Poet Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope

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Prologue To Mr Addison's Tragedy Of Cato Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEFGGHIJJIHKK LLIHMMNOLLPPQQPP PPPPRRCCSS

To wake the soul by tender strokes of artA
To raise the genius and to mend the heartA
To make mankind in conscious virtue boldB
Live o'er each scene and be what they beholdB
For this the tragic Muse first trod the stageC
Commanding tears to stream through every ageC
Tyrants no more their savage nature keptD
And foes to virtue wonder'd how they weptD
Our author shuns by vulgar springs to moveE
The hero's glory or the virgin's loveF
In pitying love we but our weakness showG
And wild ambition well deserves its woeG
Here tears shall flow from a more generous causeH
Such tears as patriots shed for dying lawsI
He bids your breasts with ancient ardour riseJ
And calls forth Roman drops from British eyesJ
Virtue confess'd in human shape he drawsI
What Plato thought and godlike Cato wasH
No common object to your sight displaysK
But what with pleasure Heaven itself surveysK
A brave man struggling in the storms of fateL
And greatly falling with a falling stateL
While Cato gives his little senate lawsI
What bosom beats not in his country's causeH
Who sees him act but envies every deedM
Who hears him groan and does not wish to bleedM
Even when proud Caesar 'midst triumphal carsN
The spoils of nations and the pomp of warsO
Ignobly vain and impotently greatL
Show'd Rome her Cato's figure drawn in stateL
As her dead father's reverend image pass'dP
The pomp was darken'd and the day o'ercastP
The triumph ceased tears gush'd from every eyeQ
The world's great victor pass'd unheeded byQ
Her last good man dejected Rome adoredP
And honour'd Caesar's less than Cato's swordP
-
Britons attend be worth like this approvedP
And show you have the virtue to be movedP
With honest scorn the first famed Cato view'dP
Rome learning arts from Greece whom she subduedP
Your scene precariously subsists too longR
On French translation and Italian songR
Dare to have sense yourselves assert the stageC
Be justly warm'd with your own native rageC
Such plays alone should win a British earS
As Cato's self had not disdain'd to hearS

Alexander Pope



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