All the World’s a Theatre

All the world’s a theatre,

And all stages seen laudable lives.

As all men and women merely involvers:

Some enter and exit stages, watching actors,

Preparing settings and writing plots.

Yet a man of the times does it all.

First as the pure, sweet and smoothing in his heart.

Held by the doctor, he doesn’t know his art.

Then as the student, who learn but doesn’t understand:

Little does he know he is directing his play—

Setting his hopes and fears, likes and dislikes,

Spinning his strings of fate, writing his script, preparing his lines…

Years later he reviews the paper with insecure confidence,

Though critiqued and criticised he follows his heart.

He fights joyfully with comrades, resists bravely near enemies,

Justice and victory come and he embraces the end.

Next from the audience, comes a lady in his dreams:

The Bianca against the shrews, the Beatrice among the timid.

Holding hands, as they step into the chamber for two:

Opening it, they find a backstage new, for a new actor arrives.

They set up for their child, putting wise words like old birds.

The child doesn’t realise, but he force him to know all—

Harsh reality like cracked clay, ruined fantasies like spilled milk.

The child rebels, the lady betrays, but he never analyses what’s wrong.

As he’s sixty he walks down the stages, watching others playing the act.

Still he cannot fill his empty hole, and soon ills with regret.

Soon there he falls, to what he thought a second childhood,

Sans fear, sans betrayal, sans despair, sans evilness:

Alas, he finds himself in a second theatre,

Whose skeletal faces painted with sorrow for each to show.