Agincourt, Battle of, Agincourt, France, 1415 -- Poetry
Warwick and Stafford leauied at no lesse
Then noble Suffolke, nor doe offer more
Of men at Armes, and Archers which they presse,
Of their owne Tenants, Arm’d with their owne store:
Their forwardnesse fore-showes their good successe
In such a Warre, as had not beene before:
And other Barrons vnder Earles that were,
Yet dar’d with them an equall charge to beare.
[Stanza 57]
Darcy and Camois, zealous for the King,
Louell, Fitzwater, Willoughby, and Rosse,
Berckley, Powis, Burrell, fast together cling;
Seymer, and Saint Iohn for the bus’nesse closse,
Each twenty Horse, and forty foote doe bring
More, to nine hundred mounting in the grosse
In those nine Ships, and fitly them bestow’d,
Which with the other fall into the Road.
[Stanza 58]
From Holland, Zeland, and from Flanders wonne
By weekely pay, threescore twelue Bottoms came,
From fifty vpward, to fiue hundred Tunne;
For eu’ry vse a Marriner could name,
Whose glittering Flags against the Radient Sunne,
Show’d as the Sea had all beene of a flame;
For Skiffes, Crayes, Scallops, and the like, why these
From eu’ry small Creeke, cou’red all the Seas.
[Stanza 59]
The man whose way from London hap’d to lye,
By those he met might guesse the generall force,
Daily encountred as he passed by,
Now with a Troupe of Foote, and then of Horse,
To whom the people still themselues apply,
Bringing them victuals as in mere remorce:
And still the acclamation of the presse,
Saint George for England, to your good successe.
[Stanza 60]
There might a man haue seene in eu’ry Streete,
The Father bidding farewell to his Sonne:
Small Children kneeling at their Fathers feete:
The Wife with her deare Husband ne’r had done:
Brother, his Brother, with adieu to greete:
One Friend to take leaue of another runne:
The Mayden with her best belou’d to part,
Gaue him her hand, who tooke away her heart.
[Stanza 61]
The nobler Youth the common ranke aboue,
On their coruetting Coursers mounted faire,
One ware his Mistris Garter, one her Gloue;
And he a lock of his deare Ladies haire;
And he her Colours, whom he most did loue;
There was not one but did some Fauour weare:
And each one tooke it, on his happy speede,
To make it famous by some Knightly deede.
[Stanza 62]
The cloudes of dust, that from the wayes arose,
Which in their martch, the trampling Troupes doe reare:
When as the Sunne their thicknesse doth oppose
In his descending, shining wondrous cleare,
To the beholder farre off standing showes
Like some besieged Towne, that were on fire:
As though fore-telling e’r they should returne,
That many a Citie yet secure must burne.
[Stanza 63]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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