Richard II. Уильям Шекспир

showres last long, but sodaine stormes are short,

      He tyres betimes, that spurs too fast betimes;

      With eager feeding, food doth choake the feeder:

      Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,

      Consuming meanes soone preyes vpon it selfe.

      This royall Throne of Kings, this sceptred Isle,

      This earth of Maiesty, this seate of Mars,

      This other Eden, demy paradise,

      This Fortresse built by Nature for her selfe,

      Against infection, and the hand of warre:

      This happy breed of men, this little world,

      This precious stone, set in the siluer sea,

      Which serues it in the office of a wall,

      Or as a Moate defensiue to a house,

      Against the enuy of lesse happier Lands,

      This blessed plot, this earth, this Realme, this England,

      This Nurse, this teeming wombe of Royall Kings,

      Fear'd by their breed, and famous for their birth,

      Renowned for their deeds, as farre from home,

      For Christian seruice, and true Chiualrie,

      As is the sepulcher in stubborne Iury

      Of the Worlds ransome, blessed Maries Sonne.

      This Land of such deere soules, this deere-deere Land,

      Deere for her reputation through the world,

      Is now Leas'd out (I dye pronouncing it)

      Like to a Tenement or pelting Farme.

      England bound in with the triumphant sea,

      Whose rocky shore beates backe the enuious siedge

      Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,

      With Inky blottes, and rotten Parchment bonds.

      That England, that was wont to conquer others,

      Hath made a shamefull conquest of it selfe.

      Ah! would the scandall vanish with my life,

      How happy then were my ensuing death?

      Enter King, Queene, Aumerle, Bushy, Greene, Bagot, Ros, and

      Willoughby.

        Yor. The King is come, deale mildly with his youth,

      For young hot Colts, being rag'd, do rage the more

         Qu. How fares our noble Vncle Lancaster?

        Ri. What comfort man? How ist with aged Gaunt?

        Ga. Oh how that name befits my composition:

      Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old:

      Within me greefe hath kept a tedious fast,

      And who abstaynes from meate, that is not gaunt?

      For sleeping England long time haue I watcht,

      Watching breeds leannesse, leannesse is all gaunt.

      The pleasure that some Fathers feede vpon,

      Is my strict fast, I meane my Childrens lookes,

      And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt: