Before the Curtain

Behind the footlights hangs the rusty baize,
A trifle shabby in the upturned blaze
Of flaring gas and curious eyes that gaze.

The stage, methinks, perhaps is none too wide,
And hardly fit for royal Richards stride,
Or Falstaffs bulk, or Denmarks youthful pride.

Ah, well! no passion walks its humble boards;
Oer it no king nor valiant Hector lords:
The simplest skill is all its space affords.

The song and jest, the dance and trifling play,
The local hit at follies of the day,
The trick to pass an idle hour away,

For these no trumpets that announce the Moor,
No blast that makes the heros welcome sure,
A single fiddle in the overture!

Bret Harte

Bret Harte was an American author and poet, renowned for his works about pioneering life in California. Born on August 25, 1836, he gained national fame with his short stories and poetry depicting life in the early mining camps. His most famous works include 'The Luck of Roaring Camp' and 'The Outcasts of Poker Flat.' Harte's writings played a crucial role in shaping the Western genre in American literature. He passed away on May 5, 1902.

Bret Harte

Crotalus

Bret Harte, Simple Poetry

Guilds Signal

Bret Harte, Simple Poetry

John Burns of Gettysburg

Bret Harte, Simple Poetry

On the Landing

Bret Harte, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Address - The Opening of the California Theatre, San Francisco, January 19, 1870

Brief words, when actions wait, are well:
The prompters hand is on his bell;
The coming heroes, lovers, kings,
Are idly lounging at the wings;
Behind the curtains mystic fold
The glowing future lies unrolled;
And yet, one moment for the Past,
One retrospect, the first and last.

The worlds a stage, the Master said.
To-night a mightier truth is read:
Not in the shifting canvas screen,
The flash of gas or tinsel sheen;
Not in the skill whose signal calls
From empty boards baronial halls;
But, fronting sea and curving bay,
Behold the players and the play.

Ah, friends! beneath your real skies
The actors short-lived triumph dies:
On that broad stage of empire won,
Whose footlights were the setting sun,
Whose flats a distant back...

Bret Harte

At The Play

Just above the boxes and where the high lights fall
Looketh down a carven face from out the gilded wall.

Van Dyke beard and broidered ruff silently confess
That he lived - and loved perchance - in days of Good Queen Bess.
(Laces fine and linen sheer, curled and perfumed hair
Well became those gentlemen of gay, insouciant air.)

See! He gazeth evermore at the stage below;
Noteth well the players as they quickly come and go;
Queens and kings and maidens fair, motley fools and friars,
Lords and ladies, stately dames, mounted knights and squires.

Well he knoweth all of them, all the grave and gay,
These are they he dreamt of in the far and far away;
Saints and sinners, see they come down the bygone years,
And the world still shares with them its laughter and its...

Virna Sheard

Address For The Opening Of The Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York, December 3, 1873

Hang out our banners on the stately tower
It dawns at last - the long-expected hour I
The steep is climbed, the star-lit summit won,
The builder's task, the artist's labor done;
Before the finished work the herald stands,
And asks the verdict of your lips and hands!

Shall rosy daybreak make us all forget
The golden sun that yester-evening set?
Fair was the fabric doomed to pass away
Ere the last headaches born of New Year's Day;
With blasting breath the fierce destroyer came
And wrapped the victim in his robes of flame;
The pictured sky with redder morning blushed,
With scorching streams the naiad's fountain gushed,
With kindling mountains glowed the funeral pyre,
Forests ablaze and rivers all on fire, -
The scenes dissolved, the shrivelling curtain fell...

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Prologue To Abbey's Edition Of "She Stoops To Conquer."

In the year Seventeen Hundred and Seventy and Three,
When the GEORGES were ruling o'er Britain the free,
There was played a new play, on a new-fashioned plan,
By the GOLDSMITH who brought out the Good-Natur'd Man.
New-fashioned, in truth--for this play, it appears,
Dealt largely in laughter, and nothing in tears,
While the type of those days, as the learnèd will tell ye,
Was the CUMBERLAND whine or the whimper of KELLY.
So the Critics pooh-poohed, and the Actresses pouted,
And the Public were cold, and the Manager doubted;
But the Author had friends, and they all went to see it.
Shall we join them in fancy? You answer, So be it!
Imagine yourself then, good Sir, in a wig,
Either grizzle or bob--never mind, you look big.
You've a sword at your side, in your shoes there ar...

Henry Austin Dobson

An Occasional Prologue, Delivered By The Author Previous To The Performance Of "The Wheel Of Fortune" At A Private Theatre. [1]

Since the refinement of this polish'd age
Has swept immoral raillery from the stage;
Since taste has now expung'd licentious wit,
Which stamp'd disgrace on all an author writ;
Since, now, to please with purer scenes we seek,
Nor dare to call the blush from Beauty's cheek;
Oh! let the modest Muse some pity claim,
And meet indulgence - though she find not fame.
Still, not for her alone, we wish respect,
Others appear more conscious of defect:
To-night no vet'ran Roscii you behold,
In all the arts of scenic action old;
No COOKE, no KEMBLE, can salute you here,
No SIDDONS draw the sympathetic tear;
To-night you throng to witness the début
Of embryo Actors, to the Drama new:
Here, then, our almost unfledg'd wings we try;
Clip not our pinions, ere the birds can...

George Gordon Byron

Prologue To "King Arthur." Spoken By Mr Betterton.

    Sure there's a dearth of wit in this dull town,
    When silly plays so savourily go down;
    As, when clipt money passes, 'tis a sign
    A nation is not over-stock'd with coin.
    Happy is he who, in his own defence,
    Can write just level to your humble sense;
    Who higher than your pitch can never go;
    And, doubtless, he must creep, who writes below.
    So have I seen, in hall of knight, or lord,
    A weak arm throw on a long shovel-board;
    He barely lays his piece, bar rubs and knocks,
    Secured by weakness not to reach the box.
    A feeble poet will his business do,
    Who, straining all he can, comes up to you:
    For, if you like yourselves, you like him too.
    An ape his own dear image will embrace;
    An ugly beau adores a h...

John Dryden