Читать книгу The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase - Джозеф Аддисон - Страница 18

  Long has a race of heroes fill'd the stage,

  That rant by note, and through the gamut rage;

  In songs and airs express their martial fire,

  Combat in trills, and in a fugue expire:

  While, lull'd by sound, and undisturb'd by wit,

  Calm and serene you indolently sit,

  And, from the dull fatigue of thinking free,

  Hear the facetious fiddle's repartee:

  Our home-spun authors must forsake the field,

  And Shakspeare to the soft Scarletti yield.

     To your new taste the poet of this day

  Was by a friend advised to form his play.

  Had Valentini, musically coy,

  Shunn'd Phædra's arms, and scorn'd the proffer'd joy,

  It had not moved your wonder to have seen

  An eunuch fly from an enamour'd queen:

  How would it please, should she in English speak,

  And could Hippolitus reply in Greek!

  But he, a stranger to your modish way,

  By your old rules must stand or fall to-day,

  And hopes you will your foreign taste command,

  To bear, for once, with what you understand.