Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (89 page)

Prospero’s ‘Such Stuff as Dreams are Made on’ Speech (The Tempest)

Act VI. Scene I
.

Pro.
 
You do look, my son, in a mov’d sort,
As if you were dismay’d: be cheerful, sir:
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
  
160
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
  
165
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. — Sir, I am vex’d:
  
170
Bear with my weakness; my old brain is troubled.
Be not disturb’d with my infirmity.
If you be pleas’d, retire into my cell
And there repose: a turn or two I’ll walk,
To still my beating mind.
  
175

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Henry V’s ‘Once More unto the Breach’ Speech

Act III. Scene I
.

France.
 
Before Harfleur.

Alarums.
 
Enter
KING HENRY, EXETER, BEDFORD, GLOUCESTER,
and
Soldiers,
with scaling ladders.

K. Hen.
 
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
  
5
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
  
10
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let it pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
  
15
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
To his full height! On, on, you noblest English!
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof;
  
20
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
And sheath’d their swords for lack of argument.
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call’d fathers did beget you.
  
25
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
  
30
For there is none of you so mean and base
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit; and, upon this charge
  
35
Cry ‘God for Harry! England and Saint George!’
 

[
Exeunt.
 
Alarum, and chambers go off.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Macbeth’s ‘To-morrow’ Speech

Act V. Scene V
.

Macb.
 
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
  
25
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
  
30
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Anthony’s ‘Let Slip the Dogs of War’ Speech (Julius Caesar)

Act III. Scene I
.

Ant.
 
O! pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers;
  
280
Thou art the ruins of the noblest man
That ever lived in the tide of times.
Woe to the hand that shed this costly blood;
Over thy wounds now do I prophesy,
Which like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips,
  
285
To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue,
A curse shall light upon the limbs of men;
Domestic fury and fierce civil strife
Shall cumber all the parts of Italy;
Blood and destruction shall be so in use,
  
290
And dreadful objects so familiar,
That mothers shall but smile when they behold
Their infants quarter’d with the hands of war;
All pity chok’d with custom of fell deeds:
And Cæsar’s spirit, ranging for revenge,
  
295
With Ate by his side come hot from hell,
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice
Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war;
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.
  
300

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Famous Description of Cleopatra on the Barge (Anthony and Cleopatra)

Act II. Scene II
.

Eno.
 
I will tell you.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish’d throne,
Burn’d on the water; the poop was beaten gold,
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
  
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The winds were love-sick with them, the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar’d all description; she did lie
  
230
In her pavilion, — cloth-of-gold of tissue, —
O’er-picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature; on each side her
Stood pretty-dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour’d fans, whose wind did seem
  
235
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.

Agr.
       
O! rare for Antony.

Eno.
 
Her gentlewomen, like the Nereides,
So many mermaids, tended her i’ the eyes,
  
240
And made their bends adornings; at the helm
A seeming mermaid steers; the silken tackle
Swell with the touches of those flower-soft hands,
That yarely frame the office. From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
  
245
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her, and Antony,
Enthron’d i’ the market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too
  
250
And made a gap in nature.

Agr.
       
Rare Egyptian!

Eno.
 
Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,
Invited her to supper; she replied
It should be better he became her guest,
  
255
Which she entreated. Our courteous Antony,
Whom ne’er the word of ‘No’ woman heard speak,
Being barber’d ten times o’er, goes to the feast,
And, for his ordinary pays his heart
For what his eyes eat only.
  
260

Agr.
       
Royal wench!
She made great Cæsar lay his sword to bed;
He plough’d her, and she cropp’d.

Eno.
       
I saw her once
Hop forty paces through the public street;
  
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And having lost her breath, she spoke, and panted
That she did make defect perfection,
And, breathless, power breathe forth.

Mec.
 
Now Antony must leave her utterly.

Eno.
 
Never; he will not:
  
270
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety; other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies; for vilest things
Become themselves in her, that the holy priests
  
275
Bless her when she is riggish.

Mec.
 
If beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle
The heart of Antony, Octavia is
A blessed lottery to him.

Agr.
       
Let us go.
  
280
Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest
Whilst you abide here.

Eno.
       
Humbly, sir, I thank you.
 
[
Exeunt.

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order

Edmund’s ‘Now Gods Stand Up for Bastards’ Speech (King Lear)

Act I. Scene II
.

A Hall in the
EARL OF GLOUCESTER’S
Castle.

Enter
EDMUND,
with a letter.

Edm.
 
Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
  
5
The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
  
10
As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who in the lusty stealth of nature take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
  
15
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got ‘tween asleep and wake? Well then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate. Fine word, ‘legitimate!’
  
20
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate: — I grow, I prosper;
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

List of Poems in Alphabetical Order

List of Poets in Alphabetical Order