THE BURIAL OF PHILIP VAN ARTEVELDE.
(Princess's Theatre).
NOT a house was drawn—not a five-pound-note—
So his run to its closing we hurried;
Not a listener could follow his hazy plot,
So the dreary abortion we buried.
We buried him, sadly, one Friday night,
For our hopes were gone past returning;
And the manager's pangs were a moving sight,
By the foot-lights dimly burning.
All bare and exposed to the critics lash,
On that luckless stage we found him—
On that stage where he deemed he should cut such a dash,
With armour and mobs around him.
Few were the words which the manager said,
To soothe the tragedian's sorrow;
But they glared at each other with looks which made
Us hope they would fight on the morrow.
They doubtless thought, though their tongues they held,
That of all the dreadful messes,
A sadder than Philip Van Artevelde,
Had never disgraced the Princess's.
Loudly the manager told what he spent—
And he said that Macready had made him—
Ah! little attention the "Eminent" paid,
But coolly let Maddox upbraid him.
But now was our dreary duty done—
Our sleep-moving drama retiring,
From the distant jeer and the cutting pun,
Which the foe were constantly firing.
Slowly and sadly we laid it down
That a poem, which is famed in story,
Be it writ in a book, be it carved on a stone,
Should be left there alone in its glory.
The Man in the Moon, Volume 3.