Читать книгу Familiar Faces - Graham Harry - Страница 5

Long ago, our English actors

Ranked with rogues and vagabonds;

They were jailed as malefactors,

They were ducked in village ponds.

In the stocks the beadle shut them,

While the friends they chanced to meet

Would invariably cut them

In the street.

With suspicion people eyed them,

Ev'ry country-squire would feel

That his fallow-deer supplied them

With the makings of a meal.

They annexed the parson's rabbits,

Poached the pheasants of the peer,

And had other little habits

Just as queer!

Even Will, the Bard of Avon,

As a poacher stands confest,

And altho', of course, cleanshaven,

Was as barefaced as the rest.

He, a player by vocation,

Practised, like his buckskin'd pals,

Indiscriminate flirtation

With the gals!

Now, the am'rous actor's cravings

For romance are orthodox;

Nowadays he puts his savings,

Not his ankles, into "stocks."

Nobody to-day is doubting

That a halo round him clings;

One can see his shoulders sprouting

Into wings.

Watch the mummer managerial,

Centre of a rev'rent group;

Note with what an air imperial

He controls his timid troupe.

Deadheads scrape and bow before him,

To his doors the public flocks;

Even duchesses implore him

For a box.

Enemies, no doubt, will tell us

(What we should not ever guess)

That he is absurdly jealous

Of subordinates' success.

Minor mimes who score a hit or

Threaten to advance too fast,

Are advised to curb their wit or

Leave the cast!

Foes declare that, at rehearsal,

Managers are free of speech,

And unduly prone to curse all

Those who come within their reach.

With some tiny dams (or damlets)

They exhort each "walking gent – "

Language that potential Hamlets

Much resent.

Do not autocrats, dictators,

All who lead successful lives,

Swear repeatedly at waiters,

Curse consistently at wives?

Shall the heads of the Profession,

Histrionic argonauts,

Be denied the frank expression

Of their thoughts?

Will not we who so applaud them

Execrate with righteous rage

Player knaves who would defraud them

Of their centre of the stage?

Do we grudge these godlike creatures

Picture-cards that advertise —

Calcium lights that flood their features

From the flies?

No, for ev'ry leading actor

Who produces problem plays,

Is a most important factor

In the world of modern days.

Kings occasionally knight him,

Titled ladies take him up;

Even millionaires invite him

Out to sup.

Proudly he advances, trailing

Clouds of limelight from afar,

(Diffidence is not the failing

Of the true dramatic "star").

What cares he for rank or fashion,

Politics or place or pelf?

He whose one prevailing passion

Is himself?

All the world's a stage, we know it;

Managers, whose heads are twirled,

Think (to paraphrase the poet)

That the stage is all the world.

Other men discuss the summer,

Or the poor potato crop,

Nothing can prevent the mummer

Talking "shop."

With his Art as the objective

Of his intellectual pow'rs,

He (as usual, introspective)

Talks about himself for hours.

While his friends, who never dream of

Interrupting, stand agog,

He decants a ceaseless stream of

Monologue.

He is great. He has become it

By a long and arduous climb

To the crest, the crown, the summit

Of the Thespian tree – a lime!

There he chatters like a starling,

There, like Jove, he sometimes nods;

But he still remains the "darling

Of the gods!"