I
Edwin Booth
An old actor at the Player’s Club told me that Edwin Boothfirst impersonated Hamlet when a barnstormer in California.There were few theatres, but the hotels were providedwith crude assembly rooms for strolling players.
The youth played in the blear hotel.The rafters gleamed with glories strange.And winds of mourning ElsinoreHowling at chance and fate and change;Voices of old Europe’s deadDisturbed the new-built cattle-shed,The street, the high and solemn range.
The while the coyote barked afarAll shadowy was the battlement.The ranch-boys huddled and grew pale,Youths who had come on riot bent.Forgot were pranks well-planned to sting.Behold there rose a ghostly king,And veils of smoking Hell were rent.
When Edwin Booth played Hamlet, thenThe camp-drab’s tears could not but flow.Then Romance lived and breathed and burned.She felt the frail queen-mother’s woe,Thrilled for Ophelia, fond and blind,And Hamlet, cruel, yet so kind,And moaned, his proud words hurt her so.
A haunted place, though new and harsh!The Indian and the ChinamanAnd Mexican were fain to learnWhat had subdued the Saxon clan.Why did they mumble, brood, and stareWhen the court-players curtsied fairAnd the Gonzago scene began?
And ah, the duel scene at last!They cheered their prince with stamping feet.A death-fight in a palace! Yea,With velvet hangings incomplete,A pasteboard throne, a pasteboard crown,And yet a monarch tumbled down,A brave lad fought in splendor meet.
Was it a palace or a barn?Immortal as the gods he flamed.There in his last great hour of rageHis foil avenged a mother shamed.In duty stern, in purpose deepHe drove that king to his black sleepAnd died, all godlike and untamed.
. . . . .
I was not born in that far day.I hear the tale from heads grown white.And then I walk that earlier street,The mining camp at candle-light.I meet him wrapped in musings fineUpon some whispering silvery lineHe yet resolves to speak aright.