George Santayana (1863-1952). The Rustic at the Play. Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. 1922. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse

Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922.

The Rustic at the Play

By George Santayana (1863–1952)


OUR youth is like a rustic at the play
That cries aloud in simple-hearted fear,
Curses the villain, shudders at the fray,
And weeps before the maiden’s wreathèd bier.

Yet once familiar with the changing show,	5
He starts no longer at a brandished knife;
But, his heart chasten’d at the sight of woe,
Ponders the mirror’d sorrows of his life.

So tutor’d too, I watch the moving art
Of all this magic and impassion’d pain	10
That tells the story of the human heart
In a false instance, such as poets feign.

I smile, and keep within the parchment furl’d
That prompts the passions of this strutting world.