Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume II/At the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre

by Florence Earle Coates

For other versions of this work, see At The Sarah-Bernhardt Theatre.

AT THE SARAH-BERNHARDT THEATRE

NOTHING that man's creative mind hath wrought
Is wholly foreign to the mind of man:
He looks before and after; in his span
Of life infinities of life are caught,—
Brooding, mysterious, and travail-fraught,—
And near and distant answer, as they can,
Enkindled at the flame Promethean
Of world-embracing, heaven-illumined Thought!

Last night a woman played in Paris here
The rôle of Hamlet, each distinctive grace,
By genius all-subduing and sublime,
Made native in an alien land and time,—
As though she, listening with accustomed ear,
Had learned of English Shakespeare, face to face!