A Prologue – To A Play For Mr Dennis’s Benefit, In 1733, When He Was Old, Blind, And In Great Distress, A Little Before His Death. By Alexander Pope

    As when that hero, who, in each campaign,    Had braved the Goth, and many a Vandal slain,    Lay fortune-struck, a spectacle of woe!    Wept by each friend, forgiven by every foe:    Was there a generous, a reflecting mind,    But pitied Belisarius, old and blind?    Was there a chief but melted at the sight?    A common soldier, but who clubb’d his mite?    Such, such…