1    It is too late: the life of all his blood
2    Is touch'd corruptibly, and his pure brain,
3    Which some suppose the soul's frail dwelling-house,
4    Doth by the idle comments that it makes
5    Foretell the ending of mortality.

6    His highness yet doth speak, and holds belief
7    That, being brought into the open air,
8    It would allay the burning quality
9    Of that fell poison which assaileth him.

10   Let him be brought into the orchard here.
11   Doth he still rage?

12   He is more patient
13   Than when you left him; even now he sung.

14   O vanity of sickness! fierce extremes
15   In their continuance will not feel themselves.
16   Death, having prey'd upon the outward parts,
17   Leaves them invisible, and his siege is now
18   Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds
19   With many legions of strange fantasies,
20   Which, in their throng and press to that last hold,
21   Confound themselves. 'Tis strange that death
22   should sing.
23   I am the cygnet to this pale faint swan,
24   Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,
25   And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings
26   His soul and body to their lasting rest.

27   Be of good comfort, prince; for you are born
28   To set a form upon that indigest
29   Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.

30   Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room;
31   It would not out at windows nor at doors.
32   There is so hot a summer in my bosom,
33   That all my bowels crumble up to dust:
34   I am a scribbled form, drawn with a pen
35   Upon a parchment, and against this fire
36   Do I shrink up.

37   How fares your majesty?

38   Poison'd,--ill fare--dead, forsook, cast off:
39   And none of you will bid the winter come
40   To thrust his icy fingers in my maw,
41   Nor let my kingdom's rivers take their course
42   Through my burn'd bosom, nor entreat the north
43   To make his bleak winds kiss my parched lips
44   And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much,
45   I beg cold comfort; and you are so strait
46   And so ingrateful, you deny me that.

47   O that there were some virtue in my tears,
48   That might relieve you!

49   The salt in them is hot.
50   Within me is a hell; and there the poison
51   Is as a fiend confined to tyrannize
52   On unreprievable condemned blood.

53   O, I am scalded with my violent motion,
54   And spleen of speed to see your majesty!

55   O cousin, thou art come to set mine eye:
56   The tackle of my heart is crack'd and burn'd,
57   And all the shrouds wherewith my life should sail
58   Are turned to one thread, one little hair:
59   My heart hath one poor string to stay it by,
60   Which holds but till thy news be uttered;
61   And then all this thou seest is but a clod
62   And module of confounded royalty.

63   The Dauphin is preparing hitherward,
64   Where heaven He knows how we shall answer him;
65   For in a night the best part of my power,
66   As I upon advantage did remove,
67   Were in the Washes all unwarily
68   Devoured by the unexpected flood.

69   You breathe these dead news in as dead an ear.
70   My liege! my lord! but now a king, now thus.

71   Even so must I run on, and even so stop.
72   What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,
73   When this was now a king, and now is clay?

74   Art thou gone so? I do but stay behind
75   To do the office for thee of revenge,
76   And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven,
77   As it on earth hath been thy servant still.
78   Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres,
79   Where be your powers? show now your mended faiths,
80   And instantly return with me again,
81   To push destruction and perpetual shame
82   Out of the weak door of our fainting land.
83   Straight let us seek, or straight we shall be sought;
84   The Dauphin rages at our very heels.

85   It seems you know not, then, so much as we:
86   The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,
87   Who half an hour since came from the Dauphin,
88   And brings from him such offers of our peace
89   As we with honour and respect may take,
90   With purpose presently to leave this war.

91   He will the rather do it when he sees
92   Ourselves well sinewed to our defence.

93   Nay, it is in a manner done already;
94   For many carriages he hath dispatch'd
95   To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel
96   To the disposing of the cardinal:
97   With whom yourself, myself and other lords,
98   If you think meet, this afternoon will post
99   To consummate this business happily.

100  Let it be so: and you, my noble prince,
101  With other princes that may best be spared,
102  Shall wait upon your father's funeral.

103  At Worcester must his body be interr'd;
104  For so he will'd it.

105  Thither shall it then:
106  And happily may your sweet self put on
107  The lineal state and glory of the land!
108  To whom with all submission, on my knee
109  I do bequeath my faithful services
110  And true subjection everlastingly.

111  And the like tender of our love we make,
112  To rest without a spot for evermore.

113  I have a kind soul that would give you thanks
114  And knows not how to do it but with tears.

115  O, let us pay the time but needful woe,
116  Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs.
117  This England never did, nor never shall,
118  Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
119  But when it first did help to wound itself.
120  Now these her princes are come home again,
121  Come the three corners of the world in arms,
122  And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
123  If England to itself do rest but true.