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From “Second Part of Henry IV.,” Act III. Sc. 1.
KING HENRY.—How many thousand 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 wilt weigh my eyelids down, | |
| And steep my senses in forgetfulness? | 5 |
| Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, | |
| Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, | |
| And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumbers | |
| Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, | |
| Under the canopies of costly state, | 10 |
| And lulled 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 | 15 |
| Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains | |
| In cradle of the rude imperious surge, | |
| And in the visitation of the winds, | |
| Who take the ruffian billows by the top, | |
| Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them | 20 |
| With deafening 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, | 25 |
| 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. | |
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