Chaucer, so that you may see the difference between the two styles more clearly.

If you can see the difference between these two quotations you can see the difference between the poetry of Dryden’s age and all that went before him.  It is the difference between art and nature.  Chaucer sings like a bird, Dryden like a trained concert singer who knows that people are listening to him.  There is room for both in life.  We want and need both.