Drama’s vitalest expression
Is the Common Day
That arises, sets, about us:
Other tragedy
Perish in the recitation,
This the more exert
When the audience is scattered,
And the boxes shut.
Hamlet to himself were Hamlet
Had not Shakespeare wrote,
Though the Romeo leave no second
Of his Juliet,
It were tenderer enacted
In the human heart—
Only theater recorded
Owner cannot shut.
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