How It's Done on the Stage.

Free Lance, 15 December 1902, Page 4

How It's Done on the Stage.

Hear the wild and howling tempest burst in. fury on the stage, Hear the wind s^7eep o'er the housetops, and the rolling thunder rage ; See the flaring, flashing lightning, glaring; through the window wide, To reveal the scowling villain, peering from the dark outside, While ram is pouring, pouring, and the hero, warmly cloaked, Pauses briefly on the threshold to observe that he is soaked , See the canvas houses tremble in the fury of the gale, And the heroine, poor creature, looks all terrified and pale. Oh, the dread of those dark moments, there amid that awful din, Which is shaken by the stace hands from a few square yards of tin. Oh, the terror of those vivid sheets of blinding lightning, which

Are produced by quickly turning off and on a rubber switch , But the hero weathers safely all thefury of the storm, ', Braves the shot that makes the rain, fall, and escapes quite dry and warm, While the villain, like an. Ajax, gives the thunderbolt the smile, And amid those blazing flashes smokes the prop, man's pip© the white. Hear the solemn curfew ringing, at tihe tender close of day, As the molten notes go floating o'er the hills and far away ; See the. peasants streaming homeward through the ruddy twilight's glow, Listening to the bell's soft ringing as along their way they go. How the solemn spell is carried till it thnllsi the very air, And o'ercomes thos_e simple people as they stand bareheaded there ! What a flood of sweet emotion that melodious music brings 1 , As it's hammered from a crowbar that 5 s suspended in the wings I Now the foaming charger gallops till he almost comes in sight, By the tavern dooryard gateway — almost, mind you, but not quite; He, no doubt, would liehtlv canter to 1 the centre of the stage, And his thirst in yonder fountain r@ali&-; tacally assuage ; i But, although you hear him cominor veryi often in the play, He's a habit of remaining quite persist- 1 ently aiway ; And he has the best of reasons for abiding in the reaar — He's a horse composed of cogwheels, built exclusively to hear! ,'