Arts & Sciences

To Mr Killigrew, upon His Altering His Play, 'Pandora,' from a Tragedy into a Comedy, Because Not Approved on the Stage.

by Edmund Waller 1606–1687

From Poetical Works (Gilfillan, 1857)

Arts & Sciences

Sir, you should rather teach our age the way
Of 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 throng
Of other birds, alone attends her song,
While the loud daw, his throat displaying, draws
The whole assemblage of his fellow-daws;
So must the writer, whose productions should
Take with the vulgar, be of vulgar mould;
Whilst nobler fancies make a flight too high
For common view, and lessen as they fly.

MLA

Waller, Edmund. “To Mr Killigrew, upon His Altering His Play, 'Pandora,' from a Tragedy into a Comedy, Because Not Approved on the Stage.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/waller/136/.

Chicago

Waller, Edmund. “To Mr Killigrew, upon His Altering His Play, 'Pandora,' from a Tragedy into a Comedy, Because Not Approved on the Stage.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/waller/136/.

Read this poem with the Codex →

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