My pensive public, wherefore look you sad?

I had a grandmother, she kept a donkey

To carry to the mart her crockery ware,

And when that donkey look'd me in the face,

His face was sad! and you are sad, my public!

Joy should be yours: this tenth day of October

Again assembles us in Drury Lane.

Long wept my eye to see the timber planks

That hid our ruins; many a day I cried,

"Ah me! I fear they never will rebuild it!"

Till on one eve, one joyful Monday eve,

As along Charles Street I prepared to walk,

Just at the corner, by the pastry-cook's,

I heard a trowel tick against a brick.

I look'd me up, and straight a parapet

Uprose at least seven inches o'er the planks.

"Joy to thee, Drury!" to myself I said:

"He of Blackfriars Road who hymn'd thy downfall

In loud hosannahs, and who prophesied

That flames, like those from prostrate Solyma,

Would scorch the hand that ventured to rebuild thee,

Has proved a lying prophet." From that hour,

As leisure offer'd, close to Mr. Spring's

Box-office door, I've stood and eyed the builders.

They had a plan to render less their labours;

Workmen in elder times would mount a ladder

With hodded heads, but these stretch'd forth a pole

From the wall's pinnacle, they placed a pulley

Athwart the pole, a rope athwart the pulley;

To this a basket dangled; mortar and bricks

Thus freighted, swung securely to the top,

And in the empty basket workmen twain

Precipitate, unhurt, accosted earth.

Oh! 'twas a goodly sound to hear the people

Who watch'd the work, express their various thoughts!

While some believ'd it never would be finish'd,

Some on the contrary believ'd it would.

I've heard our front that faces Drury Lane

Much criticis'd; they say 'tis vulgar brick-work,

A mimic manufactory of floor-cloth.

One of the morning papers wish'd that front

Cemented like the front in Brydges Street;

As it now looks they call it Wyatt's Mermaid,

A handsome woman with a fish's tail.

White is the steeple of St. Bride's in Fleet Street,

The Albion (as its name denotes) is white;

Morgan and Saunders' shop for chairs and tables

Gleams like a snowball in the setting sun;

White is Whitehall. But not St. Bride's in Fleet Street,

The spotless Albion, Morgan, no, nor Saunders,

Nor white Whitehall is white as Drury's face.

Oh, Mr. Whitbread! fie upon you, sir!

I think you should have built a colonnade;

When tender Beauty, looking for her coach,

Protrudes her gloveless hand, perceives the shower,

And draws the tippet closer round her throat.

Perchance her coach stands half a dozen off,

And, ere she mounts the step, the oozing mud

Soaks thro' her pale kid slipper. On the morrow

She coughs at breakfast, and her gruff papa

Cries, "There you go! this comes of playhouses!"

To build no portico is penny wise:

Heaven grant it prove not in the end pound foolish!

Hail to thee, Drury! Queen of Theatres!

What is the Regency in Tottenham Street,

The Royal Amphitheatre of Arts,

Astley's Olympic, or the Sans Pareil,

Compar'd with thee? Yet when I view thee push'd

Back from the narrow street that christen'd thee,

I know not why they call thee Drury Lane.

Amid the freaks that modern fashion sanctions,

It grieves me much to see live animals

Brought on the stage. Grimaldi has his rabbit,

Laurent his cat, and Bradbury his pig;

Fie on such tricks! Johnson, the machinist

Of former Drury, imitated life

Quite to the life. The elephant in Blue Beard,