 | The Duchess de la Vallière |  |
1
PROLOGUE.
To paint the Past, yet in the Past portray
Such shapes as seem dim prophets of To-Day:—
To trace, through all the garish streams of art.
Nature's deep fountain—woman's silent heart;—
On the stirr'd surface of the soften'd mind
To leave the print of holier truths behind;—
And, while through joy or grief—through calm or strife,
Bound the wild Passions on the course of Life,
To share the race—yet point the proper goal,
And make the Affections preachers to the Soul;—
Such is the aim with which a gaudier age
Now woos the brief revival of the stage;—
Such is the moral, though unseen it flows,
In Lauzun's wiles and soft La Vallière's woes;
Such the design our Author boldly drew,
And, losing boldness, now submits to YOU.
Such shapes as seem dim prophets of To-Day:—
To trace, through all the garish streams of art.
Nature's deep fountain—woman's silent heart;—
On the stirr'd surface of the soften'd mind
To leave the print of holier truths behind;—
And, while through joy or grief—through calm or strife,
Bound the wild Passions on the course of Life,
To share the race—yet point the proper goal,
And make the Affections preachers to the Soul;—
Such is the aim with which a gaudier age
Now woos the brief revival of the stage;—
Such is the moral, though unseen it flows,
In Lauzun's wiles and soft La Vallière's woes;
Such the design our Author boldly drew,
And, losing boldness, now submits to YOU.
Not new to climes where dreamy Fable dwells—
That magic Prospero of the Isle of Spells—
Now first the wanderer treads, with anxious fear,
The fairy land whose flowers allured him here.
Dread is the court our alien pleads before;
Your verdict makes his exile from the shore.
Yet, ev'n if banish'd, let him think, in pride,
He trod the path with no unhallowed guide;
Chasing the light, whose face, though veil'd and dim,
Perchance a meteor, seem'd a star to him,
Hoping the ray might rest where Truth appears
Beneath her native well—your smiles and tears.
That magic Prospero of the Isle of Spells—
Now first the wanderer treads, with anxious fear,
The fairy land whose flowers allured him here.
Dread is the court our alien pleads before;
Your verdict makes his exile from the shore.
Yet, ev'n if banish'd, let him think, in pride,
He trod the path with no unhallowed guide;
Chasing the light, whose face, though veil'd and dim,
Perchance a meteor, seem'd a star to him,
Hoping the ray might rest where Truth appears
Beneath her native well—your smiles and tears.
When a wide waste, to Law itself unknown,
Lay that fair world the Drama calls its own;
When all might riot on the mines of Thought,
And Genius starv'd amidst the wealth it wrought;
He who now ventures on the haunted soil
For nobler labourers won the rights of toil,
And his the boast—that Fame now rests in ease
Beneath the shade of her own laurel trees.
Yes—if, with all the critic on their brow,
His clients once, have grown his judges now,
And watch, like spirits on the Elysian side,
Their brother ferried o'er the Stygian tide,
To where, on souls untried, austerely sit
(The triple Minos)—Gallery—Boxes—Pit—
'Twill soothe to think, howe'er the verdict end,
In every rival he hath served a friend.
Lay that fair world the Drama calls its own;
2
And Genius starv'd amidst the wealth it wrought;
He who now ventures on the haunted soil
For nobler labourers won the rights of toil,
And his the boast—that Fame now rests in ease
Beneath the shade of her own laurel trees.
Yes—if, with all the critic on their brow,
His clients once, have grown his judges now,
And watch, like spirits on the Elysian side,
Their brother ferried o'er the Stygian tide,
To where, on souls untried, austerely sit
(The triple Minos)—Gallery—Boxes—Pit—
'Twill soothe to think, howe'er the verdict end,
In every rival he hath served a friend.
But well we know, and, knowing, we rejoice,
The mightiest Critic is the PUBLIC VOICE.
Aw'd, yet resigned, our novice trusts in you,
Hard to the practised, gentle to the new.
Whate'er the anxious strife of hope and fear,
He asks no favour—let the stage be clear.
If from the life his shapes the Poet draws,
In man's deep breast lie all the critic's laws:
If not, in vain the nicely-pois'd design,
Vain the cold music of the laboured line,
Before our eyes behold the living rules;—
The soul has instincts wiser than the schools!
Yours is the Great Tribunal of the Heart,
And touch'd Emotion makes the test of Art.
Judges august!—the same in every age,
While Passions weave the sorcery of the Stage,—
While Nature's sympathies are Art's best laws,—
To you a stranger has referred his cause:—
If the soft tale he woos the soul to hear
Bequeaths the moral, while it claims the tear,
Each gentler thought, to faults in others shown,
He calls in court—a pleader for his own.
The mightiest Critic is the PUBLIC VOICE.
Aw'd, yet resigned, our novice trusts in you,
Hard to the practised, gentle to the new.
Whate'er the anxious strife of hope and fear,
He asks no favour—let the stage be clear.
If from the life his shapes the Poet draws,
In man's deep breast lie all the critic's laws:
If not, in vain the nicely-pois'd design,
Vain the cold music of the laboured line,
Before our eyes behold the living rules;—
The soul has instincts wiser than the schools!
Yours is the Great Tribunal of the Heart,
And touch'd Emotion makes the test of Art.
Judges august!—the same in every age,
While Passions weave the sorcery of the Stage,—
While Nature's sympathies are Art's best laws,—
To you a stranger has referred his cause:—
If the soft tale he woos the soul to hear
Bequeaths the moral, while it claims the tear,
Each gentler thought, to faults in others shown,
He calls in court—a pleader for his own.
| The Duchess de la Vallière | |