Bold is the man! who, in this nicer age, <br />Presumes to tread the chaste corrected stage. <br />Now, with gay tinsel arts, we can no more <br />Conceal the want of Nature's sterling ore. <br />Our spells are vanish'd, broke our magic wand, <br />That used to wast you over sea and land. <br />Before your light the fairy people fade, <br />The demons fly—the ghost itself is laid. <br />In vain of martial scenes the loud alarms, <br />The mighty prompter thundering out to arms, <br />The playhouse posse clattering from afar, <br />The close-wedged battle, and the din of war. <br />Now, e'en the senate seldom we convene: <br />The yawning fathers nod behind the scene. <br />Your taste rejects the glittering false sublime, <br />To sigh in metaphor, and die in rhyme. <br />High rant is tumbled from his gallery throne: <br />Description dreams—nay, similies are gone. <br />What shall we then? to please you how devise <br />Whose judgment sits not in your ears and eyes? <br />Thrice happy! could we catch great Shakespeare's art, <br />To trace the deep recesses of the heart; <br />His simple plain sublime, to which is given <br />To strike the soul with darted flame from heaven: <br />Could we awake soft Otway's tender woe, <br />The pomp of verse and golden lines of Rowe. <br />We to your hearts apply; let them attend; <br />Before their silent candid bar we bend. <br />If warm'd, they listen, 'tis our noblest praise; <br />If cold, they wither all the Muse's bays.<br /><br />James Thomson<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/prologue-to-tancred-and-sigismunda/
