Ours was the toil of many a weary day Your smiles, your plaudits, only can repay; We are the monarchs of the painted scenes, You, you alone the real Kings and Queens! Lords of the little kingdom where we meet, We lay our gilded sceptres at your feet, Place in your grasp our portal's silvered keys With one brief utterance: We have tried to please. Tell us, ye sovereigns of the new domain, Are you content-or have we toiled in vain? With no irreverent glances look around The realm you rule, for this is haunted ground! Here stalks the Sorcerer, here the Fairy trips, Here limps the Witch with malice-working lips, The Graces here their snowy arms entwine, Here dwell the fairest sisters of the Nine,-- She who, with jocund voice and twinkling eye, Laughs at the brood of follies as they fly; She of the dagger and the deadly bowl, Whose charming horrors thrill the trembling soul; She who, a truant from celestial spheres, In mortal semblance now and then appears, Stealing the fairest earthly shape she can-- Sontag or Nilsson, Lind or Malibran; With these the spangled houri of the dance,-- What shaft so dangerous as her melting glance, As poised in air she spurns the earth below, And points aloft her heavenly-minded toe! What were our life, with all its rents and seams, Stripped of its purple robes, our waking dreams? The poet's song, the bright romancer's page, The tinselled shows that cheat us on the stage Lead all our fancies captive at their will; Three years or threescore, we are children still. The little listener on his father's knee, With wandering Sindbad ploughs the stormy sea, With Gotham's sages hears the billows roll (Illustrious trio of the venturous bowl, Too early shipwrecked, for they died too soon To see their offspring launch the great balloon); Tracks the dark brigand to his mountain lair, Slays the grim giant, saves the lady fair, Fights all his country's battles o'er again From Bunker's blazing height to Lundy's Lane; Floats with the mighty captains as they sailed, Before whose flag the flaming red-cross paled, And claims the oft-told story of the scars Scarce yet grown white, that saved the stripes and stars! Children of later growth, we love the PLAY, We love its heroes, be they grave or gay, From squeaking, peppery, devil-defying Punch To roaring Richard with his camel-hunch; Adore its heroines, those immortal dames, Time's only rivals, whom he never tames, Whose youth, unchanging, lives while thrones decay (Age spares the Pyramids-and Dejazet); The saucy-aproned, razor-tongued soubrette, The blond-haired beauty with the eyes of jet, The gorgeous Beings whom the viewless wires Lift to the skies in strontian-crimsoned fires, And all the wealth of splendor that awaits The throng that enters those Elysian gates.