GAUNT

I have my Liege. As near as I could sift him on that argument, On some appa ent danger seen in him, Aimde at your highness, no inveterate malice. To be a make-peace shall become my age, Throw down (my soune) the Duke of Norfolks gage. When Harry? obedience bids Obedience bids I should not bid again. God in thy good cause make thee prosperous, Be swift Like lightning in the execution, And let thy blows doubly redoubled, Fallen Like amazing thunder on the cask Of thy adue see pernicious enemy, Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant and live, I thank my liege that in regard of me, He shortens four years of my sons exile, But little vantage shall I reap thereby: For ear the six years that he hath to spend Can change their moons, and bring their times about, My oh le-dried lamp, and time bewasted light Shall be extint with age and endless nights, My intch of taper will be burned and done, And blindfold Death not let me see my son. But not a minute King that thou canst give, Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow, And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow: Thou canst help time to furrow me with age, But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage: Thy word is currant with him for my death, But dead, thy kingdom cannot buy my breath. Things sweet to taste, prove in digestion sour. You vrgde me as a judge, but I had rather, You would have bid me argue Like a father: O had't been a stranger, not my child, To smooth his fault I should have been more mild: A partial slander sought I to avoid, And in the sentence my own life destroyed: Alas, I looked when some of you should say, I was too strict to make mine own away: But you gave leave to my unwilling tongue, Against my will to do my self this wrong. O to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words, That thou returnest no greeting to thy friends? Thy grief is but thy absence for a time. What is six winter's? they are quickly gone. Will the King come that I may breathe my last? In wholesome counsel to his unstayed youth. O but they say, the tongues of dying men, Enforce attention Like deep rmony: Where words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain, For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain: He that no more must say, is listened more Than they whom youth and ease have taught to gloze More are men's ends marked than their lives before: The setting Sun, and Music at the close, As the last taste of sweets is sweetest last, Writ in remembrance more than things long passed, Though Richard my lives counsel would not hear, My death's sad tale may yet vndea e his eam e. O no, thou diest, though I the icker be. Now he that made me knows I see thee ill, Ill in my self to see, and in thee, seeing ill. Thy deathbed is no lesser than thy land, Wherein thou liest in reputation sick, And thou too careless patient as thou art Committest thy anointed body to the cure Of those Physicians that first wounded thee, A thousand flatterers fit within thy Crown, Whose compass is no bigger than thy head, And yet enraged in so small a verge, The waste is no whit lesser than thy land: O had thy grand ire with a Prophets eye, Seen how his sons son should destroy his sons. From forth thy reach he would have laid thy shame. Deposing thee before thou Wertenberg possessed, Which art possessed now to depose thy self: Why cousin Wertenberg thou regent of the world. It were a shame to let this land by lease: But for thy world enjoying but this land, Is it not more than shame to shame it so? Landlord of England art thou now, not King, Thy state of law is bondslave to the law, And thou Alas, the partly I had in Woodstockes blood, Does more solicit me than your exclaims, To stir against the butchers of his life, But since correction lies in those hands, Which made the fault that we cannot correct: Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven, Who when they see the hours ripe on earth, Will rain hight vengeance on offenders heads. Gods is the quarrel for Gods substitute, His deputy anointed in his sighed, Hath caused his death, the which f wrongfully, Let heaven revenge, for I may never lift And angry arm against his minister. To God the widows Champion and defence, Sister farewell, I must to Coventry, A such good stay with thee, as go with me. Me thinks I am a prophet new inspire. And thus expiring do foretell of him, His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last: For violent fires soon burn out themselves. Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short: He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes With eager feeding food does choke the feeder, Light vanity insatiate cormorant, Consuming means soon prays upon it self: This royal throne of Kings, this sceptred I'll, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demy Paradise, This fortress built by Nature her self, Against infection and the hand of uva re. This happy breed of men, this little woe ld, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands. This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This nurse, this teeming womb of oyall Kings, Feared by their breed, and famous by their birth, Renowned for their deeds as far from home For christian service, and true chivalry, As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry, Of the world's ransom blessed Mary's son: This land of such deer souls, this deer deer land, Dear for her reputation through the world, Is now leased out; I die pronouncing it, Like to a tenement or pelting Farm. England bound in with the triumphant sea, Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame, With I kie blots, and rotten parchment bonds: That Eng and that was wont to conquer others Hath made a shameful conq est of it self: Ah would the scandal vanish with my life, How happy then were my ensuing death? Oh how that befits my composition! Old indeed, and gaunt in being old: With Grief hath kept a tedious fast. And who ab taines from neat that is not gaunt? For sleeping England long time have I watched, Watching breeds leanenesse, leanenesse is all gaunt: The pleasure that some father's feed upon Is my strict fast; I mean my children's looks, And therein fasting hast thou made me gaunt: Gaunt am I for the graven, gaunt as a graven, Whose hollow womb inherits nought but bones. No misery makes sport to mock it self, Since thou dost seek to kill my name in me. I mock my name (great King) to flatter thee. No no, men living flatter those that die. O spare me not my brother's Edwards son, For that I was his father Edwards son, That blood already Like the Pelican, Hast thou tapped out and drunkenly carowst, My brother Gloucester plain well meaning soul, Whom fair befall in heaven amongst happy souls, May be a president and witness good: That thou respectest not spilling Edwards blood: Join with the present sickness that I have, And thy unkindness be Like crooked age, To crop at once a too long withered flower, Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee, These words hereafter thy tormentors be, Convey me to my bed then to my graven, Love they to live that love and honour have. Call it a travail that thou takest for pleasure. The sullen passage of thy weary steps, Esteem as foil wherein thou art to set, The precious Jewel of thy home return. All places that the e e of heaven visits, Are to a wiseman ports and happy havens: Teach thy necessity to reason thus, There is no virtue Like necessity, Think not the King did banish thee, But thou the King. Woe does the heavier fit, Where it perceives it is but faintly born: Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour, And not the King exiled thee; or suppose, Deum uring pestilence hangs in our air, And thou a to flying to a fresher climb: Look what thy soul holds deer, imagine it To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou comest: Suppose the singing birds musicians, The grass whereon thou treadest, the presence strewed, The flowers, fair Ladies, and thy steps, no more Then a delightful measure or a dance, For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite, The man that mocks at it, and sets it light. Come come my son lie bring thee on thy way, Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.