10 Best Famous Theatres Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Theatres poems. This is a select list of the best famous Theatres poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Theatres poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of theatres poems.

• All Famous Theatres Poems

 Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent , bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did the sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

 Gus is the Cat at the Theatre Door.
His name, as I ought to have told you before,
Is really Asparagus. That's such a fuss
To pronounce, that we usually call him just Gus.
His coat's very shabby, he's thin as a rake,
And he suffers from palsy that makes his paw shake.
Yet he was, in his youth, quite the smartest of Cats--
But no longer a terror to mice and to rats.
For he isn't the Cat that he was in his prime;
Though his name was quite famous, he says, in its time.
And whenever he joins his friends at their club
(Which takes place at the back of the neighbouring pub)
He loves to regale them, if someone else pays,
With anecdotes drawn from his palmiest days.
For he once was a Star of the highest degree--
He has acted with Irving, he's acted with Tree.
And he likes to relate his success on the Halls,
Where the Gallery once gave him seven cat-calls.
But his grandest creation, as he loves to tell,
Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell.

"I have played," so he says, "every possible part,
And I used to know seventy speeches by heart.
I'd extemporize back-chat, I knew how to gag,
And I knew how to let the cat out of the bag.
I knew how to act with my back and my tail;
With an hour of rehearsal, I never could fail.
I'd a voice that would soften the hardest of hearts,
Whether I took the lead, or in character parts.
I have sat by the bedside of poor Little Nell;
When the Curfew was rung, then I swung on the bell.
In the Pantomime season I never fell flat,
And I once understudied Dick Whittington's Cat.
But my grandest creation, as history will tell,
Was Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell."

Then, if someone will give him a toothful of gin,
He will tell how he once played a part in East Lynne.
At a Shakespeare performance he once walked on pat,
When some actor suggested the need for a cat.
He once played a Tiger--could do it again--
Which an Indian Colonel purused down a drain.
And he thinks that he still can, much better than most,
Produce blood-curdling noises to bring on the Ghost.
And he once crossed the stage on a telegraph wire,
To rescue a child when a house was on fire.
And he says: "Now then kittens, they do not get trained
As we did in the days when Victoria reigned.
They never get drilled in a regular troupe,
And they think they are smart, just to jump through a hoop."
And he'll say, as he scratches himself with his claws,
"Well, the Theatre's certainly not what it was.
These modern productions are all very well,
But there's nothing to equal, from what I hear tell,
That moment of mystery
When I made history
As Firefrorefiddle, the Fiend of the Fell."

 There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams 
hurry too rapidly down to the sea, 
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops 
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion, 
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes. 
--For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains, 
aren't waterfalls yet, 
in a quick age or so, as ages go here, 
they probably will be. 
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling, 
the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships, 
slime-hung and barnacled. 

Think of the long trip home. 
Should we have stayed at home and thought of here? 
Where should we be today? 
Is it right to be watching strangers in a play 
in this strangest of theatres? 
What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life 
in our bodies, we are determined to rush 
to see the sun the other way around? 
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world? 
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework, 
inexplicable and impenetrable, 
at any view, 
instantly seen and always, always delightful? 
Oh, must we dream our dreams 
and have them, too? 
And have we room 
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm? 

But surely it would have been a pity 
not to have seen the trees along this road, 
really exaggerated in their beauty, 
not to have seen them gesturing 
like noble pantomimists, robed in pink. 
--Not to have had to stop for gas and heard 
the sad, two-noted, wooden tune 
of disparate wooden clogs 
carelessly clacking over 
a grease-stained filling-station floor. 
(In another country the clogs would all be tested. 
Each pair there would have identical pitch.) 
--A pity not to have heard 
the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird 
who sings above the broken gasoline pump 
in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque: 
three towers, five silver crosses. 
--Yes, a pity not to have pondered, 
blurr'dly and inconclusively, 
on what connection can exist for centuries 
between the crudest wooden footwear 
and, careful and finicky, 
the whittled fantasies of wooden footwear 
and, careful and finicky, 
the whittled fantasies of wooden cages. 
--Never to have studied history in 
the weak calligraphy of songbirds' cages. 
--And never to have had to listen to rain 
so much like politicians' speeches: 
two hours of unrelenting oratory 
and then a sudden golden silence 
in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes: 

"Is it lack of imagination that makes us come 
to imagined places, not just stay at home? 
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right 
about just sitting quietly in one's room? 

Continent, city, country, society: 
the choice is never wide and never free. 
And here, or there . . . No. Should we have stayed at home, 
wherever that may be?"

 Good people of high and low degree,
I pray ye all be advised by me,
And don't believe what the clergy doth say,
That by going to the theatre you will be led astray. 

No, in the theatre we see vice punished and virtue rewarded,
The villain either hanged or shot, and his career retarded;
Therefore the theatre is useful in every way,
And has no inducement to lead the people astray. 

Because therein we see the end of the bad men,
Which must appall the audience - deny it who can
Which will help to retard them from going astray,
While witnessing in a theatre a moral play. 

The theatre ought to be encouraged in every respect,
Because example is better than precept,
And is bound to have a greater effect
On the minds of theatre-goers in every respect. 

Sometimes in theatres, guilty creatures there have been
Struck to the soul by the cunning of the scene;
By witnessing a play wherein murder is enacted,
They were proven to be murderers, they felt so distracted, 

And left the theatre, they felt so much fear,
Such has been the case, so says Shakespeare.
And such is my opinion, I will venture to say,
That murderers will quake with fear on seeing murder in a play. 

Hamlet discovered his father's murderer by a play
That he composed for the purpose, without dismay,
And the king, his uncle, couldn't endure to see that play,
And he withdrew from the scene without delay. 

And by that play the murder was found out,
And clearly proven, without any doubt;
Therefore, stage representation has a greater effect
On the minds of the people than religious precept. 

We see in Shakespeare's tragedy of Othello, which is sublime,
Cassio losing his lieutenancy through drinking wine;
And, in delirium and grief, he exclaims -
"Oh, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!" 

A young man in London went to the theatre one night
To see the play of George Barnwell, and he got a great fright;
He saw George Barnwell murder his uncle in the play,
And he had resolved to murder his uncle, but was stricken with dismay. 

But when he saw George Barnwell was to be hung
The dread of murdering his uncle tenaciously to him clung,
That he couldn't murder and rob his uncle dear,
Because the play he saw enacted filled his heart with fear. 

And, in conclusion, I will say without dismay,
Visit the theatre without delay,
Because the theatre is a school of morality,
And hasn't the least tendency to lead to prodigality.

 NATIONS ten thousand years before These States, and many times ten thousand years before
 These
 States; 
Garner’d clusters of ages, that men and women like us grew up and travel’d their
 course, and pass’d on; 
What vast-built cities—what orderly republics—what pastoral tribes and nomads; 
What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others; 
What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions;
What sort of marriage—what costumes—what physiology and phrenology; 
What of liberty and slavery among them—what they thought of death and the soul; 
Who were witty and wise—who beautiful and poetic—who brutish and
 undevelop’d; 
Not a mark, not a record remains—And yet all remains. 

O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more than we are for nothing;
I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much as we now belong to
 it,
 and as all will henceforth belong to it. 

Afar they stand—yet near to me they stand, 
Some with oval countenances, learn’d and calm, 
Some naked and savage—Some like huge collections of insects, 
Some in tents—herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen,
Some prowling through woods—Some living peaceably on farms, laboring, reaping,
 filling
 barns, 
Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories, libraries, shows, courts,
 theatres, wonderful monuments. 

Are those billions of men really gone? 
Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone? 
Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us?
Did they achieve nothing for good, for themselves? 

I believe of all those billions of men and women that fill’d the unnamed lands, every
 one
 exists this hour, here or elsewhere, invisible to us, in exact proportion to what he or
 she
 grew from in life, and out of what he or she did, felt, became, loved, sinn’d, in
 life. 

I believe that was not the end of those nations, or any person of them, any more than this
 shall be the end of my nation, or of me; 
Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products, games, wars, manners,
 crimes,
 prisons, slaves, heroes, poets, I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen
 world—counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world. 
I suspect I shall meet them there,
I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed lands.

 I. EDWIN BOOTH

An old actor at the Player's Club told me that Edwin Booth first impersonated Hamlet when a barnstormer in California. There were few theatres, but the hotels were provided with crude assembly rooms for strolling players.


The youth played in the blear hotel.
The rafters gleamed with glories strange.
And winds of mourning Elsinore
Howling at chance and fate and change;
Voices of old Europe's dead
Disturbed the new-built cattle-shed,
The street, the high and solemn range.

The while the coyote barked afar
All shadowy was the battlement.
The ranch-boys huddled and grew pale,
Youths who had come on riot bent.
Forgot were pranks well-planned to sting.
Behold there rose a ghostly king,
And veils of smoking Hell were rent.

When Edwin Booth played Hamlet, then
The camp-drab's tears could not but flow.
Then Romance lived and breathed and burned.
She felt the frail queen-mother's woe,
Thrilled for Ophelia, fond and blind,
And Hamlet, cruel, yet so kind,
And moaned, his proud words hurt her so.

A haunted place, though new and harsh!
The Indian and the Chinaman
And Mexican were fain to learn
What had subdued the Saxon clan.
Why did they mumble, brood, and stare
When the court-players curtsied fair
And the Gonzago scene began?

And ah, the duel scene at last!
They cheered their prince with stamping feet.
A death-fight in a palace! Yea,
With velvet hangings incomplete,
A pasteboard throne, a pasteboard crown,
And yet a monarch tumbled down,
A brave lad fought in splendor meet.

Was it a palace or a barn?
Immortal as the gods he flamed.
There in his last great hour of rage
His foil avenged a mother shamed.
In duty stern, in purpose deep
He drove that king to his black sleep
And died, all godlike and untamed.

I was not born in that far day.
I hear the tale from heads grown white.
And then I walk that earlier street,
The mining camp at candle-light.
I meet him wrapped in musings fine
Upon some whispering silvery line
He yet resolves to speak aright.


II. EPITAPH FOR JOHN BUNNY, MOTION PICTURE COMEDIAN

In which he is remembered in similitude, by reference to Yorick, the king's jester, who died when Hamlet and Ophelia were children.

Yorick is dead. Boy Hamlet walks forlorn
Beneath the battlements of Elsinore.
Where are those oddities and capers now
That used to "set the table on a roar"?

And do his bauble-bells beyond the clouds
Ring out, and shake with mirth the planets bright?
No doubt he brings the blessed dead good cheer,
But silence broods on Elsinore tonight.

That little elf, Ophelia, eight years old,
Upon her battered doll's staunch bosom weeps.
("O best of men, that wove glad fairy-tales.")
With tear-burned face, at last the darling sleeps.

Hamlet himself could not give cheer or help,
Though firm and brave, with his boy-face controlled.
For every game they started out to play
Yorick invented, in the days of old.

The times are out of joint! O cursed spite!
The noble jester Yorick comes no more.
And Hamlet hides his tears in boyish pride
By some lone turret-stair of Elsinore.

 Once to the song and chariot-fight,
Where all the tribes of Greece unite
On Corinth's isthmus joyously,
The god-loved Ibycus drew nigh.
On him Apollo had bestowed
The gift of song and strains inspired;
So, with light staff, he took his road
From Rhegium, by the godhead fired.

Acrocorinth, on mountain high,
Now burns upon the wanderer's eye,
And he begins, with pious dread,
Poseidon's grove of firs to tread.
Naught moves around him, save a swarm
Of cranes, who guide him on his way;
Who from far southern regions warm
Have hither come in squadron gray.

"Thou friendly band, all hail to thee!
Who led'st me safely o'er the sea!
I deem thee as a favoring sign,--
My destiny resembles thine.
Both come from a far distant coast,
Both pray for some kind sheltering place;--
Propitious toward us be the host
Who from the stranger wards disgrace!"

And on he hastes, in joyous wood,
And reaches soon the middle wood
When, on a narrow bridge, by force
Two murderers sudden bar his course.
He must prepare him for the fray,
But soon his wearied hand sinks low;
Inured the gentle lyre to play,
It ne'er has strung the deadly bow.

On gods and men for aid he cries,--
No savior to his prayer replies;
However far his voice he sends,
Naught living to his cry attends.
"And must I in a foreign land,
Unwept, deserted, perish here,
Falling beneath a murderous hand,
Where no avenger can appear?"

Deep-wounded, down he sinks at last,
When, lo! the cranes' wings rustle past.
He hears,--though he no more can see,--
Their voices screaming fearfully.
"By you, ye cranes, that soar on high,
If not another voice is heard,
Be borne to heaven my murder-cry!"
He speaks, and dies, too, with the word.

The naked corpse, ere long, is found,
And, though defaced by many a wound,
His host in Corinth soon could tell
The features that he loved so well.
"And is it thus I find thee now,
Who hoped the pine's victorious crown
To place upon the singer's brow,
Illumined by his bright renown?"

The news is heard with grief by all
Met at Poseidon's festival;
All Greece is conscious of the smart,
He leaves a void in every heart;
And to the Prytanis [33] swift hie
The people, and they urge him on
The dead man's manes to pacify
And with the murderer's blood atone.

But where's the trace that from the throng
The people's streaming crowds among,
Allured there by the sports so bright,
Can bring the villain back to light?
By craven robbers was he slain?
Or by some envious hidden foe?
That Helios only can explain,
Whose rays illume all things below.

Perchance, with shameless step and proud,
He threads e'en now the Grecian crowd--
Whilst vengeance follows in pursuit,
Gloats over his transgression's fruit.
The very gods perchance he braves
Upon the threshold of their fane,--
Joins boldly in the human waves
That haste yon theatre to gain.

For there the Grecian tribes appear,
Fast pouring in from far and near;
On close-packed benches sit they there,--
The stage the weight can scarcely bear.
Like ocean-billows' hollow roar,
The teaming crowds of living man
Toward the cerulean heavens upsoar,
In bow of ever-widening span.

Who knows the nation, who the name,
Of all who there together came?
From Theseus' town, from Aulis' strand
From Phocis, from the Spartan land,
From Asia's distant coast, they wend,
From every island of the sea,
And from the stage they hear ascend
The chorus's dread melody.

Who, sad and solemn, as of old,
With footsteps measured and controlled,
Advancing from the far background,
Circle the theatre's wide round.
Thus, mortal women never move!
No mortal home to them gave birth!
Their giant-bodies tower above,
High o'er the puny sons of earth.

With loins in mantle black concealed,
Within their fleshless bands they wield
The torch, that with a dull red glows,--
While in their cheek no life-blood flows;
And where the hair is floating wide
And loving, round a mortal brow,
Here snakes and adders are descried,
Whose bellies swell with poison now.

And, standing in a fearful ring,
The dread and solemn chant they sing,
That through the bosom thrilling goes,
And round the sinner fetters throws.
Sense-robbing, of heart-maddening power,
The furies' strains resound through air
The listener's marrow they devour,--
The lyre can yield such numbers ne'er.

"Happy the man who, blemish-free,
Preserves a soul of purity!
Near him we ne'er avenging come,
He freely o'er life's path may roam.
But woe to him who, hid from view,
Hath done the deed of murder base!
Upon his heels we close pursue,--
We, who belong to night's dark race!"

"And if he thinks to 'scape by flight,
Winged we appear, our snare of might
Around his flying feet to cast,
So that he needs must fall at last.
Thus we pursue him, tiring ne'er,--
Our wrath repentance cannot quell,--
On to the shadows, and e'en there
We leave him not in peace to dwell!"

Thus singing, they the dance resume,
And silence, like that of the tomb,
O'er the whole house lies heavily,
As if the deity were nigh.
And staid and solemn, as of old,
Circling the theatre's wide round,
With footsteps measured and controlled,
They vanish in the far background.

Between deceit and truth each breast.
Now doubting hangs, by awe possessed,
And homage pays to that dread might,
That judges what is hid from sight,--
That, fathomless, inscrutable,
The gloomy skein of fate entwines,
That reads the bosom's depths full well,
Yet flies away where sunlight shines.

When sudden, from the tier most high,
A voice is heard by all to cry:
"See there, see there, Timotheus!
Behold the cranes of Ibycus!"
The heavens become as black as night,
And o'er the theatre they see,
Far over-head, a dusky flight
Of cranes, approaching hastily.

"Of Ibycus!"--That name so blest
With new-born sorrow fills each breast.
As waves on waves in ocean rise,
From mouth to mouth it swiftly flies:
"Of Ibycus, whom we lament?
Who fell beneath the murderer's hand?
What mean those words that from him went?
What means this cranes' advancing band?"

And louder still become the cries,
And soon this thought foreboding flies
Through every heart, with speed of light--
"Observe in this the furies' might!
The poets manes are now appeased
The murderer seeks his own arrest!
Let him who spoke the word be seized,
And him to whom it was addressed!"

That word he had no sooner spoke,
Than he its sound would fain invoke;
In vain! his mouth, with terror pale,
Tells of his guilt the fearful tale.
Before the judge they drag them now
The scene becomes the tribunal;
Their crimes the villains both avow,
When neath the vengeance-stroke they fall.

 Pavement slipp'ry, people sneezing,
Lords in ermine, beggars freezing ;
Titled gluttons dainties carving,
Genius in a garret starving.

Lofty mansions, warm and spacious ;
Courtiers clinging and voracious ;
Misers scarce the wretched heeding ;
Gallant soldiers fighting, bleeding.

Wives who laugh at passive spouses ;
Theatres, and meeting-houses ;
Balls, where simp'ring misses languish ;
Hospitals, and groans of anguish.

Arts and sciences bewailing ;
Commerce drooping, credit failing ;
Placemen mocking subjects loyal ;
Separations, weddings royal.

Authors who can't earn a dinner ;
Many a subtle rogue a winner ;
Fugitives for shelter seeking ;
Misers hoarding, tradesmen breaking.

Taste and talents quite deserted ;
All the laws of truth perverted ;
Arrogance o'er merit soaring ;
Merit silently deploring.

Ladies gambling night and morning ;
Fools the works of genius scorning ;
Ancient dames for girls mistaken,
Youthful damsels quite forsaken.

Some in luxury delighting ;
More in talking than in fighting ;
Lovers old, and beaux decrepid ;
Lordlings empty and insipid.

Poets, painters, and musicians ;
Lawyers, doctors, politicians :
Pamphlets, newspapers, and odes,
Seeking fame by diff'rent roads.

Gallant souls with empty purses ;
Gen'rals only fit for nurses ;
School-boys, smit with martial spirit,
Taking place of vet'ran merit.

Honest men who can't get places,
Knaves who shew unblushing faces ;
Ruin hasten'd, peace retarded ;
Candour spurn'd, and art rewarded.

 Est brevitate opus, ut currat sententia, neu se 
Impediat verbis lassas onerantibus aures: 
Et sermone opus est modo tristi, saepe jocoso, 
Defendente vicem modo Rhetoris atque Poetae, 
Interdum urbani, parcentis viribus, atque
Extenuantis eas consulto.
(Horace, Satires, I, x, 17-22)
'Tis strange, the miser should his cares employ 
To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy:
Is it less strange, the prodigal should waste
His wealth to purchase what he ne'er can taste?
Not for himself he sees, or hears, or eats;
Artists must choose his pictures, music, meats:
He buys for Topham, drawings and designs,
For Pembroke, statues, dirty gods, and coins;
Rare monkish manuscripts for Hearne alone,
And books for Mead, and butterflies for Sloane.
Think we all these are for himself? no more
Than his fine wife, alas! or finer whore.

For what his Virro painted, built, and planted?
Only to show, how many tastes he wanted.
What brought Sir Visto's ill got wealth to waste?
Some daemon whisper'd, "Visto! have a taste."
Heav'n visits with a taste the wealthy fool,
And needs no rod but Ripley with a rule.
See! sportive fate, to punish awkward pride,
Bids Bubo build, and sends him such a guide:
A standing sermon, at each year's expense,
That never coxcomb reach'd magnificence!
You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse,
And pompous buildings once were things of use.
Yet shall (my Lord) your just, your noble rules
Fill half the land with imitating fools;
Who random drawings from your sheets shall take,
And of one beauty many blunders make;
Load some vain church with old theatric state,
Turn arcs of triumph to a garden gate;
Reverse your ornaments, and hang them all
On some patch'd dog-hole ek'd with ends of wall;
Then clap four slices of pilaster on't,
That lac'd with bits of rustic, makes a front.
Or call the winds through long arcades to roar,
Proud to catch cold at a Venetian door;
Conscious they act a true Palladian part,
And, if they starve, they starve by rules of art.

Oft have you hinted to your brother peer,
A certain truth, which many buy too dear:
Something there is more needful than expense,
And something previous ev'n to taste--'tis sense:
Good sense, which only is the gift of Heav'n,
And though no science, fairly worth the sev'n:
A light, which in yourself you must perceive;
Jones and Le Notre have it not to give.

To build, to plant, whatever you intend,
To rear the column, or the arch to bend,
To swell the terrace, or to sink the grot;
In all, let Nature never be forgot.
But treat the goddess like a modest fair,
Nor overdress, nor leave her wholly bare;
Let not each beauty ev'rywhere be spied,
Where half the skill is decently to hide.
He gains all points, who pleasingly confounds,
Surprises, varies, and conceals the bounds.

Consult the genius of the place in all;
That tells the waters or to rise, or fall;
Or helps th' ambitious hill the heav'ns to scale,
Or scoops in circling theatres the vale;
Calls in the country, catches opening glades,
Joins willing woods, and varies shades from shades,
Now breaks, or now directs, th' intending lines;
Paints as you plant, and, as you work, designs.

Still follow sense, of ev'ry art the soul,
Parts answ'ring parts shall slide into a whole,
Spontaneous beauties all around advance,
Start ev'n from difficulty, strike from chance;
Nature shall join you; time shall make it grow
A work to wonder at--perhaps a Stowe.

Without it, proud Versailles! thy glory falls;
And Nero's terraces desert their walls:
The vast parterres a thousand hands shall make,
Lo! Cobham comes, and floats them with a lake:
Or cut wide views through mountains to the plain,
You'll wish your hill or shelter'd seat again.
Ev'n in an ornament its place remark,
Nor in an hermitage set Dr. Clarke.

Behold Villario's ten years' toil complete;
His quincunx darkens, his espaliers meet;
The wood supports the plain, the parts unite,
And strength of shade contends with strength of light;
A waving glow his bloomy beds display,
Blushing in bright diversities of day,
With silver-quiv'ring rills meander'd o'er--
Enjoy them, you! Villario can no more;
Tir'd of the scene parterres and fountains yield,
He finds at last he better likes a field.

Through his young woods how pleas'd Sabinus stray'd,
Or sat delighted in the thick'ning shade,
With annual joy the redd'ning shoots to greet,
Or see the stretching branches long to meet!
His son's fine taste an op'ner vista loves,
Foe to the dryads of his father's groves;
One boundless green, or flourish'd carpet views,
With all the mournful family of yews;
The thriving plants ignoble broomsticks made,
Now sweep those alleys they were born to shade.

At Timon's villa let us pass a day,
Where all cry out, "What sums are thrown away!"
So proud, so grand of that stupendous air,
Soft and agreeable come never there.
Greatness, with Timon, dwells in such a draught
As brings all Brobdingnag before your thought.
To compass this, his building is a town,
His pond an ocean, his parterre a down:
Who but must laugh, the master when he sees,
A puny insect, shiv'ring at a breeze!
Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!
The whole, a labour'd quarry above ground.
Two cupids squirt before: a lake behind
Improves the keenness of the Northern wind.
His gardens next your admiration call,
On ev'ry side you look, behold the wall!
No pleasing intricacies intervene,
No artful wildness to perplex the scene;
Grove nods at grove, each alley has a brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other.
The suff'ring eye inverted Nature sees,
Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees;
With here a fountain, never to be play'd;
And there a summerhouse, that knows no shade;
Here Amphitrite sails through myrtle bow'rs;
There gladiators fight, or die in flow'rs;
Unwater'd see the drooping sea horse mourn,
And swallows roost in Nilus' dusty urn.

My Lord advances with majestic mien,
Smit with the mighty pleasure, to be seen:
But soft--by regular approach--not yet--
First through the length of yon hot terrace sweat;
And when up ten steep slopes you've dragg'd your thighs,
Just at his study door he'll bless your eyes.

His study! with what authors is it stor'd?
In books, not authors, curious is my Lord;
To all their dated backs he turns you round:
These Aldus printed, those Du Sueil has bound.
Lo, some are vellum, and the rest as good
For all his Lordship knows, but they are wood.
For Locke or Milton 'tis in vain to look,
These shelves admit not any modern book.

And now the chapel's silver bell you hear,
That summons you to all the pride of pray'r:
Light quirks of music, broken and uneven,
Make the soul dance upon a jig to heaven.
On painted ceilings you devoutly stare,
Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre,
On gilded clouds in fair expansion lie,
And bring all paradise before your eye.
To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite,
Who never mentions Hell to ears polite.

But hark! the chiming clocks to dinner call;
A hundred footsteps scrape the marble hall:
The rich buffet well-colour'd serpents grace,
And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face.
Is this a dinner? this a genial room?
No, 'tis a temple, and a hecatomb.
A solemn sacrifice, perform'd in state,
You drink by measure, and to minutes eat.
So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear
Sancho's dread doctor and his wand were there.
Between each act the trembling salvers ring,
From soup to sweet wine, and God bless the King.
In plenty starving, tantaliz'd in state,
And complaisantly help'd to all I hate,
Treated, caress'd, and tir'd, I take my leave,
Sick of his civil pride from morn to eve;
I curse such lavish cost, and little skill,
And swear no day was ever pass'd so ill.

Yet hence the poor are cloth'd, the hungry fed;
Health to himself, and to his infants bread
The lab'rer bears: What his hard heart denies,
His charitable vanity supplies.

Another age shall see the golden ear
Embrown the slope, and nod on the parterre,
Deep harvests bury all his pride has plann'd,
And laughing Ceres reassume the land.

Who then shall grace, or who improve the soil?
Who plants like Bathurst, or who builds like Boyle.
'Tis use alone that sanctifies expense,
And splendour borrows all her rays from sense.

His father's acres who enjoys in peace,
Or makes his neighbours glad, if he increase:
Whose cheerful tenants bless their yearly toil,
Yet to their Lord owe more than to the soil;
Whose ample lawns are not asham'd to feed
The milky heifer and deserving steed;
Whose rising forests, not for pride or show,
But future buildings, future navies, grow:
Let his plantations stretch from down to down,
First shade a country, and then raise a town.

You too proceed! make falling arts your care,
Erect new wonders, and the old repair;
Jones and Palladio to themselves restore,
And be whate'er Vitruvius was before:
Till kings call forth th' ideas of your mind,
Proud to accomplish what such hands design'd,
Bid harbours open, public ways extend,
Bid temples, worthier of the God, ascend;
Bid the broad arch the dang'rous flood contain,
The mole projected break the roaring main;
Back to his bounds their subject sea command,
And roll obedient rivers through the land;
These honours, peace to happy Britain brings,
These are imperial works, and worthy kings.

 Well, I've waited mighty patient while they all came rolling in, 
Mister Lawson, Mister Dyson, and the others of their kin, 
With their dreadful, dismal stories of the Overlander's camp, 
How his fire is always smoky, and his boots are always damp; 
And they paint it so terrific it would fill one's soul with gloom -- 
But you know they're fond of writing about "corpses" and "the tomb". 
So, before they curse the bushland, they should let their fancy range, 
And take something for their livers, and be cheerful for a change. 
Now, for instance, Mr Lawson -- well, of course, we almost cried 
At the sorrowful description how his "little 'Arvie" died, 
And we lachrymosed in silence when "His Father's mate" was slain; 
Then he went and killed the father, and we had to weep again. 
Ben Duggan and Jack Denver, too, he caused them to expire, 
After which he cooked the gander of Jack Dunn, of Nevertire; 
And, no doubt, the bush is wretched if you judge it by the groan 
Of the sad and soulful poet with a graveyard of his own. 

And he spoke in terms prophetic of a revolution's heat, 
When the world should hear the clamour of those people in the street; 
But the shearer chaps who start it -- why, he rounds on them the blame, 
And he calls 'em "agitators who are living on the game". 
Bur I "over-write" the bushmen! Well, I own without a doubt 
That I always see the hero in the "man from furthest out". 
I could never contemplate him through an atmosphere of gloom, 
And a bushman never struck me as a subject for "the tomb". 

If it ain't all "golden sunshine" where the "wattle branches wave", 
Well, it ain't all damp and dismal, and it ain't all "lonely grave". 
And, of course, there's no denying that the bushman's life is rough, 
But a man can easy stand it if he's built of sterling stuff; 
Though it's seldom that the drover gets a bed of eiderdown, 
Yet the man who's born a bushman, he gets mighty sick of town, 
For he's jotting down the figures, and he's adding up the bills 
While his heart is simply aching for a sight of Southern hills. 

Then he hears a wool-team passing with a rumble and a lurch, 
And, although the work is pressing, yet it brings him off his perch, 
For it stirs him like a message from his station friends afar 
And he seems to sniff the ranges in the scent of wool and tar; 
And it takes him back in fancy, half in laughter, half in tears, 
to a sound of other voices and a thought of other years, 
When the woolshed rang with bustle from the dawning of the day, 
And the shear-blades were a-clicking to the cry of "Wool away!" 

Then his face was somewhat browner, and his frame was firmer set -- 
And he feels his flabby muscles with a feeling of regret. 
But the wool-team slowly passes, and his eyes go slowly back 
To the dusty little table and the papers in the rack, 
And his thoughts go to the terrace where his sickly children squall, 
And he thinks there's something healthy in the bush-life after all. 
But we'll go no more a-droving in the wind or in the sun, 
For out fathers' hearts have failed us, and the droving days are done. 

There's a nasty dash of danger where the long-horned bullock wheels, 
And we like to live in comfort and to get our reg'lar meals. 
For to hang around the township suits us better, you'll agree, 
And a job at washing bottles is the job for such as we. 
Let us herd into the cities, let us crush and crowd and push 
Till we lose the love of roving, and we learn to hate the bush; 
And we'll turn our aspirations to a city life and beer, 
And we'll slip across to England -- it's a nicer place than here; 

For there's not much risk of hardship where all comforts are in store, 
And the theatres are in plenty, and the pubs are more and more. 
But that ends it, Mr Lawson, and it's time to say good-bye, 
So we must agree to differ in all friendship, you and I. 
Yes, we'll work our own salvation with the stoutest hearts we may, 
And if fortune only favours we will take the road some day, 
And go droving down the river 'neath the sunshine and the stars, 
And then return to Sydney and vermilionize the bars.