Epilogue to "Tyrannic Love; or, The Royal Martyr"

[To the Bearer.] Hold, are you mad? you damn'd confounded dog,
I am to rise, and speak the epilogue.
[To the Audience.] I come, kind gentlemen, strange news to tell ye,
I am the ghost of poor departed Nelly.
Sweet ladies, be not frighted, I 'll be civil;
I 'm what I was, a little harmless devil:
For after death, we sprites have just such natures
We had for all the world, when human creatures;
And therefore I that was an actress here,
Play all my tricks in hell, a goblin there.
Gallants, look to 't, you say there are no sprites;
But I 'll come dance about your beds at nights.
And faith you 'll be in a sweet kind of taking,
When I surprise you between sleep and waking.
To tell you true, I walk because I die
Out of my calling in a tragedy.
O poet, damn'd dull poet, who could prove
So senseless to make Nelly die for love!
Nay, what 's yet worse, to kill me in the prime
Of Easter term, in tart and cheese-cake time!
I 'll fit the fop, for I 'll not one word say
T' excuse his godly out-of-fashion play:
A play which, if you dare but twice sit out,
You 'll all be slander'd, and be thought devout.
But farewell, gentlemen, make haste to me;
I 'm sure ere long to have your company.
As for my epitaph, when I am gone,
I 'll trust no poet, but will write my own:
Here Nelly lies, who, though she liv'd a slattern,
Yet died a princess, acting in St. Cathar'n.