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NEEDS must I like it well; I weep for joy, | |
| To stand upon my kingdom once again.— | |
| Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand, | |
| Though rebels wound thee with their horses’ hoofs. | |
| As a long-parted mother with her child | 5 |
| Plays fondly with her tears and smiles, in meeting: | |
| So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth, | |
| And do thee favor with my royal hands. | |
| Feed not thy sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth, | |
| Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense; | 10 |
| But let thy spiders, that suck up thy venom, | |
| And heavy-gaited toads, lie in their way, | |
| Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet, | |
| Which with usurping steps do trample thee. | |
| Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies; | 15 |
| And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower, | |
| Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder; | |
| Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch | |
| Throw death upon thy sovereign’s enemies.— | |
| Mock not my senseless conjuration, lords; | 20 |
| This earth shall have a feeling, and these stones | |
| Prove armed soldiers, ere her native king | |
| Shall falter under foul rebellion’s arms. * * * * * | |
| Of comfort no man speak. | |
| Let ’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs; | 25 |
| Make dust our paper, and with rainy eyes | |
| Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. | |
| Let ’s choose executors, and talk of wills: | |
| And yet not so,—for what can we bequeath, | |
| Save our deposed bodies to the ground? | 30 |
| Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke’s, | |
| And nothing can we call our own but death, | |
| And that small module of the barren earth | |
| Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. | |
| For heaven’s sake let us sit upon the ground, | 35 |
| And tell sad stories of the death of kings:— | |
| How some have been depos’d, some slain in war, | |
| Some haunted by the ghosts they have depos’d, | |
| Some poison’d by their wives, some sleeping kill’d; | |
| All murder’d: for within the hollow crown, | 40 |
| That rounds the mortal temples of a king, | |
| Keeps Death his court. And there the antic sits, | |
| Scoffing his state, and grinning at his pomp; | |
| Allowing him a breath, a little scene | |
| To monarchize, be fear’d, and kill with looks; | 45 |
| Infusing him with self and vain conceit,— | |
| As if this flesh, which walls about our life, | |
| Were brass impregnable; and, humor’d thus, | |
| Comes at the last, and with a little pin | |
| Bores through his castle wall, and—Farewell, king! | 50 |
| Cover your heads, and mock not flesh and blood | |
| With solemn reverence; throw away respect, | |
| Tradition, form, and ceremonious duty, | |
| For you have but mistook me all this while. | |
| I live with bread like you, feel want, taste grief, | 55 |
| Need friends. Subjected thus, how can you say | |
| To me, I am a king? | |
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