 | Poems on several occasions |  |
PROLOGUE, 1716.
When public ills late claim'd the public care,And feuds and tumults boded civil war;
When, gathering black, were hovering thunders heard,
And bravest patriots for their country fear'd;
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The ill-timed mirth of sportive comedy.
Though, had we on preposterous mirth been bent,
Well could we clear ourselves by precedent:
And precedent has screen'd a greater crime
Than disregard to decency of time.
When the famed whirlwind shatter'd Albion's coast,
And British mountains mourn'd their honours lost;
When wrecks of navies strew'd our shores around,
And palaces and temples spread the ground;
The players, merry mortals! undismay'd,
True to their bills, and constant to their trade,
The next-succeeding night their comic “Tempest” play'd:
Machines the terrors of the storm must feign,
And roll disturb'd their imitated main;
Mock lightnings flash, incarnate devils fly,
And puny thunder shakes the mimic sky.
Art ill-employ'd! From art, 'tis true, we're free;
But want as well their flagrant piety.
Your favours, then, impartially extend:
Like them we please not,—nor like them offend.
| Poems on several occasions | |