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DEATH AND THE PLAYER, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I watched the players playing on their stage
Last Line: But once in many days!
Subject(s): Actors & Actresses; Death; Indifference; Murder; Plays & Playwrights; Dead, The


I watched the players playing on their stage;
An old delightful comedy was theirs,
The very picture of a gallant age,
Full of majestic airs.

Wit, virtuoso, captain, stately lord,
Each played his part with smooth Augustan grace;
And, gray and curl'd, th' Olympian perruques soared
O'er each fine oval face.

Anon, young Celia, poised on red high heels,
Advanced with Chloe, the discreet soubrette:
Her laughter rings abroad in silver peals;
Her courtiers fawn and fret.

One was a whiskered son of awful Mars;
And one, the favourite, a thing of spleen,
Whose pasquil jests, a stream of falling stars,
Illumined all the scene.

They trod a minuet, and evermore,
Betwixt the curtseying lady and her thrall,
A masked and shrouded dancer kept the floor,
Unnoted by them all.

Alas, poor player, that was Death's Dance indeed!
The curtain fell; the masker's fleshless hand
Compelled thee to his chariot, which at speed
Rolled home to his own land.

And now with cheeks and eyelids that confess
Grim stains of the last midnight's gay disguise,
The ingenious haggard actors swiftly press
Where their dead brother lies.

How strange a graveside—oh, how strange a scene!
The player's double life in such eclipse!
What a morality would this have been
On those once mocking lips!

But they are dumb, and there's scarce time for tears.
Back to the town! They're clamouring for our plays.
'Tis good that arch-comedian Death appears
But once in many days!





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