Richard II

HENRY BOLINGBROKE

Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear
Is that the rebels have consumed with fire
Our town of Cicester in Gloucestershire;
But whether they be ta'en or slain we hear not.
Enter NORTHUMBERLAND

Welcome, my lord what is the news?
 
NORTHUMBERLAND

First, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness.
The next news is, I have to London sent
The heads of Oxford, Salisbury, Blunt, and Kent:
The manner of their taking may appear
At large discoursed in this paper here.
 
HENRY BOLINGBROKE

We thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains;
And to thy worth will add right worthy gains.
Enter LORD FITZWATER
 
LORD FITZWATER

My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London
The heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely,
Two of the dangerous consorted traitors
That sought at Oxford thy dire overthrow.
 
HENRY BOLINGBROKE

Thy pains, Fitzwater, shall not be forgot;
Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.
Enter HENRY PERCY, and the BISHOP OF CARLISLE
 
HENRY PERCY

The grand conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,
With clog of conscience and sour melancholy
Hath yielded up his body to the grave;
But here is Carlisle living, to abide
Thy kingly doom and sentence of his pride.
 
HENRY BOLINGBROKE

Carlisle, this is your doom:
Choose out some secret place, some reverend room,
More than thou hast, and with it joy thy life;
So as thou livest in peace, die free from strife:
For though mine enemy thou hast ever been,
High sparks of honour in thee have I seen.
Enter EXTON, with persons bearing a coffin
 
EXTON

Great king, within this coffin I present
Thy buried fear: herein all breathless lies
The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,
Richard of Bordeaux, by me hither brought.
 
HENRY BOLINGBROKE

Exton, I thank thee not; for thou hast wrought
A deed of slander with thy fatal hand
Upon my head and all this famous land.
 
HENRY BOLINGBROKE

They love not poison that do poison need,
Nor do I thee: though I did wish him dead,
I hate the murderer, love him murdered.
The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,
But neither my good word nor princely favour:
With Cain go wander through shades of night,
And never show thy head by day nor light.
Lords, I protest, my soul is full of woe,
That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow:
Come, mourn with me for that I do lament,
And put on sullen black incontinent:
I'll make a voyage to the Holy Land,
To wash this blood off from my guilty hand:
March sadly after; grace my mournings here;
In weeping after this untimely bier.
Exeunt
 
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THOSE hands which you so clapp'd, go now and wring,
You
Britons brave; for done are Shakespeare's days;
His days are done that made the dainty plays,
Which made the
Globe of heaven and earth to ring:
Dried is that vein, dried is the
Thespian spring,
Turn'd all to tears, and
Phoebus clouds his rays:
That corpse, that coffin, now bestick those bays,
Which crown'd him
poet first, then poets' king.
If
tragedies might any prologue have,
All those he made would scarce make one to this;
Where
Fame, now that he gone is to the grave —
Death's public tiring-house — the
Nuntius is:
For, though his line of life went soon about,
The life yet of his lines shall never out.


- Hugh Holland
 
SHAKESPEARE, at length thy pious fellows give
The world thy works; thy works, by which outlive
Thy tomb thy name must: when that stone is rent,
And time dissolves thy
Stratford monument,
Here we alive shall view thee still; this book,
When brass and marble fade, shall make thee look
Fresh to all ages; when posterity
Shall loathe what's new, think all is prodigy
That is not
Shakespeare's, every line, each verse,
Here shall revive, redeem thee from thy hearse.
Nor fire, nor cank'ring age, — as
Naso said
Of his, — thy wit-fraught book shall once invade:
Nor shall I e'er believe or think thee dead,
Though miss'd, until our bankrout stage be sped —
Impossible — with some new strain t'out-do
Passions of
Juliet and her Romeo;
Or till I hear a scene more nobly take,
Than when thy half-sword-parleying
Romans spake:
Till these, till any of thy volume's rest,
Shall with more fire, more feeling be expresst,
Be sure, our
Shakespeare, thou canst never die,
But, crown'd with laurel, live eternally.


- Leonard Diggs
 
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