To My Friend Mr Motteux,[1] On His Tragedy Called "beauty In Distress." Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEFGHHIIJJKK GGLMNNKKOOPPGGGQQKKR STTUUVVQQKKWXKK'Tis hard my friend to write in such an age | A |
As damns not only poets but the stage | A |
That sacred art by Heaven itself infused | B |
Which Moses David Solomon have used | B |
Is now to be no more the Muses' foes | C |
Would sink their Maker's praises into prose | C |
Were they content to prune the lavish vine | D |
Of straggling branches and improve the wine | D |
Who but a madman would his thoughts defend | E |
All would submit for all but fools will mend | E |
But when to common sense they give the lie | F |
And turn distorted words to blasphemy | G |
They give the scandal and the wise discern | H |
Their glosses teach an age too apt to learn | H |
What I have loosely or profanely writ | I |
Let them to fires their due desert commit | I |
Nor when accused by me let them complain | J |
Their faults and not their function I arraign | J |
Rebellion worse than witchcraft they pursued | K |
The pulpit preach'd the crime the people rued | K |
The stage was silenced for the saints would see | G |
In fields perform'd their plotted tragedy | G |
But let us first reform and then so live | L |
That we may teach our teachers to forgive | M |
Our desk be placed below their lofty chairs | N |
Ours be the practice as the precept theirs | N |
The moral part at least we may divide | K |
Humility reward and punish pride | K |
Ambition interest avarice accuse | O |
These are the province of a tragic Muse | O |
These hast thou chosen and the public voice | P |
Has equall'd thy performance with thy choice | P |
Time action place are so preserved by thee | G |
That even Corn ille might with envy see | G |
The alliance of his tripled Unity | G |
Thy incidents perhaps too thick are sown | Q |
But too much plenty is thy fault alone | Q |
At least but two can that good crime commit | K |
Thou in design and Wycherly in wit | K |
Let thy own Gauls condemn thee if they dare | R |
Contented to be thinly regular | S |
Born there but not for them our fruitful soil | T |
With more increase rewards thy happy toil | T |
Their tongue enfeebled is refined too much | U |
And like pure gold it bends at every touch | U |
Our sturdy Teuton yet will art obey | V |
More fit for manly thought and strengthen'd with allay | V |
But whence art thou inspired and thou alone | Q |
To flourish in an idiom not thy own | Q |
It moves our wonder that a foreign guest | K |
Should over match the most and match the best | K |
In under praising thy deserts I wrong | W |
Here find the first deficience of our tongue | X |
Words once my stock are wanting to commend | K |
So great a poet and so good a friend | K |
John Dryden
(1)
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