The Wandering Thespian Beneath the Moon’s Lament
Beneath the argent eye of full-orbed moon,
A barren theatre hums a hollow strain,
Its relic timbers sworn to silent tune.
No chorus sang in chorus halls today,
No laughter’s echo danced with vibrant glee;
But one lone figure in the moon’s pale sway,
An acteur en dérive, lost to the sea—
The boundless sea of time’s capricious tide,
Where drifting souls and stories intertwine,
And masks, once worn with artful, ardent pride,
Are cast to rot within the vault of brine.
He treads the boards alone, a shadow’s ghost,
Each step a whisper in the vast expanse.
His garments hang—a tattered, faded host—
Of roles long played; yet none deserve a glance.
His voice, once thunder, now a fragile breath,
Speaks soliloquies to empty rows—
The air enwound in melodies of death,
Where silence like a pale, cruel river flows.
“Oh, come,” he cried, “O Muse of vanished days,
Return to light these hollow halls of mine!
Where art once danced in fiery, fervent blaze,
Now cold despondency and dust entwine.”
Yet no reply but starlit mist replied,
And moonbeams traced his weary contour’s line.
The actor’s eyes—deep wells of tempest’s scorn—
Beheld a world that cared not for his art;
A realm where dreams, once bright as newly born,
Decay within the crumbling of the heart.
His spirit, draped in grief’s unyielding fold,
Knew well the cost of fleeting human breath,
Where even love and valor—tales once told—
Succumb to time’s inexorable death.
He cast his gaze past rows of broken seats,
Where dust motes twirled in silver ballet,
Each grain a whisper of forgotten feats,
Echoes of passion’s long-remembered play.
He dreamed of crowds whose ardent, rapt applause
Would lift his soul from loneliness profound,
But only silence answered his cause,
A spectral choir without a single sound.
“Must I then wander ‘midst this graveyard stage,
A specter trapped in twilight’s cruel embrace?
No friend to hear, no foe to test my rage,
No warmth to touch the lines upon my face.”
His voice, a dirge that fluttered through the night,
Bore witness to a soul’s deserted flight.
Yet slowly from the sable shroud of gloom,
A memory stirred—a faint, effervescent gleam—
Of days when sunlight spilled within the room,
And hearts beat wild beneath thespian dream.
He saw himself in youth’s resplendent glow,
Embodied flame that kindled vibrant fires,—
A beacon on life’s tempestuous flow,
Defiant ‘gainst the ever-gathering mires.
“Ah, golden years! How swift your flight, how fleet!
Like autumn leaves, you wither and descend.
What cruel fate denies the heart’s repeat,
To play the part where joys and sorrows blend?”
He clasped his hands—an emblem of despair—
His soul a vessel cracked by life’s rough seas,
A weary pilgrim bound to nowhere, where
The moon’s cold light unveils the heart’s disease.
The theatre itself seemed to bend and sigh,
Its broken rafters groaning to the night,
Faint whispers threading ‘twixt the vacant sky,
As memories stirred with pale light’s flight.
Each creak a footstep in the dance of years,
Each groan the lament of forgotten dreams,
The stage a canvas smeared with hopes and tears,
Where nothing is quite truly what it seems.
And so the acteur en dérive spoke once more—
A monologue to ghosts of yesteryear—
“My art, my life, my all along love’s shore,
Have faded as the dawn’s departed cheer.
Yet in this gloom, I cling to brittle thread—
The fragile hope that though the world forget,
My heart’s lament may stir among the dead,
And find in endless night some small sunset.”
His breath, a mist within the frosty air,
Danced like a wraith before the moon’s pure gaze,
His presence faint as whispers scattered there,
Within the ruins of his bygone days.
Alone he stood—a figure bound and cast
Upon the stage of life’s relentless tide,
His tale entwined with shadows of the past,
A martyr of time’s ever-flowing glide.
The moon above, a sentinel austere,
Beheld the dernier acte of his soul.
No crowd to cheer, no witness to his tear,
No hand to clasp, no balm to make him whole.
A final bow—a gesture wan and slight—
He yielded to the silence cloaked in gloom,
The acteur en dérive fades into night,
His story etched within the empty room.
Thus fades the light upon the fleeting stage,
A testament to what all mortals share—
The loneliness that marks the human age,
The fragile pulse within life’s chilling air.
And though the world may cast its eyes away,
The moon remembers all who weep and strive,
Beneath her argent watch, a dimly prayed
Eulogy to those who merely strive to live.
