Page 663 - Shakespeare - Vol. 2

ACT I IT

Scene I IT

Enter the King, Lord John of Lancaster, Earl of Westmoreland, [Sir Walter
Blunt] with others.

KING
So shaken as we are, so wan with care,
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant

And breathe short-winded accents of new broils
To be commenced in stronds afar remote.
No more the thirsty entrance of this soil [5]
Shall daub her lips with her own children’s blood:
No more shall trenching war channel her fields,

Nor bruise her flow’rets with the armèd hoofs
Of hostile paces. Those opposèd eyes
Which, like the meteors of a troubled heaven, [10]

All of one nature, of one substance bred,
Did lately meet in the intestine shock
And furious close of civil butchery,
Shall now in mutual well-beseeming ranks
March all one way and be no more opposed [15]

Against acquaintance, kindred, and allies.
The edge of war, like an ill-sheathèd knife,
No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,

As far as to the sepulchre of Christ −
Whose soldier now, under whose blessed cross [20]
We are impressèd and engaged to fight −
Forthwith a power of English shall we levy,
Whose arms were moulded in their mother’s womb

To chase these pagans in those holy fields
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet [25]
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed