From Chaucer to Tennyson: With Twenty-Nine Portraits and Selections from Thirty AuthorsBeers, Henry A. (Henry Augustin)
History
From Chaucer to Tennyson: With Twenty-Nine Portraits and Selections from Thirty Authors
Beers, Henry A. (Henry Augustin)
English literature -- History and criticism
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh ho! Sing heigh ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly,
Then heigh ho! the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky,
Thou dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot;
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remembered not.
Heigh ho! sing heigh ho! etc.
THE SLEEP OF KINGS.
[From _Henry IV_.--Part II.]
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?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopy of costly state,
And lull'd 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
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
With deaf'ning clamors in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes?
Can'st 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,
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.
FALSTAFF AND BARDOLPH.
[From _Henry IV_.--Part I.]
_Falstaff_. Bardolph, am I not fallen away vilely since this last
action? do I not bate? do I not dwindle?
Why, my skin hangs about me like an old lady's loose gown; I am wither'd
like an old apple-John.
Well, I'll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking; I shall
be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength to repent.
An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a
peppercorn, a brewer's horse: the inside of a church! Company,
villainous company hath been the spoil of me:
_Bardolph_. Sir John, you are so fretful, you cannot live long.
_Fal_. Why, there it is. Come, sing me a bawdy song; make me merry. I
was as virtuously given, as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough:
swore little; diced, not above seven times a week; paid money that I
borrowed, three or four times; lived well, and in good compass: and now
I live out of all order, out of all compass.
_Bard_. Why you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all
compass; out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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