To Mr Southerne, On His Comedy Called "the Wives' Excuse." Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDEFGHHBBBIIIIJ JKLMNOOPQII| Sure there's a fate in plays and 'tis in vain | A |
| To write while these malignant planets reign | A |
| Some very foolish influence rules the pit | B |
| Not always kind to sense or just to wit | B |
| And whilst it lasts let buffoonry succeed | C |
| To make us laugh for never was more need | C |
| Farce in itself is of a nasty scent | D |
| But the gain smells not of the excrement | E |
| The Spanish nymph a wit and beauty too | F |
| With all her charms bore but a single show | G |
| But let a monster Muscovite appear | H |
| He draws a crowded audience round the year | H |
| May be thou hast not pleased the box and pit | B |
| Yet those who blame thy tale applaud thy wit | B |
| So Terence plotted but so Terence writ | B |
| Like his thy thoughts are true thy language clean | I |
| Even lewdness is made moral in thy scene | I |
| The hearers may for want of Nokes repine | I |
| But rest secure the readers will be thine | I |
| Nor was thy labour'd drama damn'd or hiss'd | J |
| But with a kind civility dismiss'd | J |
| With such good manners as the Wife did use | K |
| Who not accepting did but just refuse | L |
| There was a glance at parting such a look | M |
| As bids thee not give o'er for one rebuke | N |
| But if thou wouldst be seen as well as read | O |
| Copy one living author and one dead | O |
| The standard of thy style let Etherege be | P |
| For wit the immortal spring of Wycherly | Q |
| Learn after both to draw some just design | I |
| And the next age will learn to copy thine | I |
John Dryden
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To Mr Southerne, On His Comedy Called "the Wives' Excuse." is a poem by John Dryden. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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