Heaven save ye, gallants, and this hopeful age! <br />Y' are welcome to the downfall of the stage. <br />The fools have laboured long in their vocation, <br />And vice, the manufacture of the nation, <br />O'erstocks the town so much, and thrives so well, <br />That fops and knaves grow drugs, and will not sell. <br />In vain our wares on theatres are shown, <br />When each has a plantation of his own. <br />His cruse ne'er fails; for whatsoe'er he spends, <br />There's still God's plenty for himself and friends. <br />Should men be rated by poetic rules, <br />Lord, what a poll would there be raised from fools! <br />Meantime poor wit prohibited must lie, <br />As if 'twere made some French commodity. <br />Fools you will have, and raised at vast expense; <br />And yet, as soon as seen, they give offence. <br />Time was, when none would cry,—That oaf was me; <br />But now you strive about your pedigree. <br />Bauble and cap no sooner are thrown down, <br />But there's a muss of more than half the town. <br />Each one will challenge a child's part at least; <br />A sign the family is well increased. <br />Of foreign cattle there's no longer need, <br />When we're supplied so fast with English breed. <br />Well! flourish, countrymen; drink, swear, and roar; <br />Let every free-born subject keep his whore, <br />And wandering in the wilderness about, <br />At end of forty years not wear her out. <br />But when you see these pictures, let none dare <br />To own beyond a limb, or single share; <br />For where the punk is common, he's a sot, <br />Who needs will father what the parish got.<br /><br />John Dryden<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/prologue-to-the-true-widow/
