Classic Poem

INTENDED TO HAVE BEEN SPOKEN AT RICHMOND HOUSE .

Scarce has an age in silence pass'd away,
When virtue almost blush'd to hear a play;
When wit with ribaldry defil'd its page,
And vice display'd her banner on the stage!
For Charles's reign no record can transmit
Of pure morality, or chasten'd wit;
His court debauchery confess'd her own,
And vice, and folly shelter'd near the throne.
A life licentious, an immoral jest,
Still won at court preferment from the best!
Each coutier copied what he knew would please,
And barter'd character for vicious ease;
The drama then no lesson could bestow,
It found men vicious, and it left them so.
But happier we who boast a spotless reign,
Where virtue's pleasure, and where vice is pain!
Wit too corrected, in an age refin'd,
Has made the stage a mirror to the mind;
Where vice in all her hideous form appears,
And virtue looks more lovely in her tears:
No author now can hope for lasting bays,
Unless pure morals dignify his lays.
To night our play a dang'rous passion shews,
Though sprung from love, the cause of endless woes,
For of all shafts that agonize the heart,
The jealous arrow gives the keenest smart;
Oh! baneful passion in the human mind,
Which makes that bosom savage that was kind!
O'erflows with bitt'rest gall the cup of life,
Destroys the confidence 'tween man and wife;
Turns love to hatred, friendship to distrust,
And breeds that foe to happiness, disgust.
Such is the scene our author brings to view;
He shews the rock, to shun it rests with you:
And though his Muse rejects the poison'd bowl,
To laugh this dire contagion from the soul;
Yet while with ridicule he tips the dart,
His Moral finds a passage to the heart.
May none in this bright circle ever prove
That causeless jealousy has weaken'd love!
Keep Mrs. Oakley still before your eyes,
Resist the passion, and the giant dies!