He said all the world’s a stage, but I say he was mistaken; at least most men still haven’t learned their lines. They don’t take to direction, and they don’t know their places. An acting man like me must chase the darkness from these times. Within Lincoln’s hollow crown there sits a mortal temple. Through this I’ll push a pistol-loaded pin. Yes, I will cut him down; he will taste the fatal apple. On him I’ll lay the weight of his country’s heavy sin. And this Southern star will shine on the American stage. Yes, this Southern star will make certain that ambition’s debt is paid. I really knocked ‘im dead out there; can’t wait to read the papers. Can’t wait till the reviews come rolling in. I cried when I was born to this stage of fools and traitors, but tonight I paved the way for a new play to begin. Lord, what fools these mortals be, the way that they all mourn him. They cry like they will drown the stage with tears. How can it be that they don’t see that, for the tyranny I’ve broken, it is I who should be remembered through the years? As the Southern star who shone on the American stage, yes, the Southern star who made certain that ambition’s debt was paid. I see stars through the bars of this barn that’s now my prison, glowing like they’re on a martyr’s grave. What if the fault’s not in those stars, but in myself or in my vision, and a tale of sound and fury’s all I leave a future age? Of a Southern star who shone on the American stage, yes, a Southern star who fell when his ambition’s debt was paid.