Prologue To 'the Three Hours After Marriage' Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCDDEEFGHHIJHH KKLLMMFFNOPP QQRRQQFFSS| Authors are judged by strange capricious rules | A |
| The great ones are thought mad the small ones fools | A |
| Yet sure the best are most severely fated | B |
| For fools are only laugh'd at wits are hated | C |
| Blockheads with reason men of sense abhor | D |
| But fool 'gainst fool is barbarous civil war | D |
| Why on all authors then should critics fall | E |
| Since some have writ and shown no wit at all | E |
| Condemn a play of theirs and they evade it | F |
| Cry 'Damn not us but damn the French who made it ' | G |
| By running goods these graceless owlers gain | H |
| Theirs are the rules of France the plots of Spain | H |
| But wit like wine from happier climates brought | I |
| Dash'd by these rogues turns English common draught | J |
| They pall Moli re's and Lopez' sprightly strain | H |
| And teach dull harlequins to grin in vain | H |
| - | |
| How shall our author hope a gentler fate | K |
| Who dares most impudently not translate | K |
| It had been civil in these ticklish times | L |
| To fetch his fools and knaves from foreign climes | L |
| Spaniards and French abuse to the world's end | M |
| But spare old England lest you hurt a friend | M |
| If any fool is by our satire bit | F |
| Let him hiss loud to show you all he's hit | F |
| Poets make characters as salesmen clothes | N |
| We take no measure of your fops and beaux | O |
| But here all sizes and all shapes you meet | P |
| And fit yourselves like chaps in Monmouth Street | P |
| - | |
| Gallants look here this fool's cap has an air | Q |
| Goodly and smart with ears of Issachar | Q |
| Let no one fool engross it or confine | R |
| A common blessing now 'tis yours now mine | R |
| But poets in all ages had the care | Q |
| To keep this cap for such as will to wear | Q |
| Our author has it now for every wit | F |
| Of course resign'd it to the next that writ | F |
| And thus upon the stage 'tis fairly thrown | S |
| Let him that takes it wear it as his own | S |
Alexander Pope
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