Classic Poem

'T IS hard, my friend, to write in such an age,
As damns not only poets, but the stage.
That sacred art, by heav'n itself infus'd,
Which Moses, David, Solomon have us'd,
Is now to be no more: the Muses' foes
Would sink their Maker's praises into prose.
Were they content to prune the lavish vine
Of straggling branches, and improve the wine,
Who but a madman would his faults defend?
All would submit; for all but fools will mend.
But when to common sense they give the lie,
And turn distorted words to blasphemy,
They give the scandal; and the wise discern,
Their glosses teach an age too apt to learn.
What I have loosely or profanely writ,
Let them to fires, (their due desert,) commit;
Nor, when accus'd by me, let them complain:
Their faults and not their function I arraign.
Rebellion, worse than witchcraft, they pursued;
The pulpit preach'd the crime, the people rued.
The stage was silenc'd; for the saints would see
In fields perform'd their plotted tragedy.
But let us first reform, and then so live,
That we may teach our teachers to forgive.
Our desk be plac'd below their lofty chairs;
Ours be the practice, as the precept theirs.
The moral part at least we may divide,
Humility reward, and punish pride;
Ambition, int'rest, avarice accuse:
These are the province of the Tragic Muse.
These hast thou chosen; and the public voice
Has equal'd thy performance with thy choice,
Time, action, place, are so preserv'd by thee,
That ev'n Corneille might with envy see
Th' alliance of his tripled unity.
Thy incidents, perhaps, too thick are sown;
But too much plenty is thy fault alone:
At least but two can that good crime commit,
Thou in design, and Wycherley in wit.
Let thy own Gauls condemn thee, if they dare;
Contented to be thinly regular.
Born there, but not for them, our fruitful soil
With more increase rewards thy happy toil.
Their tongue, infeebled, is refin'd so much,
That, like pure gold, it bends at ev'ry touch;
Our sturdy Teuton yet will art obey,
More fit for manly thought, and strengthen'd with allay.
But whence art thou inspir'd, and thou alone,
To flourish in an idiom not thine own?
It moves our wonder, that a foreign guest
Should overmatch the most, and match the best.
In underpraising, thy deserts I wrong;
Here, find the first deficience of our tongue:
Words, once my stock, are wanting, to commend
So great a poet and so good a friend.