Two vacations, both alike in dignity,
In fair Springfield (where we lay our scene)
From annual girls trips to surprising spouses,
Where civilian illness and tempestuous storms paint civil hearts black,
From forth the fatal spoils of both plans of these two trips
A pair of plane tickets take their life;
whose idea of which gave much life to the persons who owned them
Doth with their death did they bury their owner’s merriment.
The fearful passage of the death-marked deep melancholy,
And the continuance of the possibility of pleasure they allowed
which but the death of the tickets did doth remove,
Is now the two hours’ traffic of our stage;
The which if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
[Inspired by The Prologue of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.]