A Little Bit of Drama

“A Poison Tree” by William Blake 

I was angry with my friend; 

I told my wrath, my wrath did end. 

I was angry with my foe: 

I told it not, my wrath did grow. 

And I watered it in fears, 

Night and morning with my tears: 

And I sunned it with smiles, 

And with soft deceitful wiles. 

And it grew both day and night. 

Till it bore an apple bright. 

And my foe beheld it shine, 

And he knew that it was mine. 

And into my garden stole, 

When the night had veiled the pole; 

In the morning glad I see; 

My foe outstretched beneath the tree. 

..... 

“Suicide in the Trenches” by Siegfried Sassoon 

I knew a simple soldier boy 

Who grinned at life in empty joy, 

Slept soundly through the lonesome dark, 

And whistled early with the lark. 

In winter trenches, cowed and glum, 

With crumps and lice and lack of rum, 

He put a bullet through his brain. 

No one spoke of him again. 

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye 

Who cheer when soldier lads march by, 

Sneak home and pray you'll never know 

The hell where youth and laughter go. 

..... 

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.  

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height  

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight  

For the ends of being and ideal grace.  

I love thee to the level of every day’s  

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.  

I love thee freely, as men strive for right;  

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.  

I love thee with the passion put to use  

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.  

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose  

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,  

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,  

I shall but love thee better after death.  

…..  

She dwelt among the untrodden ways  

Besides the spring of Dove,  

A Maid whom there were none to praise  

And very few to love:  

A violet by a mossy stone  

Half hidden from the eye!  

—Fair as a star, when only one  

Is shining in the sky.  

She lived unknown, and few could know  

When Lucy ceased to be;  

But she is in her grave, and, oh,  

The difference to me!  

…..  

DAWN  

Dead shadows dance in the night  

yearning for the dawn.  

Cold and forgotten walking scars,  

drained by decay,  

wasted by time,  

stretch out,  

hungered and blurred,  

to a spark ignited,  

climbing,  

rising from the ground.  

From the last depths,  

rays of hope entwine in the sky,  

kissing the hills;  

breathing new life  

and wonders layered in light.  

Naked with joy, a new day, a new world is born.  

THE OUTER VIEW  

Beneath a mountain of tedium,  

In a dull ugly system,  

In an empty ocean of shadows,  

Is a silhouette of pure fire heat  

Drifting in the dark.  

All I wanted was the wind;  

The wind murmured with anticipation,  

The grass turned to icy grey,  

A fine mist fell,  

And with the mist came my sorrow  

Cooling my body  

With her thousand kisses,  

Leaving me there.  

I am surrounded by ice crystals  

floating down through silence  

into soft glowing snow.  

The only sound is the pulse of my breathing.  

As the sun sleeps,  

how many hearts are dreaming,  

when the world stands still.

…..  

Beneath a mountain of tedium,  

In a dull ugly system,  

In an empty ocean of shadows,  

Is a silhouette of pure fire heat  

Drifting in the dark.  

All I wanted was the wind;  

The wind murmured with anticipation,  

The grass turned to icy grey,  

A fine mist fell,  

And with the mist came my sorrow  

Cooling my body  

With her thousand kisses,  

Leaving me there.  

I am surrounded by ice crystals  

floating down through silence  

into soft glowing snow.  

The only sound is the pulse of my breathing.  

As the sun sleeps,  

how many hearts are dreaming,  

when the world stands still.  

.....  

To be, or not to be, that is the question:  

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer  

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,  

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles  

And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,  

No more; and by a sleep to say we end  

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks  

That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation  

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;  

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:  

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,  

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,  

Must give us pause—there's the respect  

That makes calamity of so long life.  

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,  

Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,  

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,  

The insolence of office, and the spurns  

That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,  

When he himself might his quietus make  

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,  

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,  

But that the dread of something after death,  

The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn  

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,  

And makes us rather bear those ills we have  

Than fly to others that we know not of?  

Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all,  

And thus the native hue of resolution  

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,  

And enterprises of great pith and moment  

With this regard their currents turn awry  

And lose the name of action.  

.....  

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves  

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;  

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.  

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son  

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!  

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun  

The frumious Bandersnatch!"  

He took his vorpal sword in hand;  

Long time the manxome foe he sought—  

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,  

And stood awhile in thought.  

And, as in uffish thought he stood,  

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,  

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,  

And burbled as it came!  

One, two! One, two! And through and through  

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!  

He left it dead, and with its head  

He went galumphing back.  

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?  

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!  

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"  

He chortled in his joy.  

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves  

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;  

All mimsy were the borogoves,  

And the mome raths outgrabe.  

.....  

Dead shadows dance in the night  

yearning for the dawn;  

Cold and forgotten walking scars,  

drained by decay,  

wasted by time,  

stretch out,  

hungered and blurred,  

to a spark ignited,  

climbing,  

rising from the ground;  

From the last depths,  

rays of hope entwine in the sky,  

kissing the hills,  

breathing new life  

and wonders layered in light.  

Naked with joy, a new day, a new world is born.  

Excerpts:  

Amazing Grace by John Newton.  

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.  

.....  

Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame  

Is lust in action; and till action, lust  

Is perjured, murd'rous, bloody, full of blame,  

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,  

Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight,  

Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had  

Past reason hated as a swallowed bait  

On purpose laid to make the taker mad;  

Mad in pursuit and in possession so,  

Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;  

A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe;  

Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.  

All this the world well knows; yet none knows well  

To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.  

.....  

When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,  

I all alone beweep my outcast state,  

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,  

And look upon myself and curse my fate,  

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,  

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,  

Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,  

With what I most enjoy contented least;  

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,  

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,  

(Like to the lark at break of day arising  

From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;  

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings  

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.  

.....  

Excerpts (in order of appearance):  

Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare.  

Hamlet in Hamlet by William Shakespeare.  

Antony in Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.  

Iago in Othello by William Shakespeare.  

Mike in West by Steven Berkoff.  

Music:  

I hate the Moor:  

And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets  

He has done my office: I know not if't be true;   

But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,  

Will do as if for surety. He holds me well;  

The better shall my purpose work on him.  

Cassio's a proper man: let me see now:  

To get his place and to plume up my will  

In double knavery—How, how? Let's see:—  

After some time, to abuse Othello's ear  

That he is too familiar with his wife.  

He hath a person and a smooth dispose  

To be suspected, framed to make women false.  

The Moor is of a free and open nature,  

That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,  

And will as tenderly be led by the nose  

As asses are.  

I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night  

Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.  

.....  

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.  

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.  

The evil that men do lives after them;  

The good is oft interred with their bones;  

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus  

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious.  

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,  

And grievously hath Caesar answered it.  

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest  

(For Brutus is an honourable man;  

So are they all, all honourable men),  

Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.  

He was my friend, faithful and just to me,  

But Brutus says he was ambitious,  

And Brutus is an honourable man.  

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,  

Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.  

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?  

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept;  

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.  

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,  

And Brutus is an honourable man.  

You all did see that on the Lupercal  

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,  

Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?  

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious,  

And, sure, he is an honourable man.  

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,  

But here I am to speak what I do know.  

You all did love him once, not without cause.  

What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?  

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,  

And men have lost their reason! - Bear with me;  

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,  

And I must pause till it come back to me.  

…..