Classic Poem

Sure there's a fate in plays, and 't is in vain
To write, while these malignant planets reign:
Some very foolish influence rules the pit,
Not always kind to sense, or just to wit;
And whilst it lasts, let buffoonry succeed,
To make us laugh; for never was more need.
Farce, in itself, is of a nasty scent;
But the gain smells not of the excrement.
The Spanish nymph, a wit and beauty too,
With all her charms, bore but a single show;
But let a monster Muscovite appear,
He draws a crowded audience round the year.
Maybe thou hast not pleas'd the box and pit,
Yet those who blame thy tale commend thy wit;
So Terence plotted, but so Terence writ.
Like his thy thoughts are true, thy language clean;
Ev'n lewdness is made moral in thy scene.
The hearers may for want of Nokes repine;
But rest secure, the readers will be thine.
Nor was thy labor'd drama damn'd hiss'd,
But with a kind civility dismiss'd;
With such good manners, as the Wife did use,
Who, not accepting, did but just refuse.
There was a glance at parting; such a look,
As bids thee not give o'er, for one rebuke.
But if thou wouldst be seen, as well as read,
Copy one living author, and one dead:
The standard of thy style let Etherege be;
For wit, th immortal spring of Wycherley
Learn, after both, to draw some just de sign,
And the next age will learn to copy thine.