Our scene is Sparta. He whose best of art
Hath drawn this piece calls it The Broken Heart.
The title lends no expectation here
Of apish laughter, or of some lame jeer
At place or persons; no pretended clause
Of jests,1 fit for a brothel, courts applause
From vulgar admiration. Such low songs,
Tuned to unchaste ears, suit not modest tongues.
The virgin sisters2 then deserved fresh bays3
10 When innocence and sweetness crowned their lays.4
Then vices gasped for breath, whose whole commerce5
Was whipped to exile by unblushing verse.
This law we keep in our presentment6 now:
Not to take freedom more than we allow.
What may be here thought a fiction, when Time’s youth
Wanted7 some riper years was known A Truth;8
In which, if words have clothed the subject right,
You may partake a pity with delight.