Shall stop up Catherine Street—for them, alas!
No more shall anxious crowds expectant wait,
Or polish up the gilded opera glass.
Oft did the vicious on their accents hang,
Their power oft the stubborn heart hath bent,
And, whilst the spacious house with plaudits rang,
They sent the harden’d homewards to repent.
There, in that empty box, perchance hath swell’d
A heart with Romeo’s burning passion rife,
Hands that “poor Yorick’s” skull might well have held,