Page 1051 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

ACT III IT

Scene I IT

Enter the King in his nightgown, alone [with a Page].

KING
Go call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick.
But, ere they come, bid them o’erread these letters
And well consider of them. Make good speed.

[Exit Page.]
How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep, [5]
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down

And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee [10]

And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lulled with sound of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile [15]

In loathsome beds, and leavest the kingly couch
A watch-case or a common ’larum-bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast

Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge [20]
And in the visitation of the winds,
Who take the ruffian billows by the top,
Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them

With deafening clamour in the slippery clouds,
That, with the hurly, death itself awakes? [25]
Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose