Classic Poem

Shall authors teaze the town with tragic passion,
When we've more modern moral things in fashion?
Let poets quite exhaust the Muse's treasure;
Sure Masquerades must give more feeling pleasure,
Where we meet finer sense and better measure;
The marry'd Dame, whose business must be done,
Puts on the holy vestments of a Nun;
And brings her unprolifick spouse a son.
Coquettes, with whom no lover could succeed,
Here pay off all arrears, and love in — deed;
Ev'n conscious Prudes are so sincere and free,
They ask each man they meet — do you know me?
Do not our Operas unbend the mind,
Where ev'ry soul's to ecstasy refin'd?
Entranc'd with sound sits each seraphic Toast.
All Ladies love the play that moves the most.
Ev'n in this house I've known some tender fair,
Touch'd with meer sense alone, confess a tear.
But the soft voice of an Italian wether ,
Makes them all languish three whole hours together.
And where 's the wonder? Plays, like Mass, are sung,
( Religious Drama)! — in an unknown tongue .
Will Poets ne'er consider what they cost us?
What tragedy can take, like Doctor Faustus?
Two stages in this moral show excell,
To frighten vicious youth with scenes of hell;
Yet both these Faustuses can warn but few
For what 's a Conj'rer's fate to me or — you?
Yet there are wives who think heav'n worth their care.
But first they kindly send their spouses there.
When you my lover's last distress behold,
Does not each husband's thrilling blood run cold?
Some heroes only dye. — Ours finds a wife.
What's harder than captivity for life?
Yet Man, ne'er warn'd, still court their own undoing:
Who, for that circle, would but venture ruin?