Bright, as if through ether steering,
To the traveller's eye it shone:
He hath hailed it reappearing-
And as quickly it is gone;

Gone, as if for ever hidden;
Or misshapen to the sight,
And by sullen weeds forbidden
To resume its native light.

What is youth?-a dancing billow,
(Winds behind, and rocks before!)
Age?-a drooping, tottering willow
On a flat and lazy shore.

What is peace?-when pain is over,
And love ceases to rebel,

Let the last faint sigh discover
That precedes the passing knell !

W. WORDSWORTH.

147.

HAST thou seen, with flash incessant,

Bubbles gliding under ice,

Bodied forth and evanescent,

No one knows by what device?

Such are thoughts!-A wind-swept meadow

Mimicking a troubled sea,

Such is life; and death a shadow

From the rock eternity!

W. WORDSWORTH.

148.

Bolingbroke, afterwards Henry IV., has been sentenced to six years' exile by King Richard II., his cousin. Gaunt, the father of Bolingbroke, attempts to console him.

Gaunt. O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words, That thou return'st no greeting to thy friends?

Bolingbroke. I have too few to take my leave of you, When the tongue's office should be prodigal

To breathe the abundant dolour of the heart.

Gaunt. Thy grief is but thy absence for a time. Bolingbroke. Joy absent, grief is present for that time. Gaunt. What is six winters? they are quickly gone. Bolingbroke. To men in joy; but grief makes one hour

ten.

Gaunt. Call it a travel that thou takest for pleasure. Bolingbroke. My heart will sigh when I miscall it so, Which finds it an inforced pilgrimage.

Gaunt. The sullen passage of thy weary steps Esteem a foil wherein thou art to set

The precious jewel of thy home return.

Bolingbroke. Nay, rather every tedious stride I make Will but remember me what a deal of world

I wander from the jewels that I love.
Must I not serve a long apprenticehood
To foreign passages; and in the end,
Having my freedom, boast of nothing else,
But that I was a journeyman to grief?

Gaunt. All places that the eye of heaven visits,
Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.
Teach thy necessity to reason thus ;

There is no virtue like necessity.

Think not the king did banish thee;

But thou the king. Woe doth the heavier sit,
Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.

Go, say-I sent thee forth to purchase honour;
And not-the king exiled thee; or suppose,
Devouring pestilence hangs in our air,
And thou art flying to a fresher clime.
Look, what thy soul holds dear, imagine it

To lie that way thou goest, not whence thou comest:
Suppose the singing birds, musicians;

The grass whereon thou tread'st, the presence strewed ;
The flowers, fair ladies; and thy steps, no more

Than a delightful measure, or a dance;

For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite

The man that mocks at it, and sets it light.

Bolingbroke. O, who can hold a fire in his hand,

By thinking on the frosty Caucasus ?

Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite,
By bare imagination of a feast?
Or wallow naked in December snow,
By thinking on fantastic summer's heat?

O, no! the apprehension of the good
Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.
Fell sorrow's tooth doth never rankle more
Than when it bites, but lanceth not the sore.

Gaunt. Come, come, my son; I'll bring thee on thy way: Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.

Bolingbroke. Then, England's ground, farewell; sweet soil, adieu;

My mother, and my nurse, that bears me yet!
Where'er I wander, boast of this I can ;-
Though banished, yet a trueborn Englishman.

W. SHAKESPEARE.

149.

Gaunt, on his deathbed, predicts disastrous times for England and her king.
Gaunt. Methinks I am a prophet new inspired,
And thus, expiring, do foretell of him:-

His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last;

For violent fires soon burn out themselves;

Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;

He tires betimes, that spurs too fast betimes;

With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder;
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,

Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,'
This other Eden, demi-paradise;
This fortress, built by nature for herself,
Against infection, and the hand of war;
This happy breed of men, this little world;
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands;

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,

Feared by their breed, and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,

For Christian service and true chivalry,

As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,

I The god of war, among the Greeks.

Of the world's ransom, blessèd Mary's son;—
This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased' out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting2 farm:

England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots, and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
O, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!

W. SHAKESPEARE.

150.

Rumours of Disaster to the King are afloat.

SALISBURY-A CAPTAIN.

Captain. 'Tis thought, the king is dead; we will not stay. The bay-trees in our country are all withered, And meteors fright the fixèd stars of heaven; The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth, And lean-looked prophets whisper fearful change: Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap ;— The one, in fear to lose what they enjoy;

The other, to enjoy by rage or war.

These signs forerun the death or fall of kings-
Farewell; our countrymen are gone and fled,

As well assured, Richard their king is dead.

[Exit.

Salisbury. Ah, Richard! with the eyes of heavy mind,

I see thy glory, like a shooting star,

Fall to the base earth from the firmament!

Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,
Witnessing storms to come, woe, and unrest.
Thy friends are fled, to wait upon thy foes;
And crossly to thy good all fortune goes.

W, SHAKESPEARE,

I In order to increase his revenue, Richard had farmed out his realm to the Earl of Wiltshire.

2 Paltry.

151.

King Richard receives the tidings that his banished cousin, Bolingbroke, has returned to England; that he is supported by the army and people, who wish to make him their king.

King Richard.

.. Of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs;
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 deposèd bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives, and all are Bolingbroke's ;
And nothing can we call our own, but death,
And that small model of the barren earth,
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For Heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings ;-
How some have been deposed; some slain in war;
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poisoned by their wives; some sleeping killed ;
All murdered :-for within the hollow crown,
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 feared, and kill with looks;
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,—
As if this flesh, which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable; and, humoured thus,
Comes at the last, and, with a little pin,

Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
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, need friends. Subjected thus,
How can you say to me,-I am a king?

W. SHAKESPEARE.