Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.
Swinstead Abbey
By William Shakespeare (15641616) PIs touch’d corruptibly; and his pure brain
(Which some suppose the soul’s frail dwelling-house)
Doth, by the idle comments that it makes,
Foretell the ending of mortality.
That, being brought into the open air,
It would allay the burning quality
Of that fell poison which assaileth him.
P. H
Doth he still rage?[Exit B
P
Than when you left him; even now he sung.
P. H
In their continuance, will not feel themselves.
Death, having preyed upon the outward parts,
Leaves them insensible; and his siege is now
Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds
With many legions of strange fantasies;
Which, in their throng and press to that last hold,
Confound themselves. ’T is strange, that Death should sing.
I am the cygnet to this pale, faint swan,
Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death;
And, from the organ-pipe of frailty, sings
His soul and body to their lasting rest.
S
To set a form upon that indigest,
Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.
It would not out at windows, nor at doors.
There is so hot a summer in my bosom,
That all my bowels crumble up to dust.
I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen
Upon a parchment; and against this fire
Do I shrink up.
P. H
K. J
And none of you will bid the Winter come,
To thrust his icy fingers in my maw;
Nor let my kingdom’s rivers take their course
Through my burn’d bosom; nor entreat the North
To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips,
And comfort me with cold.—I do not ask you much,
I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait,
And so ingrateful, you deny me that.
P. H
That might relieve you!
K. J
Within me is a hell; and there the poison
Is, as a fiend, confined to tyrannize
On unreprievable-condemned blood.
And spleen of speed to see your Majesty.
K. J
The tackle of my heart is cracked and burned;
And all the shrouds, wherewith my life should sail,
Are turned to one thread, one little hair.
My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
Which holds but till thy news be uttered;
And then all this thou seest is but a clod,
And module of confounded royalty.
B
Where, Heaven he knows, how we shall answer him;
For, in a night, the best part of my power,
As I upon advantage did remove,
Were in the Washes, all unwarily,
Devoured by the unexpected flood.[The King dies.
S
My liege! my lord!—But now a king,—now thus.
P. H
What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,
When this was now a king, and now is clay!