THE WICKED WORLD:

Spoken by Mr. Buckstone. The Author begs you’ll kind attention pay While I explain the object of his play. You have been taught, no doubt, by those professing To understand the thing, that Love’s a blessing: Well, he intends to teach you the reverse— That Love is not a blessing, but a curse! But pray do not suppose it’s his intent To do without this vital element— His drama would be in a pretty mess! With quite as fair a prospect of success, Might a dispensing chemist in his den Endeavor to dispense with oxygen. Too powerful an agent to pooh-pooh, There will be Love enough I warrant you: But as the aim of every play’s to show That Love’s essential to all men below, He uses it to prove, to all who doubt it, How well all men—but he—can do without it. To prove his case (a poor one, I admit), He begs that with him you will kindly flit To a pure fairy-land that’s all his own, Where mortal love is utterly unknown. Whose beings, spotless as new-fallen snow, Know nothing of the Wicked World below. These gentle sons and daughters of the air, Safe, in their eyrie, from temptation’s snare, Have yet one little fault I must confess— An overweening sense of righteousness. As perfect silence, undisturbed for years, Will breed at length a humming in the ears, So from their very purity within Arise the promptings of their only sin. Forgive them! No? Perhaps you will relent When you appreciate their punishment! But prithee be not led too far away, By the hack author of a mere stage-play: It’s easy to affect this cynic tone, But, let me ask you, had the world ne’er known Such Love as you, and I, and he, must mean— Pray where would you, or I, or he, have been?