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.”