Prologue To "the Loyal General;" By Mr Tate, 1680 Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AAABCDEFFGGHHIIAJKKL LMMNNOOPPQRSHH| If yet there be a few that take delight | A |
| In that which reasonable men should write | A |
| To them alone we dedicate this night | A |
| The rest may satisfy their curious itch | B |
| With city gazettes or some factious speech | C |
| Or whate'er libel for the public good | D |
| Stirs up the shrove tide crew to fire and blood | E |
| Remove your benches you apostate pit | F |
| And take above twelve pennyworth of wit | F |
| Go back to your dear dancing on the rope | G |
| Or see what's worse the Devil and the Pope | G |
| The plays that take on our corrupted stage | H |
| Methinks resemble the distracted age | H |
| Noise madness all unreasonable things | I |
| That strike at sense as rebels do at kings | I |
| The style of forty one our poets write | A |
| And you are grown to judge like forty eight | J |
| Such censures our mistaking audience make | K |
| That 'tis almost grown scandalous to take | K |
| They talk of fevers that infect the brains | L |
| But nonsense is the new disease that reigns | L |
| Weak stomachs with a long disease oppress'd | M |
| Cannot the cordials of strong wit digest | M |
| Therefore thin nourishment of farce ye choose | N |
| Decoctions of a barley water Muse | N |
| A meal of tragedy would make ye sick | O |
| Unless it were a very tender chick | O |
| Some scenes in sippets would be worth our time | P |
| Those would go down some love that's poach'd in rhyme | P |
| If these should fail | Q |
| We must lie down and after all our cost | R |
| Keep holiday like watermen in frost | S |
| While you turn players on the world's great stage | H |
| And act yourselves the farce of your own age | H |
John Dryden
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