COME, leave the loathèd stage, | |
And the more loathsome age; | |
Where pride and impudence, in faction knit, | |
Usurp the chair of wit! | |
Indicting and arraigning every day | 5 |
Something they call a play. | |
Let their fastidious, vain | |
Commission of the brain | |
Run on and rage, sweat, censure, and condemn; | |
They were not made for thee, less thou for them. | 10 |
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Say that thou pourst them wheat, | |
And they will acorns eat; | |
Twere simple fury still thyself to waste | |
On such as have no taste! | |
To offer them a surfeit of pure bread | 15 |
Whose appetites are dead! | |
No, give them grains their fill, | |
Husks, draff to drink or swill: | |
If they love lees, and leave the lusty wine, | |
Envy them not, their palates with the swine. | 20 |
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No doubt some mouldy tale, | |
Like Pericles, and stale | |
As the shrieves crusts, and nasty as his fish | |
Scraps out of every dish | |
Thrown forth, and raked into the common tub, | 25 |
May keep up the Play-club: | |
There, sweepings do as well | |
As the best-ordered meal; | |
For who the relish of these guests will fit, | |
Needs set them but the alms-basket of wit. | 30 |
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And much good do t you then: | |
Brave plush-and-velvet-men | |
Can feed on orts; and, safe in your stage-clothes, | |
Dare quit, upon your oaths, | |
The stagers and the stage-wrights too, your peers, | 35 |
Of larding your large ears | |
With their foul comic socks, | |
Wrought upon twenty blocks; | |
Which if they are torn, and turned, and patched enough, | |
The gamesters share your gilt, and you their stuff. | 40 |
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Leave things so prostitute, | |
And take the Alcaic lute; | |
Or thine own Horace, or Anacreons lyre; | |
Warm thee by Pindars fire: | |
And though thy nerves be shrunk, and blood be cold, | 45 |
Ere years have made thee old, | |
Strike that disdainful heat | |
Throughout, to their defeat, | |
As curious fools, and envious of thy strain, | |
May, blushing, swear no palsy s in thy brain. | 50 |
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But when they hear thee sing | |
The glories of thy king, | |
His zeal to God, and his just awe oer men: | |
They may, blood-shaken then, | |
Feel such a flesh-quake to possess their powers, | 55 |
As they shall cry: Like ours | |
In sound of peace or wars, | |
No harp eer hit the stars, | |
In tuning forth the acts of his sweet reign, | |
And raising Charles his chariot bove his Wain. | 60 |
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