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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.

PROLOGUE.

LL, I must wait!" The Doctor's room,

"WEL

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.

No one would call "The Lancet" gay,-
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 "stage successes,"

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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;

G

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 that were
At least a decade older,

A mournful mouth, and tangled hair
Flung careless round her shoulder,
Dressed in a stiff ill-fitting frock,
Whose black, uncomely rigour

Seemed to sardonically mock

The plaintive, slender figure.

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

Or was it that the merciless

Black garb of mourning smothered
Life and all light:—but rocking so,
In the dull garden-corner,
The lonely swinger seemed to grow
More piteous and forlorner.

Then, as I looked, across the wall
Of "next-door's" garden, that is-
To speak correctly-through its tall
Surmounting fence of lattice,
Peeped a boy's face, with curling hair,
Ripe lips, half drawn asunder,

And round, bright eyes, that wore a stare
Of frankest childish wonder.

Rounder they grew by slow degrees,

Until the swinger, swerving, Made, all at once, alive to these Intentest orbs observing,

Gave just one brief, half-uttered cry, And, as with gathered kirtle, Nymphs fly from Pan's head suddenly Thrust through the budding myrtle,

Fled in dismay. A moment's space,
The eyes looked almost tragic;

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