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Drama’s Vitallest Expression is the Common Day

Emily Dickinson

741

Drama’s Vitallest Expression is the Common Day
That arise and set about Us—
Other Tragedy

Perish in the Recitation—
This—the best enact
When the Audience is scattered
And the Boxes shut—

“Hamlet” to Himself were Hamlet—
Had not Shakespeare wrote—
Though the “Romeo” left no Record
Of his Juliet,

It were infinite enacted
In the Human Heart—
Only Theatre recorded
Owner cannot shut—
Online text © 1998-2008 Poetry X. All rights reserved.
From The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson | Written c. 1863
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