"My subject is light--let me speak of the stage; / Let the tablet of memory faithfully name / Some sons of drama who breathe but in fame, / Nay more--let me follow the delicate clue, / And give to the living the praise that is due."
— Anonymous
Author
Place of Publication
Dublin
Publisher
Printed by B. Dornin
Date
1790
Metaphor
"My subject is light--let me speak of the stage; / Let the tablet of memory faithfully name / Some sons of drama who breathe but in fame, / Nay more--let me follow the delicate clue, / And give to the living the praise that is due."
Metaphor in Context
[...] Nay, this wonderful scene--this terrestrial ball--
Absorb'd in one mass of confusion shall fall!--
But a truce with reflections so pondrously sage,
My subject is light--let me speak of the stage;
Let the tablet of memory faithfully name
Some sons of drama who breathe but in fame,
Nay more--let me follow the delicate clue,
And give to the living the praise that is due;
I touch but on heroes--the rest may retire,
And exist in a puff till a puff, they expire.
(p. 12)
Absorb'd in one mass of confusion shall fall!--
But a truce with reflections so pondrously sage,
My subject is light--let me speak of the stage;
Let the tablet of memory faithfully name
Some sons of drama who breathe but in fame,
Nay more--let me follow the delicate clue,
And give to the living the praise that is due;
I touch but on heroes--the rest may retire,
And exist in a puff till a puff, they expire.
(p. 12)
Categories
Provenance
Reading in the Folger
Citation
Anonymous, The Mirror; a Panegyrical, Satirical, and Thespian Epistle in Rhyme, from the Theatre in Crow-Street, to the Theatre in Smock-Alley. (Dublin: Printed by B. Dornin, 1790).
Date of Entry
05/16/2013
