Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CURTAIN FALLS, by JOSEPH VEREY


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CURTAIN FALLS, by                    
First Line: Clowns are capering in motley, drums are beating, trumpets
Last Line: And another strolling player told the story of the moor.
Subject(s): Legends


CLOWNS are capering in motley, drums are beating, trumpets blown,
Laughing crowds block up the gangway -- husky is the showman's tone.
Rapidly the booth is filling, and the rustics wait to hear
A cadaverous strolling player who will presently appear.

Once his voice in tones of thunder shook the crazy caravan;
Now he entered pale and gasping, and no sentence glibly ran;
Sad and vacant were his glances, and his memory seemed to fail,
While with feeble effort striving to recall Othello's tale.

O'er his wasted form the spangles glittered in the lamp's dull ray;
Ebon tresses, long and curling, covered scanty locks of gray;
Rouge and powder hid the traces of the stern, relentless years,
As gay flowers hide a ruin, tottering ere it disappears.

Not with age, serenely ebbing to the everlasting sea,
Calmly dreaming of past pleasures, or of mysteries to be;
Nay, the melancholy stroller kept his onward pilgrimage,
Until Death, the pallid prompter, called him from life's dusky stage.

Lofty hopes and aspirations all had faded with his youth,
And for daily bread he acted now in yonder canvas booth;
Yet there flashed a fire heroic from his visage worn and grave;
Deeper, fuller came his accents -- Man was master, Time was slave.

And again with force and feeling he portrayed the loving Moor;
Told the story to the Senate -- told the pangs which they endure
Who are torn with jealous passion, -- while delightedly the crowd
Watched the stroller's changing aspect, and applauded him aloud.

Was it but a trick of acting to depict a frenzied mood,
That there came a sudden silence, and Othello voiceless stood?
Ah, 't was all Othello's story Nature left the power to tell --
'T was his own sad drama ending as the dark-green curtain fell.

While they shouted for the stroller, and the hero's fate would see,
He had made his final exit -- joined a higher company.
With no loving kiss at parting, with no friend to press his hand,
The invisible scene-shifter had unveiled the spirit-land.

Huskier still became the showman as he forward came and bowed,
Vaguely muttering excuses to appease the gaping crowd;
Then he knelt beside the stroller, but his words were lost on air --
Nevermore uprose the curtain on the figure lying there.

One brief hour their cares forgetting, his old comrades of the show
Stood around his grave in silence, and some honest tears did flow.
Then the booth again was opened, crammed with many a rustic boor,
And another strolling player told the story of the Moor.





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