By the hack author of a mere stage-play:
It’s easy to affect this cynic tone,
But, let me ask you, had the world ne’er known
Such Love as you, and I, and he, must mean—
Pray where would you, or I, or he, have been?
THE WICKED WORLD.
ACT I.
Scene—Fairy Land. A beautiful, but fanciful landscape, which is supposed to lie on the upper side of a cloud. The cloud is suspended over the earth, a portion of which (representing “a bird’s-eye view” of a mediæval city), is seen, far below, through a rent or gap in the cloud.
As the curtain rises Zayda is discovered standing in a thoughtful attitude, contemplating the world at her feet. To her enters Darine.