Epilogue For "the King's House."[1] Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCDEFGHHHIIJKDELLM MNNHHNNHHNNNNOOHH| We act by fits and starts like drowning men | A |
| But just peep up and then pop down again | A |
| Let those who call us wicked change their sense | B |
| For never men lived more on Providence | C |
| Not lottery cavaliers are half so poor | D |
| Nor broken cits nor a vacation whore | E |
| Not courts nor courtiers living on the rents | F |
| Of the three last ungiving parliaments | G |
| So wretched that if Pharaoh could divine | H |
| He might have spared his dream of seven lean kine | H |
| And changed his vision for the Muses Nine | H |
| The comet that they say portends a dearth | I |
| Was but a vapour drawn from play house earth | I |
| Pent there since our last fire and Lilly says | J |
| Foreshows our change of state and thin third days | K |
| 'Tis not our want of wit that keeps us poor | D |
| For then the printer's press would suffer more | E |
| Their pamphleteers each day their venom spit | L |
| They thrive by treason and we starve by wit | L |
| Confess the truth which of you has not laid | M |
| Four farthings out to buy the Hatfield maid | M |
| Or which is duller yet and more would spite us | N |
| Democritus his wars with Heraclitus | N |
| Such are the authors who have run us down | H |
| And exercised you critics of the town | H |
| Yet these are pearls to your lampooning rhymes | N |
| Ye abuse yourselves more dully than the times | N |
| Scandal the glory of the English nation | H |
| Is worn to rags and scribbled out of fashion | H |
| Such harmless thrusts as if like fencers wise | N |
| They had agreed their play before their prize | N |
| Faith they may hang their harps upon the willows | N |
| 'Tis just like children when they box with pillows | N |
| Then put an end to civil wars for shame | O |
| Let each knight errant who has wrong'd a dame | O |
| Throw down his pen and give her as he can | H |
| The satisfaction of a gentleman | H |
John Dryden
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