J. B.

By Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855–1896)

John Brougham, who died on June 7th, 1880, was an American actor of Irish extraction.

THE ACTOR’S dead, and memory alone

Recalls the genial magic of his tone;

Marble nor canvas nor the printed page

Shall tell his genius to another age:

A memory, doomed to dwindle less and less,

His world-wide fame shrinks to this littleness.

Yet if, a half a century from today,

A tender smile about our old lips play,

And if our grandchild query whence it came,

We’ll say: “A thought of Brougham.”—

And that is Fame!