And I recall with long-unfelt desire The realm of spirits, solemn, still, serene; My faltering lay, like the Æolian lyre, Gives wavering tones with many a pause between; The stern heart glows with youth's rekindled fire, Tear follows tear, where long no tear hath been; The thing I am fades into distance gray; And the pale Past stands out a clear to-day. PRELUDE AT THE THEATRE. /Manager/ of a Strolling Company.--/Stage-poet/--/Merryfellow/. Manager. Ye twain, in good and evil day So oft my solace and my stay, Say, have ye heard sure word, or wandering rumor How our new scheme affects the public humor? Without the multitude we cannot thrive, Their maxim is to live and to let live. The posts are up, the planks are fastened, and Each man's agog for something gay and grand. With arched eyebrows they sit already there, Gaping for something new to make them stare. I know the public taste, and profit by it; But still to-day I've fears of our succeeding: 'Tis true they're customed to no dainty diet, But they've gone through an awful breadth of reading. How shall we make our pieces fresh and new, And with some meaning in them, pleasing too? In sooth, I like to see the people pouring Into our booth, like storm and tempest roaring, While, as the waving impulse onward heaves them, The narrow gate of grace at length receives them, When, long ere it be dark, with lusty knocks They fight their way on to the money-box, And like a starving crowd around a baker's door, For tickets as for bread they roar. So wonder-working is the poet's sway O'er every heart--so may it work to-day! Poet. O mention not that motley throng to me, Which only seen makes frighted genius pause; Hide from my view that wild and whirling sea That sucks me in, and deep and downward draws. No! let some noiseless nook of refuge be My heaven, remote from boisterous rude applause, Where Love and Friendship, as a God inspires, Create and fan the pure heart's chastened fires. Alas! what there the shaping thought did rear, And scarce the trembling lip might lisping say, To Nature's rounded type not always near, The greedy moment rudely sweeps away. Oft-times a work, through many a patient year Must toil to reach its finished fair display; The glittering gaud may fix the passing gaze, But the pure gem gains Time's enduring praise.