Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Tamworth

Plain near Tamworth

By William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

From “The Tragedy of King Richard the Third,” Act V. Scene 2.

Enter, with drum and colors, RICHMOND, OXFORD, SIR JAMES BLUNT, SIR WALTER HERBERT, and others, with Forces, marching.

RICHMOND.Fellows in arms, and my most loving friends,

Bruis’d underneath the yoke of tyranny,

Thus far into the bowels of the land

Have we march’d on without impediment;

And here receive we from our father Stanley

Lines of fair comfort and encouragement.

The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar,

That spoil’d your summer-fields and fruitful vines,

Swills your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough

In your embowell’d bosoms, this foul swine

Lies now even in the centre of this isle,

Near to the town of Leicester, as we learn.

From Tamworth thither is but one day’s march;

In God’s name, cheerly on, courageous friends,

To reap the harvest of perpetual peace

By this one bloody trial of sharp war.

OXF.Every man’s conscience is a thousand men,

To fight against that guilty homicide.

HERB.I doubt not but his friends will turn to us.

BLUNT.He hath no friends but who are friends for fear;

Which, in his dearest need, will fly from him.

RICHM.All for our vantage: then, in God’s name, march.

True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings,

Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings.

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