From Lydens Irenius - Act III. Sc. II.

Gow. Had it been your Prince instead of a groom caught in this noose theres not an astrologer of the city,
Prince. Sacked! Sacked! We were a city yesterday.
Gow. So be it, but I was not governor. Not an astrologer, but would ha sworn hed foreseen it at the last versary of Venus, when Vulcan caught her with Mars in the house of stinking Capricorn. But since tis Jack of the Straw that hangs, the forgetful stars had it not on their tablets.
Prince. Another life! Were there any left to die? How did the poor fool come by it?
Gow. Simpliciter thus. She that damned him to death knew not that she did it, or would have died ere she had done it. For she loved him. He that hangs him does so in obedience to the Duke, and asks no more than Where is the rope? The Duke, very exactly he hath told us, works Gods will, in which holy employ hes not to be questioned. We have then left upon this finger, only Jack whose soul now plucks the left sleeve of Destiny in Hell to overtake why she clapped him up like a fly on a sunny wall. Whuff! Soh!
Prince. Your cloak Ferdinand. Ill sleep now.
Ferdinand. Sleep, then . . . He, too, loved his life?
Gow. He was born of woman . . . but at the end threw life from him like your Prince, for a little sleep . . Have I any look of a King? said he, clanking his chain, to be so baited on all sides by Fortune, that I must een die now to live with myself one day longer. I left him railing at Fortune and womans love.
Ferdinand. Ah, womans love!
(Aside) Who knows not Fortune, glutted on easy thrones,
Stealing from feasts as rare to coneycatch
Privily in the hedgerows for a clown
With that same cruel-lustful hand and eye,
Those nails and wedges, that one hammer and lead,
And the very gerb of long-stored lightnings loosed
Yesterday gainst some King.

Rudyard

Rudyard Kipling was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. His notable works include the novels 'The Jungle Book,' 'Kim,' and the poem 'If—.' Kipling was one of the most popular writers in the United Kingdom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907, making him the youngest recipient of the award.

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Gows Watch : Act II. Scene 2.

ACT II. SCENE 2.


The pavilion in the Gardens. Enter FERDINAND and the KING

FERDINAND. Your tiercels too long at hack, Sir. Hes no eyass
But a passage-hawk that footed ere we caught him,
Dangerously free o the air. Faith were he mine
(As mines the glove he binds to for his tirings)
Id fly him with a make-hawk. Hes in yarak
Plumed to the very point. So manned so, weathered!
Give him the firmament God made him for
And what shall take the air of him?

THE KING. A young wing yet
Bold, overbold on the perch but, think you, Ferdinand,
He can endure the raw skies yonder? Cozen
Advantage out of the teeth of the hurricane?
Choose his own mate against the lammer-geier?
Ride out a night-long tempest, hold his pitch
Between the lightning and t...

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Gows Watch : Act V. scene 3

After the Battle. The PRINCESS by the Standard on the Ravelin.

Enter Gow, with the Crown of the Kingdom.

GOW. Heres earnest of the Queens submission.
This by her last herald, and in haste.

PRINCESS. Twas ours already. Where is the woman?

GOW. Fled with her horse. They broke at dawn.
Noon has not struck, and youre Queen questionless.

PRINCESS. By you, through you. How shall I honour you?

GOW. Me? But for what?

PRINCESS. For all, all, all,
Since the realm sunk beneath us! Hear him! For what?
Your body twixt my bosom and her knife,
Your lips on the cup she proffered for my death;
Your one cloak over me, that night in the snows
We held the Pass at Bargi. Every hour
New strengths, to this most unbelievable last.
Hon...

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The Statue And The Bust

Theres a palace in Florence, the world knows well,
And a statue watches it from the square,
And this story of both do our townsmen tell.

Ages ago, a lady there,
At the farthest window facing the East,
Asked, Who rides by with the royal air?

The bridesmaids prattle around her ceased;
She leaned forth, one on either hand;
They saw how the blush of the bride increased

They felt by its beats her heart expand
As one at each ear and both in a breath
Whispered, The Great-Duke Ferdinand.

That self-same instant, underneath,
The Duke rode past in his idle way,
Empty and fine like a swordless sheath.

Gay he rode, with a friend as gay,
Till he threw his head back, Who is she?
A bride the Riccardi brings home today.

H...

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The Princess (Part I)

A prince I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face,
Of temper amorous, as the first of May,
With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl,
For on my cradle shone the Northern star.

There lived an ancient legend in our house.
Some sorcerer, whom a far-off grandsire burnt
Because he cast no shadow, had foretold,
Dying, that none of all our blood should know
The shadow from the substance, and that one
Should come to fight with shadows and to fall.
For so, my mother said, the story ran.
And, truly, waking dreams were, more or less,
An old and strange affection of the house.
Myself too had weird seizures, Heaven knows what:
On a sudden in the midst of men and day,
And while I walked and talked as heretofore,
I seemed to move among a world of ghosts,
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At The Play

Just above the boxes and where the high lights fall
Looketh down a carven face from out the gilded wall.

Van Dyke beard and broidered ruff silently confess
That he lived - and loved perchance - in days of Good Queen Bess.
(Laces fine and linen sheer, curled and perfumed hair
Well became those gentlemen of gay, insouciant air.)

See! He gazeth evermore at the stage below;
Noteth well the players as they quickly come and go;
Queens and kings and maidens fair, motley fools and friars,
Lords and ladies, stately dames, mounted knights and squires.

Well he knoweth all of them, all the grave and gay,
These are they he dreamt of in the far and far away;
Saints and sinners, see they come down the bygone years,
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Mary Gulliver To Captain Lemuel Gulliver. An Epistle.

The captain, some time after his return, being retired to Mr Sympson's in the country, Mrs Gulliver, apprehending from his late behaviour some estrangement of his affections, writes him the following expostulatory, soothing, and tenderly complaining epistle:--

Welcome, thrice welcome, to thy native place!--
What, touch me not? what, shun a wife's embrace?
Have I for this thy tedious absence borne,
And waked, and wish'd whole nights for thy return?
In five long years I took no second spouse;
What Redriff wife so long hath kept her vows?
Your eyes, your nose, inconstancy betray;
Your nose you stop, your eyes you turn away.
'Tis said, that thou shouldst 'cleave unto thy wife;'
Once thou didst cleave, and I could cleave for life.
Hear, and relent! hark how thy children moan!
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From Lydens Irenius - Act III. Sc. II.

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From Lydens Irenius - Act III. Sc. II.