Lady M.

Consider it not so deeply.

Macb. But wherefore could not I pronounce “Amen”?

I had most need of blessing, and “ Amen ”

Stuck in my throat.
Lady M.

These deeds must not be thought

After these ways; so, it will make us mad.

Macb. Methought,* I heard a voice cry, "Sleep no more!
Macbeth does murder sleep," the innocent sleep,

Sleep, that knits up the ravell'd sleave of care,t
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast,—

Lady M.

What do you mean?

Macb. Still it cried, "Sleep no more!" to all the house : “Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor ‡ Shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more!"

Lady M. Who was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane,
You do unbend your noble strength, to think
So brainsickly of things. Go, get some water,
And wash this filthy witness § from your hand.
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there :-Go, carry them; and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.

Macb.

I'll go no more;

I am afraid to think what I have done;

Look on't again I dare not.

Lady M.

Infirm of purpose!

Give me the daggers: the sleeping and the dead
Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood
That fears a painted devil. If he do bleed,
I'll gild the faces of the grooms withal,

For it must seem their guilt.

Macb.

[Exit. Knocking within.

Whence is that knocking?

How is't with me, when every noise appals me?

What hands are here? Ha! they pluck out mine eyes!
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood

=

་་

"

* An old impersonal verb, meaning it seemed to me.'
+ Sleave sleave-silk or floss-silk. A.S. slifan, to split.
Glamis and Cawdor were two of Macbeth's titles.
§ Evidence.

Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnardine,*

Making the green one red.

Re-enter Lady MACBETH.

Lady M. My hands are of your colour; but I shame

To wear a heart so white. [Knocking within.] I hear a knocking At the south entry :-retire we to our chamber :

A little water clears us of this deed:

How easy is it, then! Your constancy +

Hath left you unattended. [Knocking within.] Hark! more knocking : Get on your nightgown, lest occasion call

us,

And show us to be watchers: -Be not lost

So poorly in your thoughts.§

Macb. To know my deed, 't were best not know myself,||

[Knocking within. Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst ! [Exeunt.

JOHN MILTON: 1608-1674.
Four Sonnets.

An Epitaph on the admirable Dramatic Poet W. Shakespear (1630).
See p. 140. The following are among the finest sonnets in our language.
WHAT needs my Shakespear for his honour'd bones,

The labour of an age in piled stones,

Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid

Under a star-ypointing ¶ pyramid?

Dear son of memory; great heir of fame,

What ** need'st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment

Hast built thyself a livelong monument:

For whilst to the shame of slow-endeavouring art
Thy easy numbers flow; and that each heart

* Make the myriad seas red.

People awake and up. A.S. waecce,

+ Firmness.

§ Be not so cowardly amazed.

If I must look my deed in the face, I had better lose consciousness altogether,

¶ A grammatical mistake; the y (A,S. and German ge, O.E. i) was the prefix of

the past participle,

** Why.

K

Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued * book
Those Delphic+ lines with deep impression took ;
Then thou our fancy of itself bereaving,

Dost make us marble with too much conceiving ;‡
And so sepulchred in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

On his Blindness (1652).

WHEN I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent § which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide.
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”

I fondly ask but Patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need

Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best : his state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,

And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

To the Lord General Cromwell (May 16, 1652). On the Proposals of certain Ministers of the Committee for the Propagation of the Gospel.

CROMWELL, our chief of men, who through a cloud

Not of war only, but detractions rude,

Guided by Faith and matchless Fortitude,

To Peace and Truth thy glorious way has ploughed,

And on the neck of crownèd Fortune proud

*Invaluable. The p.p. was often so used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

+ Oracular. At Delphi was the most famous oracle of Greece.

Freezest us into marble by thy deep insight into life and crime.

§ See Matthew xxv.

The one talent is here his mind.

Hast rear'd God's trophies, and his work pursued ;
While Darwen * stream with blood of Scots imbrued,
And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud,

And Worcester's laureat wreath. Yet much remains
To conquer still; Peace hath her victories
No less renown'd than War; new foes arise,
Threat'ning to bind our souls with secular chains :
Help us to save free Conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves,† whose gospel is their maw.

To Cyriack Skinner,‡ upon his Blindness (1655?).

CYRIACK, this three-years-day these eyes, though clear
To outward view of blemish or of spot,
Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot;
Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear
Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year;
Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not

Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate one jot
Of heart or hope; but still bear up, and steer

Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask?
-The conscience,§ friend, to have lost them overplied

In Liberty's defence,|| my noble task,

Of which all Europe rings from side to side.

This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask,
Content, though blind, I had no better guide.

* Small tributary of the Ribble, near Preston.

+ The Presbyterians.

A grandson of Chief Justice Coke.

§ Consciousness.

|| Milton lost his remaining eye over his controversy with Salmasius, or Saumase,

in which he defended the English people for executing their king.

ALFRED TENNYSON: 1809

Morte d'Arthur.

Alfred Tennyson was born at Somerby Vicarage, Lincolnshire, and succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate in 1851. A perfect writer of pure English verse, the polish and melody of which is become a proverb. Not grand after the pattern of Milton, not vigorous after the pattern of Shelley, but one in whose pure lofty heart the sad unrest of this generation, and its expectation of still greater wonders, have woven round them words of exquisite beauty, songs of the tenderest pathos. In the plain nobility of purity, culture, and refinement, he is our modern Spenser. Like Spenser, he too has sought his chiefest inspiration in the romantic chivalry of the past, and has set his words to music whose masterful simple beauty is unsurpassed. Of all his poems on the legend of King Arthur, by far the finest is the following. It describes the “passing away" of the king.

So all day long the noise of battle roll'd
Among the mountains by the winter sea;
Until King Arthur's table, man by man,
Had fall'n in Lyonness about their lord,

King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep,
The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,

Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,
And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,
A broken chancel with a broken cross,
That stood on a dark strait of barren land.
On one side lay the ocean, and on one
Lay a great water, and the moon was full.

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere :
"The sequel of to-day unsolders all
The goodliest fellowship of famous knights
Whereof this world holds record.

Such a sleep

They sleep-the men I loved. I think that we
Shali never more, at any future time,

Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,
Walking about the gardens and the halls
Of Camelot, as in the days that were.
I perish by this people which I made,—.
Tho' Merlin sware that I should come again
To rule once more-but let what will be, be;
I am so deeply smitten thro' the helm
That without help I cannot last till morn.