Prologue. Spoken At The Opening Of The New House, March 26, 1674. Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEFEGGHIIJJKK LLKKMMMMMKKKKKKNNJJK KMMKKKMMMMMIO| A plain built house after so long a stay | A |
| Will send you half unsatisfied away | A |
| When fallen from your expected pomp you find | B |
| A bare convenience only is design'd | B |
| You who each day can theatres behold | C |
| Like Nero's palace shining all with gold | C |
| Our mean ungilded stage will scorn we fear | D |
| And for the homely room disdain the cheer | D |
| Yet now cheap druggets to a mode are grown | E |
| And a plain suit since we can make but one | F |
| Is better than to be by tarnish'd gawdry known | E |
| They who are by your favours wealthy made | G |
| With mighty sums may carry on the trade | G |
| We broken bankers half destroy'd by fire | H |
| With our small stock to humble roofs retire | I |
| Pity our loss while you their pomp admire | I |
| For fame and honour we no longer strive | J |
| We yield in both and only beg to live | J |
| Unable to support their vast expense | K |
| Who build and treat with such magnificence | K |
| That like the ambitious monarchs of the age | L |
| They give the law to our provincial stage | L |
| Great neighbours enviously promote excess | K |
| While they impose their splendour on the less | K |
| But only fools and they of vast estate | M |
| The extremity of modes will imitate | M |
| The dangling knee fringe and the bib cravat | M |
| Yet if some pride with want may be allow'd | M |
| We in our plainness may be justly proud | M |
| Our royal master will'd it should be so | K |
| Whate'er he's pleased to own can need no show | K |
| That sacred name gives ornament and grace | K |
| And like his stamp makes basest metals pass | K |
| 'Twere folly now a stately pile to raise | K |
| To build a playhouse while you throw down plays | K |
| While scenes machines and empty operas reign | N |
| And for the pencil you the pen disdain | N |
| While troops of famish'd Frenchmen hither drive | J |
| And laugh at those upon whose alms they live | J |
| Old English authors vanish and give place | K |
| To these new conquerors of the Norman race | K |
| More tamely than your fathers you submit | M |
| You're now grown vassals to them in your wit | M |
| Mark when they play how our fine fops advance | K |
| The mighty merits of their men of France | K |
| Keep time cry Bon and humour the cadence | K |
| Well please yourselves but sure 'tis understood | M |
| That French machines have ne'er done England good | M |
| I would not prophesy our house's fate | M |
| But while vain shows and scenes you over rate | M |
| Tis to be fear'd | M |
| That as a fire the former house o'erthrew | I |
| Machines and tempests will destroy the new | O |
John Dryden
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