The Poems and Verses of Charles Dickens

THE LAMPLIGHTER

In 1838 Dickens agreed to prepare a little play for Macready, the famous actor, then the manager of Drury Lane Theatre. It was called The Lamplighter, and when completed the author read aloud the ‘unfortunate little farce’ (as he subsequently termed it) in the greenroom of the theatre. Although the play went through rehearsal, it was never presented before an audience, for the actors would not agree about it, and, at Macready’s suggestion, Dickens consented to withdraw it, declaring that he had ‘no other feeling of disappointment connected with this matter’ but that which arose from the failure in attempting to serve his friend. The manuscript of the play, not in Dickens’s handwriting, reposes in the Forster Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and in 1879 it was printed for the first time, in the form of a pamphlet, of which only two hundred and fifty copies were issued.

When rejected by Macready as unsuitable for stage presentation, The Lamplighter was adapted by Dickens to another purpose—that is to say, he converted it into a tale called The Lamplighter’s Story, for publication in The Pic-Nic Papers, issued in 1841 for the benefit of the widow of Macrone, Dickens’s first publisher, who died in great poverty. Between the farce and the story there are but slight differences. The duet of two verses, sung by Tom and Betsy to the air of ‘The Young May-moon,’ cannot of course be regarded as a remarkable composition, but it served its purpose sufficiently well, and for that reason deserves recognition.

DUET FROM ‘THE LAMPLIGHTER’
Air—‘The Young May-moon’

Tom. There comes a new moon twelve times a year.
Betsy. And when there is none, all is dark and drear.
Tom. In which I espy—
Betsy. And so, too, do I—
Both. A resemblance to womankind very clear—
Both. There comes a new moon twelve times a year;
And when there is none, all is dark and drear.
Tom. In which I espy—
Betsy. And so do I—
Both. A resemblance to womankind very clear.

Second Verse.
Tom. She changes, she’s fickle, she drives men mad.
Betsy. She comes to bring light, and leaves them sad.
Tom. So restless wild—
Betsy. But so sweetly wild—
Both. That no better companion could be had.
Both. There comes a new moon twelve times a year;
And when there is none, all is dark and drear.
Tom. In which I espy—
Betsy. And so do I—
Both. A resemblance to womankind very clear.

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