The Actor

Marie Borroff

Beware the old tragedian heart
    That loves to weep within the hall
    And all enraptured by his art
    Confounds the real with but the role.

    For Hecuba he sheds his tears
    Until the listening rows are blurred,
    And after cries without the doors
    "Have I not also much endured?"

    Neither have I been forth to look
    At Trojan towers that are come down
    Lest that my mimic heart mistake
. Another's sorrow for its own.

For rather would I be a stone
Than emulating sympathy
Think for an hour to have won
Grace in the reckoning to be.