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Title: Distance And Disenchantment
Author: Edmund Vance Cooke [
More Titles by Cooke]
He was playing New York, and on Broadway at that;
I was playing in stock, in Chicago.
I heard that his Hamlet fell fearfully flat;
He heard I was fierce, as Iago.
Each looked to the other exceedingly small;
We were too far apart, that is all.
You, too, if your vision is ever reflective,
Have noticed your rival is small in perspective.
I heard him in Memphis (a chance matinée);
He heard me (one Sunday) in Dallas.
His critics, I swore, never witnessed the play;
He vowed mine were prompted by malice.
A pleasanter fellow I cannot recall.
We were closer together; that's all.
And your rival, too, if you once see him clearly,
Is clever, or how could he rival you, nearly?
In Seattle they said he was greater than Booth,
(Or in Portland, perhaps; I've forgotten);
I said 'twas ungracious to speak the plain truth,
But his work in the first act was rotten.
I had only intended to speak of the thrall
Of his wonderful fifth act; that's all.
But when a man's praised far ahead of his talents,
I guess you say something to even the balance.
In Atlanta I heard a remark that he made
And again in Mobile, Alabama;--
That he hardly thought Shakespeare was meant to be played
Like a ten-twenty-thirt' melodrama.
Oh, well, there was one honey-drop in the gall;
The fellow was jealous; that's all.
And you, too, have found, when a friendship is broken,
That his words are worse than the ones you have spoken.
[The end]
Edmund Vance Cooke's poem: Distance And Disenchantment
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