To Mr Killigrew, upon His Altering His Play, 'Pandora,' from a Tragedy into a Comedy, Because Not Approved on the Stage
Sir, you should rather teach our age the wayOf judging well, than thus have changed your play;You had obliged us by employing wit,Not to reform Pandora, but the pit;For as the nightingale, without the throngOf other birds, alone attends her song,While the loud daw, his throat displaying, drawsThe whole assemblage of his fellow-daws;So must the writer, whose productions shouldTake with the vulgar, be of vulgar mould;Whilst nobler fancies make a flight too highFor common view, and lessen as they fly.
Words in this poem
- mould n.
- Crumbling, soft, friable earth; esp., earth containing the remains or constituents of organic matter, and suited to the growth of plants; soil. [OE. molde, AS. molde; akin to D. mul, G. mull, mulm, OHG. molt, molta, Icel. mold, Dan. muld, Sw. mull, Goth. mulda, and E. meal flour. See Meal, and cf. Mole a]
Definitions and etymologies from Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913.
About this text
To Mr Killigrew, upon His Altering His Play, 'Pandora,' from a Tragedy into a Comedy, Because Not Approved on the Stage is in the public domain. This text is taken from Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham, Project Gutenberg ebook #12322; the transcription's header, footer and licence were removed and nothing else was changed. You may copy, print and reuse it freely.
Cite as: Edmund Waller, To Mr Killigrew, upon His Altering His Play, 'Pandora,' from a Tragedy into a Comedy, Because Not Approved on the Stage, in Cooper's Hill, and Other Poems (1645–1668), text of Project Gutenberg ebook #12322, Laurel, https://laurelpoetry.com/poem/waller-denham/to-mr-killigrew-upon-his-altering-his-play-pandora-from-a-tragedy-into-a-comedy-because-not-approved-on-the-stage.html, id L26327.
Form and metre
To Mr Killigrew, upon His Altering His Play, 'Pandora,' from a Tragedy into a Comedy, Because Not Approved on the Stage is 12 lines in a single stanza. It is in rhyming couplets: heroic couplets. The metre is iambic pentameter, measured from the stress the words themselves fix (confidence 92%).
See other poems in heroic couplets, other poems in iambic pentameter.
Measured by Laurel's pipeline, not copied from a handbook: how stress and metre are counted, how rhyme is lettered, how a drifted rhyme is found. Where the dictionary cannot confirm a rhyme the letter is withheld, not guessed.
Rhyme words, stanza by stanza
The word that ends each line, lettered by the rhyme it makes; a dash is a line whose rhyme the dictionary could not confirm.
- 1 AABBCCDDEEFF wayA · playA · witB · pitB · throngC · songC · drawsD · dawsD · shouldE · mouldE · highF · flyF
Scansion, line by line
Each line with its syllable count and the stresses the words themselves fix: / stressed, ˘ unstressed, · a syllable the word leaves free and the metre decides. Read against iambic pentameter. How this is done.
| Line | Syl. | Stress |
|---|---|---|
| Sir, you should rather teach our age the way | 10 | ···/˘·/··· |
| Of judging well, than thus have changed your play; | 10 | ·/˘······· |
| You had obliged us by employing wit, | 10 | ··˘/··˘/˘· |
| Not to reform Pandora, but the pit; | 10 | ··˘/˘/˘··· |
| For as the nightingale, without the throng | 10 | ···/˘˘···· |
| Of other birds, alone attends her song, | 10 | ·/˘·˘/˘/·· |
| While the loud daw, his throat displaying, draws | 10 | ······˘/˘· |
| The whole assemblage of his fellow-daws; | 10 | ··˘/˘··/˘· |
| So must the writer, whose productions should | 10 | ···/˘·˘/˘· |
| Take with the vulgar, be of vulgar mould; | 10 | ···/˘··/˘· |
| Whilst nobler fancies make a flight too high | 10 | ·/˘/˘····· |
| For common view, and lessen as they fly. | 10 | ·/˘··/˘··· |
The reader shows the same poem with its rhymes coloured and a stress row above each line, the notes beside their stanzas, and any word's definition on a tap; the analysis page takes the whole book apart. How every part of this site was made.