THE DRAMA OF THE DOCTOR'S

WINDOW.

IN THREE ACTS, WITH A PROLOGUE.

"A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus,
And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth."
MIDSUMMER-NIGHT'S DREAM.

"WELL,

PROLOGUE.

I must wait!" The Doctor's room,
Where I used this expression,

Wore the severe official gloom
Attached to that profession;
Rendered severer by a bald

And skinless Gladiator,

Whose raw robustness first appalled
The entering spectator.

Few could avoid confessing
That Jones, "On Muscular Decay,'
Is, as a rule, depressing:

So, leaving both, to change the scene,
I turned toward the shutter,
And peered out vacantly between
A water-butt and gutter.

Below, the Doctor's garden lay,

If thus imagination
May dignify a square of clay
Unused to vegetation,

Filled with a dismal-looking swing-
That brought to mind a gallows —
An empty kennel, mouldering,
And two dyspeptic aloes.

No sparrow chirped, no daisy sprung,
About the place deserted;
Only across the swing-board hung
A battered doll, inverted,
Which sadly seemed to disconcert
The vagrant cat that scanned it,
Sniffed doubtfully around the skirt,
But failed to understand it.

A dreary spot! And yet, I own, Half hoping that, perchance, it Might, in some unknown way, atone For Jones and for "The Lancet,"

I watched; and by especial grace,
Within this stage contracted,
Saw presently before my face
A classic story acted.

Ah, World of ours, are you so gray
And weary, World, of spinning,
That you repeat the tales to-day
You told at the beginning?

For lo! the same old myths that made

The early

66

Still hold the boards," and still are played,

"With new effects and dresses."

Small, lonely" three-pair-backs" behold,

To-day, Alcestis dying;

To-day, in farthest Polar cold,

Ulysses' bones are lying;

Still in one's morning "Times" one reads

How fell an Indian Hector; Still clubs discuss Achilles' steeds,

Briseis' next protector;

Still Menelaus brings, we see,
His oft-remanded case on;
Still somewhere sad Hypsipyle
Bewails a faithless Jason;

And here, the Doctor's sill beside,
Do I not now discover

A Thisbe, whom the walls divide
From Pyramus, her lover?

ACT THE FIRST.

Act I. began. Some noise had scared
The cat, that like an arrow
Shot up the wall and disappeared;
And then, across the narrow,
Unweeded path, a small dark thing,
Hid by a garden-bonnet,

Passed wearily towards the swing,
Paused, turned, and climbed upon it.

A child of five, with eyes

At least a decade older,

that were

A mournful mouth, and tangled hair
Flung careless round her shoulder,
Dressed in a stiff ill-fitting frock,
Whose black, uncomely rigour
Sardonically seemed to mock
The plaintive, slender figure.

What was it? Something in the dress That told the girl unmothered;