Burlesque Plays and Poems

by Unknown

XII.

Is it for these ye rear this proud abode?

Is it for these your superstition seeks

To build a temple worthy of a god,

To laud a monkey, or to worship leeks?

Then be the stage, to recompense your freaks,

A motley chaos, jumbling age and ranks,

Where Punch, the lignum vitæ Roscius, squeaks,

And Wisdom weeps, and Folly plays his pranks,

And moody Madness laughs, and hugs the chain he clanks.