The Return Home, 46

’Tis now full time that my folly I drop,
And return to sober reason;
This comedy now ’twere better to stop
That we’ve played for so long a season.

In a gay and highly romantic style
The gorgeous coulisses were painted;
My knight’s cloak glitter’d, while I was the while
With the finest sensations acquainted.

And now that I, while more sober I grow,
Am against this toying inveighing,
I feel that I’m still as wretched as though
A comedy still I were playing.

Alas! unconsciously and in jest
Of my feelings was I the narrator;
And I’ve play’d, with my own death in my breast,
The dying gladiator.