Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=454932" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Ode I: The Remonstrance Of Shakespeare</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">If, yet regardful of your native land,<br>Old Shakespeare's tongue you deign to understand,<br>Lo, from the blissful bowers where heaven rewards<br>Instructive sages and unblemish'd bards,<br>I come, the ancient founder of the stage,<br>Intent to learn, in this discerning age,<br>What form of wit your fancies have imbrac'd,<br>And whither tends your elegance of taste,<br>That thus at length our homely toils you spurn,<br>That thus to foreign scenes you proudly turn,<br>That from my brow the laurel wreath you claim<br>To crown the rivals of your country's fame.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">What, though the footsteps of my devious Muse<br>The measur'd walks of Grecian art refuse?<br>Or though the frankness of my hardy style<br>Mock the nice touches of the critic's file?<br>Yet, what my age and climate held to view,<br>Impartial i survey'd and fearless drew.<br>And say, ye skillful in the human heart,<br>Who know to prize a poet's noblest part,<br>What age, what clime, could e'er an ampler field<br>For lofty thought, for daring fancy, yield?<br>I saw this England break the shameful bands<br>Forg'd for the souls of men by sacred hands:<br>I saw each groaning realm her aid implore;<br>Her sons the heroes of each warlike shore;<br>Her naval standard (the dire Spaniard's bane)<br>Obey'd through all the circuit of the main.<br>Then too great commerce, for a late-found world,<br>Around your coast her eager sails unfurl'd:<br>New hopes, new passions, thence the bosom fir'd;<br>New plans, new arts, the genius thence inspir'd;<br>Thence every scene, which private fortune knows,<br>In stronger life, with bolder spirit, rose.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Disgrac'd i this full prospect which i drew?<br>My colours languid, or my strokes untrue?<br>Have not your sages, warriors, swains, and kings,<br>Confess'd the living draught of men and things?<br>What other bard in any clime appears<br>Alike the master of your smiles and tears?<br>Yet have i deign'd your audience to intice<br>With wretched bribes to luxury and vice?<br>Or have my various scenes a purpose known<br>Which freedom, virtue, glory, might not own?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Such from the first was my dramatic plan;<br>It should be your's to crown what i began:<br>And now that England spurns her Gothic chain,<br>And equal laws and social science reign,<br>I thought, Now surely shall my zealous eyes<br>View nobler bards and juster critics rise,<br>Intent with learned labour to refine<br>The copious ore of Albion's native mine,<br>Our stately Muse more graceful airs to teach,<br>And form her tongue to more attractive speech,<br>Till rival nations listen at her feet,<br>And own her polish'd as they own'd her great.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But do you thus my favorite hopes fullfil?<br>Is France at last the standard of your skill?<br>Alas for you! that so betray a mind<br>Of art unconscious and to beauty blind.<br>Say; does her language your ambition raise,<br>Her barren, trivial, unharmonious phrase,<br>Which fetters eloquence to scantiest bounds,<br>And maims the cadence of poetic sounds?<br>Say; does your humble admiration chuse<br>The gentle prattle of her Comic Muse,<br>While wits, plain-dealers, fops, and fools appear,<br>Charg'd to say nought but what the king may hear?<br>Or rather melt your sympathizing hearts<br>Won by her tragic scene's romantic arts,<br>Where old and young declaim on soft desire,<br>And heroes never, but for love, expire?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">No. Though the charms of novelty, awhile,<br>Perhaps too fondly win your thoughtless smile,<br>Yet not for you design'd indulgent fate<br>The modes or manners of the Bourbon state.<br>And ill your minds my partial judgment reads,<br>And many an augury my hope misleads,<br>If the fair maids of yonder blooming train<br>To their light courtship would an audience deign,<br>Or those chaste matrons a Parisian wife<br>Chuse for the model of domestic life;<br>Or if one youth of all that generous band,<br>The strength and splendor of their native land,<br>Would yield his portion of his country's fame,<br>And quit old freedom's patrimonial claim,<br>With lying smiles oppression's pomp to see,<br>And judge of glory by a king's decree.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O blest at home with justly-envied laws,<br>O long the chiefs of Europe's general cause,<br>Whom heaven hath chosen at each dangerous hour<br>To check the inroads of barbaric power,<br>The rights of trampled nations to reclaim,<br>And guard the social world from bonds and shame;<br>Oh let not luxury's fantastic charms<br>Thus give the lye to your heroic arms:<br>Nor for the ornaments of life imbrace<br>Dishonest lessons from that vaunting race,<br>Whom fate's dread laws (for, in eternal fate<br>Despotic rule was heir to freedom's hate)<br>Whom in each warlike, each commercial part,<br>In civil counsel, and in pleasing art,<br>The judge of earth predestin'd for your foes,<br>And made it fame and virtue to oppose.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Mark+Akenside">Mark Akenside</a><div class=q>
<img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share">
<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=454932" data-title="Ode I: The Remonstrance Of Shakespeare de Mark Akenside" data-description="If, yet regardful of your native land,
Old Shakespeare's tongue you deign to understand,
Lo, from the blissful bowers where heaven rewards
Instructive sages and unblemish'd bards,
I come, the ancient founder of the stage,
Intent to learn, in this ..."></div>
</div>
</div>