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The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. by John Fletcher;Francis Beaumont
page 38 of 92 (41%)
_That Subject_; _That Joy_ must be _Extacye_.
_Fury_ is the _Complexion_ of _great Wits_;
The _Fooles Distemper_: Hee, thats _mad_ by _fits_,
Is _wise so_ too. It is the _Poets Muse_;
The _Prophets God_: the _Fooles_, and _my excuse_.
For (in _Me_) nothing lesse then _Fletchers Name_
Could have _begot_, or _justify'd_ this _flame_.
_Beaumont_ }
_Fletcher_ } _Return'd?_ methinks it should not be.
_No_, not in's _Works_: _Playes_ are as _dead_ as _He_.
The _Palate_ of _this age gusts_ nothing _High_;
That has not _Custard_ in't or _Bawdery_.
_Folly_ and _Madnesse_ fill the _Stage_: The _Scæne_
Is _Athens_; _where_, the _Guilty_, and the _Meane_,
The _Foole 'scapes_ well enough; _Learned_ and _Great_,
Suffer an _Ostracisme_; stand _Exulate_.

_Mankinde_ is _fall'n againe_, _shrunke_ a _degree_,
A _step_ below his very _Apostacye_.
_Nature_ her _Selfe_ is out of _Tune_; and _Sicke_
Of _Tumult_ and _Disorder_, _Lunatique_.
Yet _what World_ would not cheerfully _endure_
The _Torture_, or _Disease_, t' _enjoy_ the _Cure?_

_This Booke's_ the _Balsame_, and the _Hellebore_,
Must _preserve bleeding Nature_, and _restore_
Our _Crazy Stupor_ to a _just quick Sence_
Both of _Ingratitude_, and _Providence_.
That teaches us (at _Once_) to _feele_, and _know_,
_Two deep Points_: what we _want_, and what we _owe_.
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