Or I'll be buried in the king's highway,
Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet
May hourly trample on their sovereign's head:
For on my heart they tread now whilst I live;
And, buried once, why not upon my head?
HENRY'S SOLILOQUY ON SLEEP.
How many thousands of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep !-O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more will weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, Sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hush'd with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber;
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lull'd with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch,
A watch-case, or a common 'larum bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast,
Seal up the ship-boy's eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge.
And in the visitations of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them
With deaf'ning clamors in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes ?—
Canst thou, O partial Sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And, in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king ?—Then, happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF KING HENRY V.
HEAR him but reason in divinity,
And, all admiring, with an inward wish
You would desire the king were made a prelate :
Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,
You would say,—it hath been all-in-all his study;
List his discourse of war, and you
shall hear
A fearful battle rendered you in music:
Turn him to any cause of policy,
The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter; that when he speaks,
The air, a charter'd libertine, is still,
And the mute wonder lurketh in men's ears,
To steal his sweet and honey'd sentences.
King Henry VI. WHAT stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted? Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just; And he but naked though lock'd up in steel Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.
Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house,
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums, chang'd to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds,
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,-
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber,
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
FAREWELL, a long farewell, to all my greatness!
This is the state of man: To-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hopes, to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost;
And,-when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a ripening,-nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventur'd,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
This many summers in a sea of glory;
But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride
At length broke under me; and now has left me,
Weary, and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye;
I feel my heart new open'd: O, how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors!
There is, betwixt that smile he would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have;
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.-
1нus far hear me, Cromwell;
And when I am forgotten, as I shall be,
And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention
Of me more must be heard of—say, I taught thee,
Say, Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,-
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in;
A sure and safe one, though thy master missed it.
Mark but my fall, and that that ruin'd me.
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition:
By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?
Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not:
Let all the ends thou aim'st at, be thy country's,
Thy God's, and truth's. Then if thou fall'st, O
Cromwell,
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr !-Serve the King,
And,—pr'ythee, lead me in ;
There take an inventory of all I have,
To the last penny, 'tis the King's: my robe,
And my integrity to Heaven, is all
I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell,
Cromwell!
Had I but serv'd my God with half the zeal
I serv'd my King, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
LOVE Comforteth like sunshine after rain;
But Lust's effect is tempest after sun;
Love's gentle spring doth always fresh remain;
Lust's winter comes, e'er summer half be done.
Love surfeits not; Lust like a glutton dies;
Love is all truth; Lust full of forged lies.
Lo! here the gentle lark, weary of rest,
From his moist cabinet mounts up on high,
And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast The sun ariseth in his majesty ;
Who doth the world so gloriously behold,
The cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold.
LIKE as the damask rose you see,
Or like the blossom on the tree,
Or like the dainty flower in May,
Or like the morning of the day,
Or like the sun, or like the shade,
Or like the gourd which Jonas had.
E'en such is man; whose thread is spun,
Drawn out, and cut, and so is done.
The rose withers, the blossom blasteth;
The flower fades, the morning hasteth;
The sun sets, the shadow flies;
The gourd consumes,—and man he dies!
Like to the grass that's newly sprung,
Or like a tale that's new begun,
Or like the bird that's here to-day,
Or like the pearlèd dew of May,
Or like an hour, or like a span,
Or like the singing of a swan.
E'en such is man; who lives by breath,
Is here, now there, in life and death.
The grass withers, the tale is ended;
The bird is flown, the dew's ascended;
The hour is short, the span is long;
The swan's near death,-man's life is done!
Simon Wastell, 1560-1630.
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL,
Again, how can she but immortal be,
When with the motions of both will and wit,
She still aspireth to eternity,
And never rests, till she attain to it?
Water in conduit pipes can rise no higher
Than the well-head from whence it first doth spring:
Then since to eternal God she doth aspire,
She cannot be but an eternal thing.
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