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What news, Lord Bardolph ? every minute now
Should be the father of some stratagem:
The times are wild; Contention, like a horse
Full of high feeding, madly hath broke loose,
And bears down all before him.

I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news;
Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,
Standing on slippers, (which his nimble haste
Had falsely thrust upon contrary feet,)
Told of a many thousand warlike French,
That were embattled and rank'd in Kent:
Another lean unwash'd artificer

Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur's death.

Let me speak, to the yet unknowing world,
How these things came about: So shall you hear
Of carnai, bloody, and unnatural note;
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;
Of deaths put on by cunning, and forc'd cause;
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook

Fall'n on the inventors' heads: all this can I
Truly deliver.

There needs no ghost my lord, come from the grave,
To tell us this.

NIGHT.

Now o'er the one half world

Nature seems dead; and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; now witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and wither'd murder
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,

Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
With Tarquin's ravishing sides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost.

The gaudy, babbling, and remorseful day
Is crept into the bosom of the sea;

And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jades
That drag the tragic melancholy night;

Who with their drowsy, slow, and flagging wings
Clip dead men's graves, and from their misty jaws
Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air.

The weary sun hath made a golden set,
And by the bright track of his fiery car,
Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow.

Light thickens; and the crow

Makes wing to the rooky wood:

Good things of day begin to droop and drowse; Whiles night's black agents to their prey do rouse.

Sound o

The midnight bell

with his imp tomono and hrazon mouth,
one unto the drowsy race of night.

'Tis now the very witching time of night;

When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world: Now could I drink hot blood,

And do such business as the bitter day
Would quake to look on.

Hark! Peace!

It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bell-man,
Which gives the stern'st good-night.

Come, seeling night,

Skarf up the tender eye of pitiful day;
And, with thy bloody and invisible hand,
Cancel, and tear to pieces, that great bond
Which keeps me pale.

Spread thy close curtain, love-performing night!
That unawares, eyes my wink; and Romeo
Leap to these arms, untalk'd of, and unseen!

From camp to camp, through the foul womb of night,
The hum of either army stilly sounds,

That the fix'd centinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other's watch:
Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other's umber'd face:
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night's dull ear; and from the tents,
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation.

Dark night, that from the eye his function takes,
The ear more quick of apprehension makes ;
Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,
pays the hearing double recompence.

It

Look, how the floor of heaven

Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;

There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-ey'd cherubins ;
Such harmony is in immortal souls ;
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

NIGHTINGALE.

The nightingale, if she should sing by day,
When every goose is cackling, would be thought
No better a musician than the wren.
How many things by season season'd are
To their right praise, and true perfection!

NOVELTY.

New customs,

Though they be never so ridiculous,

Nay, let them be unmanly, yet are follow'd.

All, with one consent, praise new-born gawds, Though they are made and moulded of things past. If all the year were playing holidays,

Το sport would be as tedious as to work;

But, when they seldom come, they wisht-for come, And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.

0.

OATHS.

'Tis not the many oaths, that make the truth;
But the plain single vow, that is vowed true.
The gods are deaf to hot and peevish vows;
They are pulluted offerings, more abhorr'd
Than spotted livers in the sacrifice.

The vows of women
Of no more bondage be, to where they are made,
Then they are to their virtues; which is nothing.

Look, thou be true; do not give daliance
Too much the rein; the strongest oaths are straw
To the fire i' the blood; be more abstemious,
Or else, good-night your vow,

Your oaths are past, and now subscribe your name,
That his own hand may strike his honour down,
That violates the smallest branch herein...

Swear me Kate, like a Lady, as thou art,
A good mouth-filling oath, and leave insooth;
And such protests of pepper-gingerbread,
To velvet-guards, and Sunday-citizens.

O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

Come, swear it, damn thyself,

Lest, being like one of heaven, the devils themselves Should fear to seize thee: therefore be double-damn'd, Swear-thou art honest.

Thou seest, that all the grace that she hath left,
Is, that she will not add, to her damnation
A sin of perjury: she not denies it.

Do not believe his vows: for they are brokers
Not of that dye which their investments shew,
But mere implorators of unholy suits,
Breathing like sanctified and pious bonds,
The better to beguile.

Swear priests, and cowards, and men cautelous,
Old feeble carrions, and such suffering souls
That welcome wrongs; unto bad causes swear
Such creatures as men doubt: but do not stain
The even virtue of our enterprize,

Nor the insuppressive mettle of our spirits,
To think, that, or our cause, or our performance,
Did need an oath.

Myself, myself confound!
Heaven, and fortune, bar me happy hours!
Day, yield me not thy light: nor night, thy rest!
Be opposite all planets of good luck

To my proceeding, if, with pure heart's love,
Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,

I tender not thy beauteous princely daughter!

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