THE HAYMARKET THEATRE ON THE OCCASION OF THE REVIVAL OF A DULL OLD FIVE-ACT PLAY.
With kindest friends, each private box
Was thickly peopled one and all;
The busy tongues fell at the knocks
The prompter gave against the wall.
The grand tiers' heads look'd old and strange,
Unresting was box-keeper's key,
For those who something came to see,
Within the dismal five-acts' range.
She only said, "It readeth dreary;
No pathos and no fun."
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
Before it hath begun."
Her yawns came with the first act even;
Her yawns came ere the third was tried.
She had been listening from seven,
With nought to praise, nor to deride.
After the friends forgot to clap,
Which very soon they ceased to do,
She drew the box's curtains too,
And thought, "I'll take a little nap."
She only said, "The play is dreary;
No pathos, and no fun,"
She only said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that it were done."
* * * *
The hazy nature of the plot;
The box locks clicking; and the sound
Which to the actors on the stage
The prompter made, did all confound
Her sense; but most she loathed the power
Which could get acted such a play,
When they would nothing have to say
To pieces of the present hour.
Then said she, "This is very dreary!
This must not be," she said;
"Sooner than feel again so weary,
I'd go right home to bed."
The Man in the Moon, Volume 2, 1848.