Classic and Contemporary Poetry
JUNIUS BRUTUS BOOTH, by EDGAR LEE MASTERS Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: You are a doctor? Ill? I'm very ill Last Line: (he dies.) Subject(s): Booth, Junius Brutus (1796-1852) | ||||||||
You are a doctor? Ill? I'm very ill. My soul is worn, it is a ghastly life, This acting, traveling, living through the passions Of Brutus, and Orestes, Richard III. My father tried to make a lawyer of me, But fate is fate. My age is fifty-six, But counting by the moments I have lived A thousand years were nearer truth. Oh, well, What if this talking tire me, I am tired With such fatigue that nothing adds to it. And if I die, why what will be, will be. I'd like to see "The Farm" in Maryland Just once again, see Mary, that's my wife, John Wilkes, my boy, and Junius Brutus, too -- Edwin I left in California, Shall never see him more I fear -- but then What comes to us must come. That brandy helps, I'm better now. Oh, yes, it's true my father Would make a lawyer of me, couldn't do it -- I am a better lawyer than he was For acting parts and living other lives, Thus finding laws of life -- but what's the good? You can't find happiness, all is vanity. If you're a strolling player, vanity; Vexation too and jealousy and strife. If all the house goes mad to see you rage As life-like as the Moor did, do they know What realest envy stalks behind the scenes, What you have done to keep your golden voice, Your strength to paint the frenzy of Othello? After one greatest triumph I sat alone, Was playing solitaire, who should come in? Chief Justice Marshall, friend of mine? Oh, yes. He said, "I think you'd be the happiest Of men, why not enjoy what you've achieved?" "Judge," I replied, "you see me here alone, There is no ecstasy, no drop of joy For me save in that moment when I see, Both through my genius glowing and the cries And plaudits from the house, that I have struck. The fateful note that thrills -- all other hours Are spent in saving power and making ready For just that moment. What's an actor, poet? A medium round whom the spirits swarm Like bats in Tartarus and shrill Me! Me! Take now and write, speak for me -- make it clear, You are our hope of truth, of being known For what we are. And so you're never done. The spirits dash about you with their cries; Men note your eyes turned inward -- move away. And you must keep in vigor. Hoarseness rasps The voice of Brutus, you must catch no cold. You drink sometimes to deafen ears against The spirits' crying, but you pay for it, Must climb back into strength, but while you're weak The spirits are a-crying, there you are, Ambitious but enfeebled, can't respond, And tortured for it. There is no escape. And so you play at solitaire." The Judge Replied: "A judge is lonely, for his reasons Must keep himself aloof." Yes, I knew Kean. He played Othello to my great Iago, And I say great, for I was twenty-one, And made the London English shout and howl: "Great Booth forever," though they shouted, too, "No Booth" and "down with Booth," the partisans Of Kean, the envious. And on a time It's Drury Lane, and what an audience! Hazlitt is there and Godwin, Shelley's friend, John Howard Payne, who wrote "The Fall of Tarquin." He saw that Kean was envious, would not be Excelled by me and wrote as much. My friend, Another drink of brandy! Well, at last I make America my home. 'Twere well If I am spared to write my memories, They throng so at this moment. God be praised, I knew Old Hickory and supped with him, A man from top to toe! And I have lived, Fought, suffered, triumphed, lived through self and lived Through Brutus, Lear, and Richard. Look at me, Am I a man you'd ever take for mad? Mad-men have struck at me, a lunatic Struck at me with an ax, I cowed his hate And fixed him with my eye. But as for me, Here have I been for life a lover of home, A husband blest with happiness in a wife, And yet reputed mad. For little things Like this reputed mad: I'm playing Shylock, The call boy searches me, my time has come, Where was I? In a closet. Was it queer? A symptom? No! I hid to shut the light Of other things external from the mind Of Shylock's mood. Why, is it strange at all For a soul that incarnates itself with souls Like Brutus' and Lear's to lose itself, Seem sometimes naked, trembling, swaying too With such exhaustion, such tremendous change? These common minds see not the genius mind For what it is, forget the strength and wisdom That makes the genius, in my case, forget My books and scholarship, my toil, who learned Greek, Latin, German, French and Arabic, Hebrew and Spanish; the philosophies, I've mastered in my life. I tremble too For thinking of my little son, John Wilkes, So beautiful and gifted, has the touch; Is full of dreams, goes charging on his horse, Spouting heroic speeches, lance in hand There on "The Farm," a patriot and a lover Of liberty even now. What will he be, A statesman or an actor, warrior, what? God knows alone, and what his fate God knows. I named him after John Wilkes, patriot And English libertarian -- but no matter, He'll do what he will do. They named me Brutus And I became an actor, not a statesman, Warrior, no tyrannicide. Hold there! What is this? Take my hand! Sharp pain again -- Pray! pray! pray! (He dies.) | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: ALEXANDER THROCKMORTON by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: FLETCHER MCGEE by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: GEORGE GRAY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: MINERVA JONES by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: DAVIS MATLOCK by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: DORA WILLIAMS by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: EMILY SPARKS by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: LAMBERT HUTCHINS by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: LYMAN KING by EDGAR LEE MASTERS SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: MRS. KESSLER by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |
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