Page:Landon in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book 1834.pdf/61

Rh JOHN KEMBLE.

! glorious triumph, thus to sway at will All feelings in our nature; thus to work The springs of sympathy, the mines of thought, And all the deep emotions of the heart. To colour the fine paintings of the mind, And bid them move and breathe. Our island bard, He who flung human life upon his page, How much he owes the actor. Kemble once Made Hamlet, Cato, and the Noble Moor, Our own familiar friends—they lived, they looked, And left an actual image on the soul. I would I could remember them, but he Who looks yon pale and melancholy prince, Was past before my time—yet still the stage Is fancy’s world of poetry to me— For I have heard the pathos of the Moor Tremble in broken music, when he bids His last farewell to Venice, and implores For charity and rest:—and I have wept When the stern father slays his only child, That he may keep her memory a thing To shelter in his heart. Nor is she least Amid these haunting shapes—that gentle wife, Who kept one stainless faith through long, long years, Of utter hopelessness, and yet loved on; Till Mantua ranks within my memory, With those Italian cities which have been The visions of my youth. I know not how it acts on other minds, But this I know, my most enchanted world Is hidden when the curtain falls, and leaves Remembrance only of its gorgeous dreams And beautiful creations.