Long, long ago, I had an aunt,
Who took me to the Play,—
An act of kindness that I sha'n't
Forget for many a day.
I was a youngster at the time.
Just verging on my teens.
And fancied that it must be "prime"
To get behind the scenes!
I ventured to express the same,
In quite a candid way,
And shock'd my aunt—a proper dame,
Although she loved the Play.
'Twas just the moment when Macbeth
(Whose voice resembled Kean's)
Was perpetrating Duncan's death
O.P.—behind the scenes!
I recollect that evening yet,
And how my aunt was grieved;
And, oh! I never can forget
The lecture I received.
It threw a light upon the class
Of knowledge that one gleans,
Through being privileged to pass
His time behind the scenes!
The Columbine I worshipped then
Was forty, I should think;
My Count, the commonest of men;
My Villain, fond of drink;
The Fairies I believed so fair,
Were not by any means
The sort of people I should care
To know behind the scenes!
I cannot boast that I enjoy
Those stage-illusions still;
I'm getting far too old a boy
To laugh or cry at will.
And I can look with languid eye
On mimic kings and queens,
And boast that nothing makes me sigh
To go behind the scenes!
Ah, shallow boastings! false regrets!
The world is but a stage,
Where Man, poor player, struts and frets
From infancy to age;
And then leaps blindly, in a breath,
The space that intervenes
Between this stage-career and Death,
Who lurks behind the scenes! H.S.Leigh.