THE RISING OF THE CURTAIN

We sit before the curtain, and we heed the pleasant bustle: The ushers hastening up the aisles, the fans' and programmes' rustle; The boy that cries librettos, and the soft, incessant sound Of talking and low laughter that buzzes all around.

How very old the drop-scene looks! A thousand times before I've seen that blue paint dashing on that red distemper shore; The castle and the guazzo sky, the very ilex-tree,— They have been there a thousand years,—a thousand more shall be.

All our lives we have been waiting for that weary daub to rise; We have peeped behind its edges, "as if we were God's spies;" We have listened for the signal; yet still, as in our youth, The colored screen of matter hangs between us and the truth.

When in my careless childhood I dwelt beside a wood, I tired of the clearing where my father's cabin stood; And of the wild young forest paths that coaxed me to explore, Then dwindled down, or led me back to where I stood before.

But through the woods before our door a wagon track went by, Above whose utmost western edge there hung an open sky; And there it seemed to make a plunge, or break off suddenly, As though beneath that open sky it met the open sea.

Oh, often have I fancied, in the sunset's dreamy glow, That mine eyes had caught the welter of the ocean waves below; And the wind among the pine-tops, with its low and ceaseless roar, Was but an echo from the surf on that imagined shore.

Alas! as I grew older, I found that road led down To no more fair horizon than the squalid factory town: So all life's purple distances, when nearer them I came, Have played me still the same old cheat,—the same, the same, the same!

And when, O King, the heaven departeth as a scroll, Wilt thou once more the promise break thou madest to my soul? Shall I see thy feasting presence thronged with baron, knight, and page? Or will the curtain rise upon a dark and empty stage?

For lo, quick undulations across the canvas run; The foot-lights brighten suddenly, the orchestra has done; And through the expectant silence rings loud the prompter's bell; The curtain shakes,—it rises. Farewell, dull world, farewell!