Chronologically this is the third 'poem for recitation' from Trove. Since the last post I started to map out the size of this project. The phrase 'poem for recitation' gives 305 results. But given that the same article often appears in multiple papers, I had thought that perhaps I would be handling around 30 poems for the project. I have found perhaps ten poems that fit this assumption. The use of the term 'poem for recitation' is less common once we move into the 20th Century, with only a couple of papers using the phrase regularly... we'll have to see how this goes :-).
'Story of a Picture' was published in 15 newspapers, with all but one of them being in the period February to April 1884, the stray being in December 1885. I can find no other reference to "B. H. in the theatre" on Trove or on Google.
Like my last post this poem falls in the somewhat sad category, a rhyme of lost opportunity and its consequences. A tale of a slide into poverty with the shadow of domestic violence.
The Story of a Picture.
POEM FOR RECITATION.
'Twas late on a wint'ry evening,
The pitiless rain fell fast,
And sweeping round every corner,
Came the bitter November blast,
The shops were brilliantly lighted,
With the flaming gas turned high,
Displaying their warmth and comfort
To each comfortless passer-by.
The rattle and roar of the traffic
Came dull through the rainy street,
And the slippery flag-stones echoed
With the clatter of hurring feet.
And away in the misty distance,
Like the stars of the clouded night,
The myriad lamps of the city
Where shining with lustre bright.
To gaze in a gay shop window,
A desolate crowd had stayed,
And among them a woman lingered
To glance at the things displayed.
A woman with grim starvation
Writ on her beautiful face,
A woman whom trouble and sorrow,
Had robbed of her girlish grace.
A row of theatrical pictures
Had attracted the little throng,
Of heroes and heroines, famous
In drama and dance and song.
And over the woman's features
A look of misery fell,
For she saw in the group of actors,
A man she had once known well.
Back o'er her memory flitted
The scenes of the bygone years,
As she gazed with throbbing pulses,
Through a mist of bitter tears.
The days of her happy girlhood,
When life was so bright and so gay,
Events in that sweet existence
Forgotten this many a day.
Then the long, long years of trouble,
Of misery, want, and care,
That had wasted her pretty figure
And silvered her nut-brown hair.
Of the swift and reckless changes,
From the honoured name she bore,
To the ruin that lay behind her.
And the grim starvation before.
The crowd passed onward and left her
To stand their silent still,
The cold rain lashing against her,
As she leant, on the narrow sill,
Heedless of all around her,
Checking the tears that start,
As she looks on the face of the lover,
Who first won her pure young heart.
It was on her seventeenth birthday,
Now six long winters past,
That she saw him first as the hero
Of a play in a famous cast.
He was handsome and clever and graceful,
His voice was tender and sweet,
She can hear it still in fancy
Through the heavy noise of the street.
'Twas long ere she came to know him,
They moved in a different set,
And though often she saw him acting,
'Twas a year before they met.
He fell in love with her straightaway,
And feared not his love to tell,
What wonder he made her love him,
He knew how to woo so well.
But she had a richer lover,
Who had run through a mad, wild life,
He loved her because of her beauty,
And asked her to be his wife.
And because of his wealth and riches,
She listened to all he said,
Forgetting the penniless actor,
She gave him her hand instead.
She married as many a girl does,
For all that his wealth would buy:
But she never could love her husband,
Though she honestly meant to try.
For she found he was wild and wicked,
One of a lawless crew,
That his comrades were reckless fellows,
And his fortune a fiction too.
And the lovely country lassie
Grew paler day by day,
The life of disgrace and horror
Was chasing her health away.
At first he treated her kindly,
Then, finding she loathed him so,
He rained down oaths and reproaches,
And many a brutal blow.
Now he had left her for ever,
To starve or beg for her bread,
Homeless, friendless, and dying,
With nowhere to rest her head.
She had begged a few shillings this evening,
And, shivering past in the rain,
She saw in the gay shop-window
The face of her lover again.
Then a sudded hope came round her,
That perhaps he loved her still,
Might be willing to help her a little,
Although she'd behaved so ill.
She read his name on a poster
By the light of a flaring jet,
Then buying the coveted picture,
She turned to the wind and the wet.
To wait till the play was over,
She stood at the dark stage-door,
Till her limbs were numb and aching,
And at last she could stand no more.
So, paying her only shilling,
She crept to the crowded pit,
To a region of fairy brilliance,
Where a thousand lamps were lit.
The curtain was up already,
The stage was a splendid scene,
With a shimmering sea in the distance,
And in front a bower of green;
And there was the man she worshipped,
With the light on his handsome face,
Playing his role of lover
With his easy and manly grace.
She watched with a hungry yearning,
The love in his glorious eyes,
Striving to keep down and strangle,
The heartbroken sobs that rise.
Noting the play of the shadows
On his bright uncovered hair,
Dreading lest he should see her
Sitting and trembling there.
At last the drama was ended,
'Mid a yelling peal of applause,
And the audience, jostling and pushing,
Crowded to reach the doors.
The woman sat still without moving,
Bending her weary head,
And when they bade her be going,
They found she was cold and dead.
She had seen the name of the actor
She'd loved all her sorrowful life,
And further down on the playbill
The name of her hero's wife.
She had died in that hour of pleasure,
And gone to a happier land;
But they found her darling's picture
Clasped in her wasted hand.
B. H. in the Theatre.
Source: The Story of a Picture. (1884, February 15). The North Eastern Ensign (Benalla, Vic. : 1872 - 1938), p. 2 (SUPPLEMENT TO The North Eastern Ensign.). Retrieved March 18, 2023, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70745588
Image: Tracking an Adept in Disguises. (1884, December 12). The Colac Herald (Vic. : 1875 - 1918), p. 1 (Supplement to the Colac Herald). Retrieved March 18, 2023, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article88189755
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