Long ago, our English actors
Ranked with rogues and vagabonds;
They were jailed as malefactors,
They were ducked in village ponds.
In the stocks the beadle shut them,
While the friends they chanced to meet
Would invariably cut them
In the street.

With suspicion people eyed them,
Ev'ry country-squire would feel
That his fallow-deer supplied them
With the makings of a meal.
They annexed the parson's rabbits,
Poached the pheasants of the peer,
And had other little habits
Just as queer!

Even Will, the Bard of Avon,
As a poacher stands confest,
And altho', of course, cleanshaven,
Was as barefaced as the rest.
He, a player by vocation,
Practised, like his buckskin'd pals,
Indiscriminate flirtation
With the gals!

Now, the am'rous actor's cravings
For romance are orthodox;
Nowadays he puts his savings,
Not his ankles, into "stocks."
Nobody to-day is doubting
That a halo round him clings;
One can see his shoulders sprouting
Into wings.

Watch the mummer managerial,
Centre of a rev'rent group;
Note with what an air imperial
He controls his timid troupe.
Deadheads scrape and bow before him,
To his doors the public flocks;
Even duchesses implore him
For a box.

Enemies, no doubt, will tell us
(What we should not ever guess)
That he is absurdly jealous
Of subordinates' success.
Minor mimes who score a hit or
Threaten to advance too fast,
Are advised to curb their wit or
Leave the cast!

Foes declare that, at rehearsal,
Managers are free of speech,
And unduly prone to curse all
Those who come within their reach.
With some tiny dams (or damlets)
They exhort each "walking gent – "
Language that potential Hamlets
Much resent.

Do not autocrats, dictators,
All who lead successful lives,
Swear repeatedly at waiters,
Curse consistently at wives?
Shall the heads of the Profession,
Histrionic argonauts,
Be denied the frank expression
Of their thoughts?

Will not we who so applaud them
Execrate with righteous rage
Player knaves who would defraud them
Of their centre of the stage?
Do we grudge these godlike creatures
Picture-cards that advertise —
Calcium lights that flood their features
From the flies?

No, for ev'ry leading actor
Who produces problem plays,
Is a most important factor
In the world of modern days.
Kings occasionally knight him,
Titled ladies take him up;
Even millionaires invite him
Out to sup.

Proudly he advances, trailing
Clouds of limelight from afar,
(Diffidence is not the failing
Of the true dramatic "star").
What cares he for rank or fashion,
Politics or place or pelf?
He whose one prevailing passion
Is himself?

All the world's a stage, we know it;
Managers, whose heads are twirled,
Think (to paraphrase the poet)
That the stage is all the world.
Other men discuss the summer,
Or the poor potato crop,
Nothing can prevent the mummer
Talking "shop."

With his Art as the objective
Of his intellectual pow'rs,
He (as usual, introspective)
Talks about himself for hours.
While his friends, who never dream of
Interrupting, stand agog,
He decants a ceaseless stream of
Monologue.

He is great. He has become it
By a long and arduous climb
To the crest, the crown, the summit
Of the Thespian tree – a lime!
There he chatters like a starling,
There, like Jove, he sometimes nods;
But he still remains the "darling
Of the gods!"

IV
THE GILDED YOUTH

A monocle he always wears,
Safe screwed within his dexter eye;
His mouth stands open wide, and snares
The too intrusive fly.
Were he to close his jaws, no doubt,
The eyeglass would at once fall out.

His choice of clothes is truly weird;
His jacket, short, and negligée,
Is slit behind, as tho' he feared
A tail might sprout some day.
One's eye must be inured to shocks
To stand the tartan of his socks.

The chessboard pattern of his check
Betrays its owner's florid taste;
A three-inch collar grips his neck,
A cummerbund his waist;
The trousers that his legs enshroud
Speak for themselves, they are so loud.

His shirt, his sleeve-links and his stud,
Are all of a cerulean hue,
And advertise that Norman blood, —
The bluest of the blue, —
Which, as a brief inspection shows,
Seems to have centred in his nose.

His saffron tresses, oiled with care,
Back from a vacant brow he scrapes;
From so compact a head of hair
No filament escapes.
(This surface-polish, friends complain,
Does not descend into the brain.)

What does he do? You well may ask.
Nothing at all, to be exact!
Yet he performs this tedious task
With quite consummate tact.
(No cause for wonder this, in truth,
Since he has practised it from youth.)

To some wide window-seat he goes,
And gazes out with torpid eyes;
Then yawns politely through his nose,
Looks at his watch, and sighs;
Regards his boots with dumb regret,
And lights another cigarette.

Then glances through his morning's mail,
And now, his daily labours done,
Feels far too comatose and frail
To give the dog a run;
Besides, as he reflects with shame,
He can't recall the creature's name!

Safe in a front-row stall he sits,
Where lyric comedy is played;
And, after, to some local Ritz,
Escorts a chorus-maid.
The jeunesse dorée of to-day
Is called the jeunesse stage-doorée!

How slow the weary days must seem
(That to his fellows fly so fast),
To one who in a waking-dream
Awaits the next repast!
How tiresome and how long they feel,
Those hours dividing meal from meal!

For, like Othello, he must find
His "occupation gone," poor soul,
Who can but wander in his mind
When he requires a stroll;
A mental sphere, one may surmise,
Too cramped for healthy exercise.

But since a poet has declared
That "nothing walks with aimless feet,"
To ask why such a type is spared
To grace the public street,
Would be most curiously misplaced,
And in the very worst of taste.

V
THE GOURMAND

(A Ballad of Reading Grill)

He did not wear his swallow-tail,
But a simple dinner-coat;
For once his spirits seemed to fail,
And his fund of anecdote.
His brow was drawn and damp and pale,
And a lump stood in his throat.

I never saw a person stare,
With looks so dour and blue,
Upon the square of bill-of-fare
We waiters call the "M'noo,"
And at ev'ry dainty mentioned there,
From entrée to ragout.

With head bent low, and cheeks aglow,
He viewed the groaning board,
For he wondered if the chef would show
The treasures of his hoard,
When a voice behind him whispered low,
"Sherry or 'ock, my lord?"

Gods! What a tumult rent the air,
As, with a frightful oath,
He seized the waiter by the hair
And cursed him for his sloth;
Then, grumbling like some stricken bear,
Angrily answered "Both!"

For each man drinks the thing he loves,
As tonic, dram or drug;
Some do it standing, in their gloves,
Some seated, from a jug;
The upper class from slim-stemmed glass,
The masses from a mug.

…...…...

The wine was slow to bring him woe,
But when the meal was through,
His wild remorse at ev'ry course
Each moment wilder grew.
For he who thinks to mix his drinks
Must mix his symptoms too.

Did he regret that tough noisette,
And the tougher tournedos,
The oysters dry, and the game so high,
And the soufflé flat and low,
Which the chef had planned with a heavy hand,
And the waiters served so slow?

Yet each approves the things he loves,
From caviare to pork;
Some guzzle cheese or new-grown peas,
Like a cormorant or stork;
The poor man's wife employs a knife,
The rich man's mate a fork.

Some gorge, forsooth, in early youth,
Some wait till they are old;
Some take their fare from earthenware,
And some from polished gold.
The gourmand gnaws in haste because
The plates so soon grow cold.

Some eat too swiftly, some too long,
In restaurant or grill;
Some, when their weak insides go wrong,
Try a postprandial pill.
For each man eats his fav'rite meats,
Yet each man is not ill.

He does not sicken in his bed,
Through a night of wild unrest,
With a snow-white bandage round his head,
And a poultice on his breast,
'Neath the nightmare weight of the things he ate
And omitted to digest.

…...…...

We know not whether meals be short,
Or whether meals be long;
All that we know of this resort
Proves that there's something wrong,
That the soup is weak and tastes of port,
And the fish is far too strong.

The bread they bake is quite opaque,
The butter full of hair;
Defunct sardines and flaccid "greens"
Are all they give us there.
Such cooking has been known to make
A common person swear.

And when misguided people feed,
At eve or afternoon,
Their harassed ears are never freed
From the fiddle and bassoon,
Which sow dyspepsia's subtlest seed,
With a most evil spoon.

To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes,
Is a pastime rare and grand;
But to eat of fish or fowl or fruits
To a Blue Hungarian Band
Is a thing that suits nor men nor brutes,
As the world should understand.

Such music baffles human talk,
And gags each genial guest;
A grillroom orchestra can baulk
All efforts to digest,
Till the chops will not lie still, but walk
All night upon one's chest.

…...…...

Six times a table here he booked,
Six times he sat and scann'd
The list of dishes, badly cooked
By the chef's unskilful hand;
And I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the band.

He did not swear or tear his hair,
But ordered wine galore,
As though it were some vintage rare
From an old Falernian store;
With open mouth he slaked his drouth,
And loudly called for more.

He was the type that waiters know,
Who simply lives to feed,
Who little cares what food they show