Farewell, too little, and too lately known, Whom I began to think and call my own: For sure our souls were near allied, and thine Cast in the same poetic mold with mine.
Thy generous fruits, though gathered ere their prime, Still showed a quickness; and maturing time But mellows what we write to the dull sweets of rhyme.
Oldham is compared to Nisus, who "on the point of winning a footrace, slipped in a pool of blood"[4] in Vergil's Aeneid.
Here, "Dryden repeats the Renaissance idea that the satirist should avoid smoothness and affect rough meters […].
As Oldham was still young his "generous fruit […] / Still showed a quickness," but Dryden finds comfort in the fact that "maturing time / But mellows what we write to the dull sweets of rhyme."