O had I known that thus it happens, <br />When first I started, that at will <br />Your lines with blood in them destroy you, <br />Roll up into your throat and kill, <br /> <br />My answer to this kind of joking <br />Had been a most decisive 'no'. <br />So distant was the start, so timid <br />The first approach-what could one know? <br /> <br />But older age is Rome, demanding <br />From actors not a gaudy blend <br />Of props and reading, but in earnest <br />A tragedy, with tragic end. <br /> <br />A slave is sent to the arena <br />When feeling has produced a line. <br />Tnen breathing soil and fate take over <br />And art has done and must resign.<br /><br />Boris Pasternak<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/o-had-i-known-that-thus-it-happens/
