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Spoken by Mr. Hart
1674
POETS, your subjects, have their parts assigned, | |
| T’ unbend, and to divert their sovereign’s mind: | |
| When, tired with following nature, you think fit | |
| To seek repose in the cool shades of wit, | |
| And, from the sweet retreat, with joy survey | 5 |
| What rests, and what is conquered, of the way. | |
| Here, free yourselves from envy, care, and strife, | |
| You view the various turns of human life; | |
| Safe in our scene, through dangerous courts you go, | |
| And, undebauched, the vice of cities know. | 10 |
| Your theories are here to practice brought, | |
| As in mechanic operations wrought; | |
| And man, the little world, before you set, | |
| As once the sphere of crystal showed the great. | |
| Blest sure are you above all mortal kind, | 15 |
| If to your fortunes you can suit your mind; | |
| Content to see, and shun, those ills we show, | |
| And crimes on theatres alone to know. | |
| With joy we bring what our dead authors writ, | |
| And beg from you the value of their wit: | 20 |
| That Shakespeare’s, Fletcher’s, and great Jonson’s claim | |
| May be renewed from those who gave them fame. | |
| None of our living poets dare appear; | |
| For Muses so severe are worshipped here | |
| That, conscious of their faults, they shun the eye, | 25 |
| And, as profane, from sacred places fly, | |
| Rather than see the offended God, and die. | |
| We bring no imperfections, but our own; | |
| Such faults as made are by the makers shown; | |
| And you have been so kind that we may boast, | 30 |
| The greatest judges still can pardon most. | |
| Poets must stoop, when they would please our pit, | |
| Debased even to the level of their wit; | |
| Disdaining that which yet they know will take, | |
| Hating themselves what their applause must make. | 35 |
| But when to praise from you they would aspire, | |
| Though they like eagles mount, your Jove is higher. | |
| So far your knowledge all their power transcends, | |
| As what should be, beyond what is, extends. | |
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