Epitaphs For Two Players Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A B CDEDFFD GHIJKKJ LMNMOOM PLLLQQL RSTSLLS LUVUWWU UUUULLU L L LELU XUYU UZUZ A2UUU UEUE| I EDWIN BOOTH | A |
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| An old actor at the Player's Club told me that Edwin Booth first impersonated Hamlet when a barnstormer in California There were few theatres but the hotels were provided with crude assembly rooms for strolling players | B |
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| The youth played in the blear hotel | C |
| The rafters gleamed with glories strange | D |
| And winds of mourning Elsinore | E |
| Howling at chance and fate and change | D |
| Voices of old Europe's dead | F |
| Disturbed the new built cattle shed | F |
| The street the high and solemn range | D |
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| The while the coyote barked afar | G |
| All shadowy was the battlement | H |
| The ranch boys huddled and grew pale | I |
| Youths who had come on riot bent | J |
| Forgot were pranks well planned to sting | K |
| Behold there rose a ghostly king | K |
| And veils of smoking Hell were rent | J |
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| When Edwin Booth played Hamlet then | L |
| The camp drab's tears could not but flow | M |
| Then Romance lived and breathed and burned | N |
| She felt the frail queen mother's woe | M |
| Thrilled for Ophelia fond and blind | O |
| And Hamlet cruel yet so kind | O |
| And moaned his proud words hurt her so | M |
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| A haunted place though new and harsh | P |
| The Indian and the Chinaman | L |
| And Mexican were fain to learn | L |
| What had subdued the Saxon clan | L |
| Why did they mumble brood and stare | Q |
| When the court players curtsied fair | Q |
| And the Gonzago scene began | L |
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| And ah the duel scene at last | R |
| They cheered their prince with stamping feet | S |
| A death fight in a palace Yea | T |
| With velvet hangings incomplete | S |
| A pasteboard throne a pasteboard crown | L |
| And yet a monarch tumbled down | L |
| A brave lad fought in splendor meet | S |
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| Was it a palace or a barn | L |
| Immortal as the gods he flamed | U |
| There in his last great hour of rage | V |
| His foil avenged a mother shamed | U |
| In duty stern in purpose deep | W |
| He drove that king to his black sleep | W |
| And died all godlike and untamed | U |
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| I was not born in that far day | U |
| I hear the tale from heads grown white | U |
| And then I walk that earlier street | U |
| The mining camp at candle light | U |
| I meet him wrapped in musings fine | L |
| Upon some whispering silvery line | L |
| He yet resolves to speak aright | U |
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| II EPITAPH FOR JOHN BUNNY MOTION PICTURE COMEDIAN | L |
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| In which he is remembered in similitude by reference to Yorick the king's jester who died when Hamlet and Ophelia were children | L |
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| Yorick is dead Boy Hamlet walks forlorn | L |
| Beneath the battlements of Elsinore | E |
| Where are those oddities and capers now | L |
| That used to quot set the table on a roar quot | U |
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| And do his bauble bells beyond the clouds | X |
| Ring out and shake with mirth the planets bright | U |
| No doubt he brings the blessed dead good cheer | Y |
| But silence broods on Elsinore tonight | U |
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| That little elf Ophelia eight years old | U |
| Upon her battered doll's staunch bosom weeps | Z |
| quot O best of men that wove glad fairy tales quot | U |
| With tear burned face at last the darling sleeps | Z |
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| Hamlet himself could not give cheer or help | A2 |
| Though firm and brave with his boy face controlled | U |
| For every game they started out to play | U |
| Yorick invented in the days of old | U |
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| The times are out of joint O cursed spite | U |
| The noble jester Yorick comes no more | E |
| And Hamlet hides his tears in boyish pride | U |
| By some lone turret stair of Elsinore | E |
Vachel Lindsay
(1)
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