Blusters and tugs and spouts and wrestles hard
Till the crowd come between and part the mourners.
Adjourn we now to royal palace - hall,
And gay assembly met to adjudge the prize
To him who best knows how to wield the small sword,
Ophelia's brother, practised well in France,
Ór our dear néphew, all-accomplished Hamlet.
Look sharp now to thyself, thou that wouldst kill
With thine own hand thine uncle; for there 's poison
Upon thine adversary's rapier point;
And if, victorious, thou escape the point,
A poisoned chalice stands by to refresh thee.
But stay
what's this already? in the name
Of heaven, and of the ghost and thy revenge,
Thy wisdom and thy mumming and thy madness,
The bloody arras, sweet Ophelia's pond,
And the two heads of thy once College friends,
Lopped off instead of thine by courteous England,
What 's this I see already? not thine uncle's
But thine own blood upon a poisoned rapier
And streaming down thy doublet: máke haste, Hamlet;
And there thy mother drinks death from the cup
For thee no longer necessary, who
Hast but five minutes' life make háste, and wrest
Out of thy murderer's hand the poisoned point,
And turn it on him; bravo! now thine uncle;
Bravo again! 'twere pity thou 'dst forgót him.
And now die happy; thou 'st at last achieved
This most magnanimous, meritorious deed;
And though, plain truth to tell, a little slowly,
And somewhat in the manner of a thing
A while forgotten then remembered sudden,
Yet with so little risk to thine own bones,
Béing thyself already in those clutches
Which from all further earthly harm protect,
I own thou 'st put me into a sort of puzzle
Which crown first tó award thee; of hot valor,
Ór of hot válor's base antipodes,
Sneáking discretion; I'll e'en home and sleep on 't.
Meanwhile, inexplicable, unintelligible
Compound of incongruities, Good night.
DALKEY LODGE, DALKEY (IRELAND); April 28, 1855.
BRAVE, courteous, handsome, clever, gallant Romeo
With all his heart and soul loves Rosaline;
She is the pólestar of his longing eyes,
The haven of his hopes and aspirations,
His dream by day, his vision all the night,
The book in which he reads perpetually
The loveliness and excellence of woman.
Being fond of pleasure this same Romeo goes
A-masking to the house of Capulet,
Where for a Montague to be seen is death,
So hot the feud between the two old races,
And falls slapdash o'er head and ears in love
With fourteen-year-old Juliet, the host's daughter,
Who with like pássionate suddenness on him
Doáts on the instant, seeing behind his visor
The properest, fairest, and discreetest man,
Nót in Veróna only, but the world,
And kicks against the chosen of her parents,
The County Paris, will have none but Romeo,
And Romeo must and will have; dutiful child!
And for fourteen of most miraculous wisdom!
And nothing headstrong! only will be married
Off hand to the acquaintance of five minutes,
The enemy of her house, the pledged to another;
Módest withal and chaste! though a proficient
In filthy language, and right roundly rating,
Éven on her wedding day, the slow approach
Of closely curtained, "love-performing" night.
But sour is still near sweet, and rain near sunshine,
Sórrow near pleasure, near the rose a thorn,
And out of this same merry masking comes
Not love alone but fierce and deadly quarrel:
Týbalt, the fair one's cousin, spies behind
The réveller's mask not Cupid's laughing eyes
Bút the curled moústache of a Montague,
And, taking fire, comes to a brawling match.
And rapier thrusts with devil-may-care Mercutio,
And makes short work of him, and in requital
Ís himself máde short wórk of by hot Romeo,
Who forthwith must to banishment in Mantua,
Fár from Veróna, far from love and Juliet.
Meantime the parents, ignorant that their child
Is theirs no longer, and that among Christ's
Osténsible ministers there has óne been found
To affix Christ's signet to the stolen compact,
Préss upon Romeo's wedded wife Count Paris,
And fix tomorrow for the wedding day;
Miss pouts, and hangs her head: is quite too young,
Too innocent, too tender yet for marriage,
And will not till she 's forced; would rather die,
Take poison, stab herself, do anything
A high souled girl of fourteen dare to do
The truth to hide and the first crime to double.
Is there no help, no help in the wide world
For maid so hardly used for wedded wife?
Aye to be sure there is, while there's a priest;
That same friar Laurence knows an herb of power
To impárt for two days death's cold, pallid semblance
Trackless upon the third day disappearing
Before returning health and bloom and vigor.
This herb drinks Juliet, and the wretched parents
And County Paris on his wedding day
Greét not a bride and daughter but a corpse,
Which the next night with tears and sad array
They lay in the tomb of all the Capulets.
The next night after, with sweet smelling flowers
To deck his bride's untimely grave,
And there falls foul of whom? the ghost of Tybalt?
Nó, but the bánished Montague that made
Tybalt a ghost -the banished Romeo prowling
At midnight round the tomb of Capulet
And draws upon his enemy and falls
And dying begs a grave beside his bride.
Now if thou 'dst know what business in Verona,
What business at the tomb of Capulet,
Had Romeo, when he should have been a-bed
And snug asleep in banishment at Mantua,
Please ask friar Laurence didn't hé send fór him
To come and from her temporary tomb,
Her parents and Verona and Count Paris,
Bear in his arms away his wedded wife.
"Aye, that I did," the holy friar will answer,
"And had agreed with wrenching iron there
Myself to meet him, and a second time
Consign the Capulet's child to the Montague."
And true the answer of the holy friar,
But not comes Romeo therefore, not to snatch
A living Capulet out of Capulet's tomb,
But to entomb there a dead Montague,
Námely himself; for which be these two reasons:
First the miscarriage of the friar's true message,
To come post haste to unbury living Juliet;
And next the carriage by eye-witnesses
Óf the friar's lie, that on her wedding night
Juliet was laid a stiffened corpse beside
Her cousin Tybalt in the Capulets' tomb.
Therefore comes Romeo, for in the name of love
And sober sense, and piety toward heaven,
And fortitude and magnanimity
And common prudence, how could Romeo live,
Júliet being dead, his five minútes' acquaintance,
And, counting-in the two days she is dead,
Now nearly three whole days his wedded wife?
How could he live? and if he killed himself
In Mantua there, how was the world to know
'Twas all for Juliet's love he killed himself?
So Romeo, being in earnest, buys real poison,
And being in haste moreover, hires post horses,
And that same night, first having as we have seen
Despatched poor Paris, dies Felo de se
And kisses with his dying lips dead Juliet,
Whỏ, the next instant opening such bright eyes
As make the whole tomb look like a lighthouse lantern,
And seeing, upon óne side, her dead husband,
And on the other, her dead bridegroom lying,
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