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Private Theatricals

A quite convincing axiom
Is, 'Life is like a play’;
For, turning back its pages some
Few dog-eared years away,
I find where I
Committed my
Love-tale—with brackets where to sigh.
 
I feel an idle interest
To read again the page;
I enter, as a lover dressed,
At twenty years of age,
And play the part
With throbbing heart,
And all an actor’s glowing art.
 
And she who plays my Lady-love
Excels!—Her loving glance
Has power her audience to move—
I am her audience.—
Her acting tact,
To tell the fact,
'Brings down the house’ in every act.
 
And often we defy the curse
Of storms and thunder-showers,
To meet together and rehearse
This little play of ours—
I think, when she
'Makes love’ to me,
She kisses very naturally!
 
. . . . . .
 
Yes; it’s convincing—rather—
That 'Life is like a play’:
I am playing 'Heavy Father’
In a 'Screaming Farce’ to-day,
That so ‘brings down
The house,’ I frown,
And fain would ‘ring the curtain down.’
Other works by James Whitcomb Riley...



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