 | Psyche |  |
Prologue.
As a young Wanton when she first begins,With shame and with regret of Conscience sins;
So fares our trembling Poet, the first time,
He has committed the lewd sin of Rhime,
While Custom hardens others in the Crime.
It might in him that boldness too beget,
To lay about him without fear or wit:
But humbly he your pardon does implore;
Already he repents, and says he'll sin no more.
His bus'ness now is to shew splendid Scenes,
T'interpret 'twixt the Audience and Machines.
You must not here expect exalted Thought,
Nor lofty Verse, nor Scenes with labour wrought:
His Subject's humble, and his Verse is so;
This Theme no thundring Raptures would allow,
Nor would he, if he could, that way pursue.
He'd ride unruly Fancy with a Bit,
And keep within the bounds of Sense and Wit,
Those bounds no boystrous Fustian will admit.
And did not gentle Hearers oft dispence
With all the Sacred Rules of Wit and Sense;
And the laborious Actors Lungs o'rstrain,
Wou'd, on our Stages, be roar'd out in vain.
In all true Wit, a due proportion's found,
To the just Rules of heighth and distance bound.
Wit, like a Faulcon, tow'ring in its flight,
When once it soars above its lawful height,
Lessens, till it becomes quite out of sight.
But of such flights, there is no danger now;
He would not soar too high, nor creep too low:
Howe'r, he hopes you will excuse his haste,
For he this gawdy Trifle wrote so fast;
Five weeks begun and finish'd this design,
In those few hours he snatch'd from Friends and Wine;
And since in better things h'has spent his time,
With which he hopes ere long t' atone this Crime.
But he, alas! has several pow'rful Foes,
Who are unjustly so, and yet he knows,
They will, what e'r be writes, though good, oppose.
If he the honour has to please the best,
'Tis not his fault if he offends the rest:
But none of them yet so severe can be,
As to condemn this Trifle more then he.
| Psyche | |