So cowardly and but for thefe vile guns,
He would himself have been a foldier.
CHA P. XXII.
CLARENCE's DREAM.
CLARENCE AND BRAKENBURY.
WH
HY looks your Grace fo heavily to-day? CLAR. O, I have pafs'd a miferable night, So full of ugly fights, of ghaftly dreams, That as I am a Chriftian faithful man, I would not fpend another fuch a night,
Though 'twere to buy a world of happy days;
So full of difmal terror was the time.
BRAK. What was your dream, my Lord? I pray you
tell me.
XA
CLAR. Methought that I had broken from the tow'r, And was imbark'd to cross to Burgundy,
And in my company my brother Glo'fter;
Who from my cabin tempted me to walk
Upon the hatches. Thence we look'd tow'rd England,
And cited up a thousand heavy times,
During the wars of York and Lancaster,
That had befall'n us. As we pafs'd along
Upon the giddy footing of the hatches,
Methought that Glo'fter ftumbled, and in falling
Struck me (that fought to ftay him) over-board,
Into the tumbling billows of the main.
Lord, Lord, methought, what pain it was to drown!
What dreadful noife of waters in my ears!
What fights of ugly death within mine eyes!
I thought I faw a thoufand fearful wrecks;
X 2
A thousand men, that fishes gnaw'd upon;
Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,
Ineftimable ftones, unvalued jewels;
Some lay in dead men's fculls; and in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,
As 'twere in fcorn of eyes, reflecting gems,
That woo'd the flimy bottom of the deep,
And mock'd the dead bones that lay scatter'd by.
BRAK. Had you fuch leisure in the time of death,
To gaze upon the secrets of the deep?
CLAR. Methought I had; and often did I ftrive
To yield the ghoft; but ftill the envious flood
嘴
Kept in my foul, and would not let it forth
To find the empty, vaft, and wand'ring air;
But fmother'd it within my panting bulk,
Which almost burst to belch it in the fea.
BRAK. Awak'd you not with this fore agony?
CLAR. No, no; my dream was lengthen'd after life; O then began the tempeft to my foul:
I pass'd, methought, the melancholy flood,
With that grim ferryman which poets write of, ́
Unto the kingdom of perpetual night.
The first that there did greet my ftranger-foul,
Was my great father-in-law, renowned Warwick,
Who cry'd aloud" What fcourge for perjury
Can this dark monarchy afford false Clarence ?"
And fo he vanish'd. Then came wand'ring by
A fhadow like an angel, with bright hair
Dabbled in blood, and he fhriek'd out aloud-
"Clarence is come, falfe, fleeting, perjured Clarence,
That ftabb'd me in the field by Tewksbury;
Seize on him, furies, take him to your torments!”-
With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Inviron'd me, and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that with the very noise
I trembling wak'd; and for a feafon after
Could not believe but that I was in hell:
Such terrible impreffion made my dream.
BRAK. No marvel, Lord, that it affrighted you;"
I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.
CLAR. Ah! Brakenbury, I have done those things
That now give evidence against my foul,
For Edward's fake; and fee how he requites me!
O God! if my deep prayers cannot appease thee,
But thou wilt be aveng'd on my misdeeds,
Yet execute thy wrath on me alone:
O fpare my guiltlefs wife, and my poor children!
I pr'ythee, Brakenbury, ftay by me:
My foul is heavy, and I fain would fleep.
you.
O
THEN I fee Queen Mab hath been with
She is the fancy's midwife, and the comes
In fhape no bigger than an agate-stone
On the fore-finger of an alderman;
Drawn with a team of little atomies,
Athwart men's nofes as they lie afleep:
Her waggon spokes made of long spinners' legs;
The cover of the wings of grafshoppers;
The traces of the smalleft fpider's web;
The collars of the moonshine's watery beams;
X 3
Her whip of cricket's bone; the lash of film;
Her waggoner a fmall grey-coated gnat,
Not half fo big as a round little worm,
Prick'd from the lazy finger of a maid.
Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner fquirrel, or old grub,
Time out of mind the fairies' coach-makers.
And in this ftate fhe gallops, night by night,
Through lovers' brains, and then they dream of love:
On courtiers' knees, that dream on curtfies ftrait:
O'er lawyers' fingers, who ftrait dream on fees:
O'er ladies' lips, who straight on kiffes dream;
Sometimes fhe gallops o'er a courtier's nofe,
And then dreams he of fmelling out a fuit:
And fometimes comes fhe with a tithe-pig's tail,
Tickling the parfon as he lies afleep;
Then dreams he of another benefice.
Sometimes the driveth o'er a foldier's neck,
And then he dreams of cutting foreign throats,
Of breaches, ambufcadoes, Spanish blades, -
Of healths five fathom deep; and then anon
Drums in his ears, at which he starts and wakes;
And being thus frighted, fwears a prayer or two,
And fleeps again.
IDO remember an apothecary,
And hereabouts he dwells, whom late I noted
¦ In tatter'd weeds, with overwhelming brows,
Culling of fimples; meagre were his looks;
Sharp Mifery had worn him to the bones:
And in his needy fhop a tortoife hung,
An alligator ftuff'd, and other skins
Of ill-fhap'd fishes; and about his fhelves-
A beggarly account of empty boxes;
Green earthen pots, bladders, and musty feeds,
Remnants of packthread, and old cakes of rofes
Were thinly scatter'd to make up a fhow.
Noting this penury, to myself I faid,
An' a man did need a poifon now,
Whofe fale is prefent death in Mantua,
Here lives a caitiff wretch would sell it him.
Oh, this fame thought did but fore-run my need,
And this fame needy man must sell it me.
As I remember, this fhould be the house.
I
F aught of oaten ftop, or paftoral fong,
May hope, chafte Eve, to footh thy modeft ear,
Like thy own folemn fprings,
Thy fprings, and dying gales,
O Nymph referv'd, while now the bright hair'd fun
Sits on yon western tent, whofe cloudy skirts
With brede ethereal wove,
O'erhang his wavy bed:
Now air is hufh'd, fave where the weak-eyed bat,
With fhort fhrill fhrieks flits by on leathern wing,
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