Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.
Dunsinane
By William Shakespeare (15641616)M
The cry is still, They come!—Our Castle’s strength
Will laugh a siege to scorn; here let them lie,
Till famine and the ague eat them up.
Were they not ’forc’d with those that should be ours,
We might have met them dareful, beard to beard,
And beat them backward home.—What is that noise?
M
The time has been, my senses would have quail’d
To hear a night-shriek; and my fell of hair
Would at a dismal treatise rouse, and stir
As life were in ’t. I have supp’d full with horrors;
Direness, familiar to my slaught’rous thoughts,
Cannot once start me.—Wherefore was that cry?
S
M
There would have been a time for such a word.—
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life ’s but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.—
M
I saw, but know not how to do it.
M
M
I look’d toward Birnam, and anon, methought,
The wood began to move.
M
M
Within this three mile may you see it coming.
I say, a moving grove.
M
Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
Till famine cling thee; if thy speech be sooth,
I care not if thou dost for me as much.—
I pull in resolution; and begin
To doubt the equivocation of the Fiend,
That lies like truth: Fear not, till Birnam-wood
Do come to Dunsinane; and now a wood
Comes toward Dunsinane. Arm, arm, and out!—
If this, which he avouches, does appear,
There is nor flying hence, nor tarrying here.
I ’gin to be a-weary of the sun,
And wish the estate o’ the world were now undone.—
Ring the alarum-bell; blow, wind! come wrack!
At least we ’ll die with harness on our back.