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

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Hang out our banners on the stately tower	A
It dawns at last the long expected hour I	B
The steep is climbed the star lit summit won	C
The builder's task the artist's labor done	C
Before the finished work the herald stands	D
And asks the verdict of your lips and hands	D
	-
Shall rosy daybreak make us all forget	E
The golden sun that yester evening set	E
Fair was the fabric doomed to pass away	F
Ere the last headaches born of New Year's Day	F
With blasting breath the fierce destroyer came	G
And wrapped the victim in his robes of flame	G
The pictured sky with redder morning blushed	H
With scorching streams the naiad's fountain gushed	H
With kindling mountains glowed the funeral pyre	A
Forests ablaze and rivers all on fire	A
The scenes dissolved the shrivelling curtain fell	I
Art spread her wings and sighed a long farewell	I
	-
Mourn o'er the Player's melancholy plight	J
Falstaff in tears Othello deadly white	J
Poor Romeo reckoning what his doublet cost	K
And Juliet whimpering for her dresses lost	L
Their wardrobes burned their salaries all undrawn	C
Their cues cut short their occupation gone	C
	-
Lie there in dust the red winged demon cried	M
Wreck of the lordly city's hope and pride	M
Silent they stand and stare with vacant gaze	N
While o'er the embers leaps the fitful blaze	N
When to a hand before the startled train	C
Writes in the ashes It shall rise again	C
Rise and confront its elemental foes	O
The word was spoken and the walls arose	O
And ere the seasons round their brief career	P
The new born temple waits the unborn year	P
	-
Ours was the toil of many a weary day	F
Your smiles your plaudits only can repay	F
We are the monarchs of the painted scenes	Q
You you alone the real Kings and Queens	Q
Lords of the little kingdom where we meet	R
We lay our gilded sceptres at your feet	R
Place in your grasp our portal's silvered keys	S
With one brief utterance We have tried to please	S
Tell us ye sovereigns of the new domain	C
Are you content or have we toiled in vain	C
	-
With no irreverent glances look around	T
The realm you rule for this is haunted ground	T
Here stalks the Sorcerer here the Fairy trips	U
Here limps the Witch with malice working lips	U
The Graces here their snowy arms entwine	C
Here dwell the fairest sisters of the Nine	C
She who with jocund voice and twinkling eye	B
Laughs at the brood of follies as they fly	B
She of the dagger and the deadly bowl	V
Whose charming horrors thrill the trembling soul	V
She who a truant from celestial spheres	W
In mortal semblance now and then appears	W
Stealing the fairest earthly shape she can	C
Sontag or Nilsson Lind or Malibran	C
With these the spangled houri of the dance	X
What shaft so dangerous as her melting glance	X
As poised in air she spurns the earth below	Y
And points aloft her heavenly minded toe	Y
	-
What were our life with all its rents and seams	Z
Stripped of its purple robes our waking dreams	Z
The poet's song the bright romancer's page	A2
The tinselled shows that cheat us on the stage	A2
Lead all our fancies captive at their will	B2
Three years or threescore we are children still	B2
The little listener on his father's knee	C
With wandering Sindbad ploughs the stormy sea	C
With Gotham's sages hears the billows roll	V
Illustrious trio of the venturous bowl	V
Too early shipwrecked for they died too soon	C
To see their offspring launch the great balloon	C
Tracks the dark brigand to his mountain lair	C2
Slays the grim giant saves the lady fair	C2
Fights all his country's battles o'er again	C
From Bunker's blazing height to Lundy's Lane	C
Floats with the mighty captains as they sailed	D2
Before whose flag the flaming red cross paled	D2
And claims the oft told story of the scars	E2
Scarce yet grown white that saved the stripes and	F2
stars	E2
	-
Children of later growth we love the PLAY	F
We love its heroes be they grave or gay	F
From squeaking peppery devil defying Punch	G2
To roaring Richard with his camel hunch	G2
Adore its heroines those immortal dames	H2
Time's only rivals whom he never tames	H2
Whose youth unchanging lives while thrones decay	F
Age spares the Pyramids and Dejazet	F2
The saucy aproned razor tongued soubrette	F2
The blond haired beauty with the eyes of jet	F2
The gorgeous Beings whom the viewless wires	I2
Lift to the skies in strontian crimsoned fires	I2
And all the wealth of splendor that awaits	J2
The throng that enters those Elysian gates	J2
	-
See where the hurrying crowd impatient pours	K2
With noise of trampling feet and flapping doors	K2
Streams to the numbered seat each pasteboard fits	L2
And smooths its caudal plumage as it sits	L2
Waits while the slow musicians saunter in	C
Till the bald leader taps his violin	C
Till the old overture we know so well	I
Zampa or Magic Flute or William Tell	I
Has done its worst then hark the tinkling bell	I
The crash is o'er the crinkling curtain furled	F2
And to the glories of that brighter world	F2
	-
Behold the offspring of the Thespian cart	F2
This full grown temple of the magic art	F2
Where all the conjurers of illusion meet	F2
And please us all the more the more they cheat	F2
These are the wizards and the witches too	F2
Who win their honest bread by cheating you	F2
With cheeks that drown in artificial tears	M2
And lying skull caps white with seventy years	W
Sweet tempered matrons changed to scolding Kates	J2
Maids mild as moonbeams crazed with murderous hates	J2
Kind simple souls that stab and slash and slay	F
And stick at nothing if it 's in the play	F
	-
Would all the world told half as harmless lies	N2
Would all its real fools were half as wise	N2
As he who blinks through dull Dundreary's eyes I	B
Would all the unhanged bandits of the age	A2
Were like the peaceful ruffians of the stage	A2
Would all the cankers wasting town and state	F2
The mob of rascals little thieves and great	F2
Dealers in watered milk and watered stocks	O2
Who lead us lambs to pasture on the rocks	O2
Shepherds Jack Sheppards of their city flocks	O2
The rings of rogues that rob the luckless town	C
Those evil angels creeping up and down	C
The Jacob's ladder of the treasury stairs	M2
Not stage but real Turpins and Macaires	M2
Could doff like us their knavery with their clothes	M2
And find it easy as forgetting oaths	M2
	-
Welcome thrice welcome to our virgin dome	P2
The Muses' shrine the Drama's new found home	P2
Here shall the Statesman rest his weary brain	C
The worn out Artist find his wits again	C
Here Trade forget his ledger and his cares	M2
And sweet communion mingle Bulls and Bears	M2
Here shall the youthful Lover nestling near	P
The shrinking maiden her he holds most dear	P
Gaze on the mimic moonlight as it falls	M2
On painted groves on sliding canvas walls	M2
And sigh My angel What a life of bliss	M2
We two could live in such a world as this	M2
Here shall the timid pedants of the schools	M2
The gilded boors the labor scorning fools	M2
The grass green rustic and the smoke dried cit	F2
Feel each in turn the stinging lash of wit	F2
And as it tingles on some tender part	F2
Each find a balsam in his neighbor's smart	F2
So every folly prove a fresh delight	F2
As in the picture of our play to night	F2
	-
Farewell The Players wait the Prompter's call	Q2
Friends lovers listeners Welcome one and all	Q2

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Address For The Opening Of The Fifth Avenue Theatre, New York, December 3, 1873 Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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