577

578

579

BLINDNESS

HAPPINESS of blindness! now no beauty inflames my lust; no others' good, my envy; or misery, my pity; no man's wealth draws my respect; nor poverty, my scorn; yet still I see enough! man to himself is a large prospect, rais'd above the level of his low creeping thoughts; if then I have a world within myself, that world shall be my empire; there I'll reign, commanding freely, and willingly obey'd, secure from fear of foreign forces, or domestick treasons, and hold a monarchy more free, more absolute than in my father's seat; and looking down with scorn, or pity, on the slippery state of kings, will tread upon the neck of fate.

AY

SIR J. DENHAM

TRUE LOVE EVER CROSSED

LYSANDER

Y me! for aught that ever I could read,
could ever hear by tale or history,

the course of true love never did run smooth:

but, either it was different in blood;

or else misgrafféd in respect of years;

or else it stood upon the choice of friends;

or, if there was a sympathy in choice,

war, death, or sickness did lay siege to it;
making it momentany as a sound,

swift as a shadow, short as any dream;

brief as the lightning in the collied night,

that, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
and ere a man hath power to say, Behold!
the jaws of darkness do devour it up :
so quick bright things come to confusion.

W. SHAKESPEARE

CONSOLATION OF DEATH

EATH is unwelcome never,

DEATH

unless it be to tortured minds and sick souls

that make their own hells; it is such a benefit

when it comes crowned with honour, shows so sweet

too!

580

though they paint it ugly, that's but to restrain us,
for every living thing would love it else,

fly boldly to their peace ere Nature call'd 'em :
the rest we have from labour and from trouble
is some incitement; everything alike,
the poor slave that lies private has his liberty
as amply as his master in that tomb,

the earth as light upon him, and the flowers
that grow about him smell as sweet, and flourish;
but, when we love with honour to our ends,
when Memory and Virtue are our mourners,
what pleasures there! they are infinite, Evanthe.
J. FLETCHER

PORTENTS

SERAPION

LAST between the temple while I walked,

AST night, between the hours of twelve and one,

.a whirlwind rose, that with a violent blast
shook all the dome; the doors around me clapt;
the iron wicket, that defends the vault,

where the long race of Ptolemies is laid,
burst open, and disclosed the mighty dead.
From out each monument, in order placed,
an armed ghost starts up: the boy-king last
reared his inglorious head. A peal of groans
then followed and a lamentable voice

cried, 'Egypt is no more.' My blood ran back,
my shaking knees against each other knocked,
on the cold pavement down I fell entranced,
and so unfinished left the horrid scene.

J. DRYDEN

581 PRINCE HENRY'S PATHETIC SPEECH ON the

DEATH OF HOTSPUR

RAVE Percy, fare thee well, great heart!—

BRAVE

Ill-weaved ambition, how much art thou shrunk!

when that this body did contain a spirit,

a kingdom for it was too small a bound;
but now two paces of the vilest earth

is room enough:-this earth that bears thee dead

F. S. JII

9

582

bears not alive so stout a gentleman.

If thou wert sensible of courtesy,

I should not make so dear a show of zeal:

:

but let my favours hide thy mangled face;
and, even in thy behalf, I'll thank myself
for doing these fair rites of tenderness.
Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven!
thy ignomy sleep with thee in the grave,

but not remember'd in thy epitaph!

W. SHAKESPEARE

ANTONY'S LAMENT OVER CESAR

MIGHTY Cæsar! dost thou lie so low?

Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,

shrunk to this little measure?-Fare thee well.-
I know not, gentlemen, what you intend,

who else must be let blood, who else is rank:
if I myself, there is no hour so fit

as Cæsar's death's hour; nor no instrument

of half that worth, as those your swords, made rich with the most noble blood of all this world.

I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard,

now, whilst your purpled hands do reek and smoke, fulfil your pleasure. Live a thousand years,

I shall not find myself so apt to die:

no place will please me so, no mean of death,
as here by Cæsar, and by you cut off,

the choice and master spirits of this age.

W. SHAKESPEARE

583 CESAR ON receiving news of Antony's DEATH

I

HAVE followed thee to this ;-But we do lance diseases in our bodies: I must perforce have shown to thee such a declining day, or look on thine; we could not stall together in the whole world: but yet let me lament, with tears as sovereign as the blood of hearts, that thou, my brother, my competitor in top of all design, my mate in empire, friend and companion in the front of war, the arm of mine own body, and the heart

where mine his thoughts did kindle,-that our stars

unreconciliable, should divide

our equalness to this.-Hear me, good friends,-
but I will tell you at some meeter season;
[Enter a Messenger
the business of this man looks out of him;
we'll hear him what he says.

W. SHAKESPEARE

584 VIRGINIUS SPEECH TO HIS DAUGHTER BEFORE

HE KILLS HER

AREWELL, my sweet Virginia: never, never

I had in thee. Let me forget the thought
of thy most pretty infancy; when first
returning from the wars, I took delight
to rock thee in my target: when my girl
would kiss her father in his burganet

of glittering steel hung 'bout his arméd neck
and, viewing the bright metal, smile to see
another fair Virginia smile on thee;

when I first taught thee how to go, to speak;
and when my wounds have smarted, I have sung
with an unskilful, yet a willing voice,

to bring my girl asleep. O my Virginia,
when we begun to be, begun our woes,
increasing still, as dying life still grows!

J. WEBSTER

585 DESPAIRING SOLILOQUY OF the king of deNMARK

HEN I'll look up;

THE

my fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer can serve my turn? Forgive me my foul murder! that cannot be; since I am still possess'd

of those effects for which I did the murder,—
my crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardon'd, and retain the offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world,
offence's gilded hand may shove-by justice;
and oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
buys out the law: but 'tis not so above:
there is no shuffling, there the action lies
in his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,
even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,

586

to give in evidence. What then? what rests?
Try what repentance can: what can it not?
yet what can it when one can not repent?

W. SHAKESPEARE

THE DUKE TO CLAUDIO

E absolute for death; either death or life

life:

if I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

with

that none but fools would keep: a breath thou art,
servile to all the skiey influences

that do this habitation, where thou keep'st,
hourly afflict: merely, thou art death's fool;
for him thou labour'st by thy flight to shun,

and yet runn'st toward him still. Thou art not noble;
for all the accommodations that thou bear'st
are nursed by baseness.

valiant ;

Thou art by no means

for thou dost fear the soft and tender fork

of a poor worm. Thy best of rest is sleep,

and that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st 587 thy death, which is no more. Thou art not thyself; for thou exist'st on many a thousand grains

that issue out of dust. Happy thou art not;
for what thou hast not, still thou striv'st to get;
and what thou hast, forgett'st. Thou art not certain;
for thy complexion shifts to strange effects,
after the moon: if thou art rich, thou art poor;

for, like an ass whose back with ingots bows,
thou bears't thy heavy riches but a journey,
and death unloads thee.-

Thou hast nor youth nor age;

but, as it were, an after-dinner's sleep,
dreaming on both: for all thy blessed youth
becomes as agéd, and doth beg the alms

of palsied eld; and when thou art old and rich,
thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty,
to make thy riches pleasant. What's yet in this
that bears the name of life? Yet in this life
lie hid more thousand deaths: yet death we fear,
that makes these odds all even.

W. SHAKESPEARE