With the like bold, just, and impartial spirit,

75 As you have done 'gainst me. There is my hand ;
You shall be as a father to my youth ;

My voice shall sound as you do prompt mine ear ;
And I will stoop and humble my intents

To your well-practis'd, wise directions.

So And, princes all, believe me, I beseech you ;—
My father is gone wild into his grave,

For in his tomb lie my affections ;
And with his spirit sadly I survive,
To mock the expectation of the world,
85 To frustrate prophecies, and to raze out
Rotten opinion, who hath writ me down
After my seeming. The tide of blood in me
Hath proudly flow'd in vanity, till now;

Now doth it turn, and ebb back to the sea ;
90 Where it shall mingle with the state of floods,
And flow henceforth in formal majesty.

Now call we our high court of parliament;
And let us choose such limbs of noble counsel,
That the great body of our state may go

95 In equal rank with the best-govern'd nation ;
That war, or peace, or both at once, may be
As things acquainted and familiar to us ;—
In which you, father, shall have foremost hand.—
[To the Lord Chief Justice.

Our coronation done, we will accite,

100 As I before remember'd, all our state :

And (God consigning to my good intents,)

No prince, nor peer, shall have just cause to say,—
Heaven shorten Harry's happy life one day.

Notes.

(The numbers refer to the lines.)

2. gorgeous; fine, splendid.

6,7. Amurath; Amurath was a name common to emperors of the Turks. Among the latter, the accession of a new emperor was often accompanied by frightful massacres of the relatives of the late sovereign, with a view of getting rid of rivals to the throne. Henry V. therefore means to say: This is the English, not the Turkish court, and you have no reason to fear violence from me.”

66

9. royally; nobly. Your grief for my father appears so becoming in you that I join in it myself, with my whole heart. Sorrow is likened to a garment worn by the afflicted person. 19. by number; i.e., Your hours of happiness shall equal in number your present tears.

21. strangely; suspiciously.

23. measured; judged, estimated.

28. rate; chide, scold.

29. immediate; next, coming immediately after.

30. Lethe; In ancient mythology this was the name of a river in the world of spirits, the water of which, when drunk by the souls of the departed, caused them to forget all that had passed during their lives on earth.

31. use; represent.

34. commonwealth; the public good, the state.

42. garland; wreath, crown.

44. awful; that which fills with awe or reverence.

45. trip; trip up, cause to fall.

48. workings in a second body; those things which you do by means of another (the judge who represents you).

50. propose; place before, imagine.

56. cold considerance; cool consideration, deliberate reflection.

sentence; condemn.

57. in your state; in your royal, dignified, and responsible position.

59. liege; (Lat. ligo, I bind) superior lord, sovereign.

61. balance; the scales of Justice. Justice is often represented by sculptors and painters as a female figure holding a pair of

scales and a sword, weighing the merits of the cases brought before her, and administering due punishments for offences.

67. proper; own.

68, 69. such a son; Prince Henry had bowed to the decision of the judge, and gone quietly and submissively to prison. 72. used; been accustomed.

73. remembrance; something to be remembered.

81-87. My wild spirit is buried in my father's tomb, his calm, sober spirit survives in my soul on which it has descended, and I am about to manifest such a change of life as will falsify the expectations of those who believed I should prove a worthless and dissolute king.

93. limbs; members, parts of the body referred to in the next line.

99. accite; call to, summon.

101. consign; to sign with, consent, agree. two nominatives absolute in lines 99, 101.

Observe the

LYCIDAS.

A MONODY BY JOHN MILTON.

The following is the first part of Milton's beautiful elegiac poem on the death of his friend, Edward King, Esq., who was drowned in a ship in which he was sailing from Chester to Ireland, and which struck on a rock not far from the English coast, 1637. Mr. King was twenty-five years of age, and a fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, at the time of his death.

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never-sere,

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude ;
And, with forced fingers rude,

5 Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year:
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,

Compels me to disturb your season due :

For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer : 10 Who would not sing for Lycidas? He knew Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. He must not float upon his watery bier Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, Without the meed of some melodious tear.

15

Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well,
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring ;
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse :

So may some gentle Muse

20 With lucky words favour my destin'd urn; And, as he passes, turn,

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.

For we were nurs'd upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill.
25 Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd
Under the opening eye-lids of the morn,
We drove afield, and both together heard
What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night,
30 Oft, till the star that rose at evening, bright,

Towards heaven's descent had slop'd his westering wheel.
Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,

Temper'd to the oaten flute ;

Rough Satyrs danc'd, and Fauns with cloven heel 35 From the glad sound would not be absent long ; And old Damætas loved to hear our song.

But, O the heavy change, now thou art gone,
Now thou art gone, and never must return!
Thee, Shepherd, thee, the woods, and desart-caves
40 With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown
And all their echoes mourn :

The willows and the hazel copses green,
Shall now no more be seen

Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays. 45 As killing as the canker to the rose,

50

Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,
Or frost to flowers, that their gay wardrobe wear,
When first the white-thorn blows;

Such, Lycidas, thy loss to Shepherd's ear.

Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep Clos'd o'er the head of your loved Lycidas?

For neither were ye playing on the steep,

Where your old Bards, the famous Druids, lie,
Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,

55 Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream :
Ay me! I fondly dream!

Had ye been there-for what could that have done?
What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore,
The Muse herself, for her enchanting son,

60 Whom universal Nature did lament,

When by the rout that made the hideous roar,
His gory visage down the stream was sent,
Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?
Alas! what boots it with incessant care

65 To tend the homely, slighted shepherd's trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
Were it not better done, as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?

70 Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)

To scorn delights and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,

75 Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise,"
Phoebus replied, and touch'd my trembling ears;
"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil.