University of Virginia Library

What scrap is this, you thrust upon me now?
Some grievance-bill; I'm sick of seeing such.
What can these burghers always want with me?
I am weary of petitions, yet they pour.
This is a brave word, liberty, indeed;
And now-a-days each lean and mongrel whelp
Littered about these streets chimes in his voice
For liberty. I loathe the letters' sound.
How dare you bring this in at tiring time,
Fretting my soul? This chain is dull as brass,
Lean down, you caitiff, lacquer up the gold;
Rub for your life, rub. There's another stone
Flawed in the centre droplet, where it shows,
Cracked like a nut; why, man, it was a gem,
An amethyst as clear as a girl's eye.
And you must crash my chain about like sacks
Of Kathern pears; there are no servants, none,
As I remember service, in these days;
A new time pestilent; each clown must ride,
And nobles trudge behind him in the dirt—
Lay out my murrey-coloured velvet suit;
How you detain me fumbling; knave and fool,
Don't ruffle back the pile of Genoa's looms
With your rank sweating fingers the wrong way.
Do you suppose I wear a wild cat's fur
For your amusement? You must play these tricks,
With only half-an-hour to banquet time;
And when I rail, stand helpless, gibbering there,
As it a nobleman could tire himself
Like a field scare-crow against time and grain,
You'd have me round my shoulders toss a sack,
And give my hair one shake, and make an end,
And so stride in among the grey-green eyes,
And dainty hands, and little perfumed arms,
And white smooth laughing kittens at their play;
Dear hearts, I think they call it love-making,
A purr begins it and a scratching ends,
Or each succeeds alternate; bless them all:
You, with these darlings waiting, prove a snail,
Your careless hands would send me to the feast
Much as a diver from the castle moat,
Slimed in disorder. You've the mind, it seems,
And leisure to disgrace me. Try, my knave.
You that are born upon my liberties,
And I've the right of gibbet on my lands,
At least my fathers had it; that's the same;
If time is able to filch lawful rights
Away from any man without his leave,
Then let time void the ducats from my pouch,
When I refuse to spend them. Have then heed;
And now this gentle rabble, that I own,
Have bribed you here, my thrall, to bring me in
A string of rank seditions on a rag
Of calfskin, at the very time and hour,
You know, it chiefly sets me out of gear
To find thus rudely thrust beneath my nose
The wrongs of carrion butchers, the sweet sighs
Of carters, longing after equal laws.
To push these in, of all the hours of the day,
To vex me here half-dressed, is shameless deed.
Consider only, certain moments hence
The banquet summons finds me, pest of heaven!
With my mind ruffled, half my clothes awry;
I'm sent among the damsels at the board,
With a sour taste of serfdom in my mouth;
I am put from my whole amenity;
My pleasing power and courteous manner lost;
For such light sunny ways will not beam out,
Unless I can forget, ignore, abolish,
The sweating boors penned in their styes below.

Man, man, is this a time for wrong and right?
The doublet bulges, the ruff hangs awry,
Limp as the wool of some damp whether's fleece.
The feast is ready—they are going down,—
I hear Count Edmund, coxcomb, on the stairs—
You loiter, varlet, and I'm late; your deed;
You thrust your charters when I ought to dress;
Charters indeed. I, that have known it long,
Have never seen this precious burgh of mine
Save on the eve of starving thro' my dues,
At least their song has run so all these years.
And yet they are fed enough to roar out loud,
“Behold, we starve!”—My ruffles; that's the left,
You idiot—And they breed too, breed like rats;
So much the better for my toll per head.
They will not starve; I'd like to see it done.
They can cheat hunger in a hundred ways;
They rob my saw-pits clean of bran for bread;
There never were such greedy knaves as these.
They clear my outer court of nettles next;
They boil them, so I'm told, I hope they sting.
Well, I shall not complain, it saves the scythe,
And we great lords must wink and let ourselves
Be pilfered by the small fry halter-ripe.
It is the doom and meed of noble blood,
To be a prey to clowns; and God, He knows,
I am not one of those who grudge the poor.
And so my kindness fills them full of corn,
And rains this plague down in petitions thus.
I am soft-hearted, they presume on this—
And I will singe clean out your fishy eyes
With white-hot tongs, unless you make that cloak
Fall smoother on the carriage of my sword.
Why, you lean hound, whom mange will soon destroy,
And save your hanging, where's the scabbard brace?
See, you have made it stick right out behind,
Like Satan's sister's broom-stick. And the cooks
Are at it dishing up. You fumble there,
As if the precious minutes stood like sheep,
And you'd the day to lie upon the grass
And count the crows. There, that goes better—Come,
I'll glance on this petition—What is here?
“That our starvation is no idle tale,
Of his own seeing our liege lord must know;
Since his own noble and peculiar pack,
In tufted sedges at the mort o' th' deer,
Lately unearthed a lean white woman dead—
Confound the knaves; and granting this were so,
This is a delicate and savoury thing
Just before dinner to remind me of.
This shall spoil all I meant to do for them;
How dare they? Why this same wan rigid face,
Must thrust itself upon my grounds and die,
And sicken several pretty damsels found,
And spoil the hunting of a score of lords;
And damp the show. No wonder; I myself
Felt rather squeamish half a dial's turn,
And found strong waters needful to reset
The impassive mettle of high breeding's ways.
And then my Kate, who'll laugh a lawyer dumb,
Was all that evening dull as a town clock;
And later on—here catch this trash—a word
More and I clap a double impost on,
And make them starve in earnest. Tell them so,
Sir thief, my varlet, their ambassador—
Enough of this, why drivel we on these?
Get, for Saint Job's sake, forward with my beard.
You push this trivial business in my jowl,
And make me dawdle over urgent cares,
And tice me to peruse, while your rough hands
Will turn me out a Scythian for the feast,
In barbarous disorder. Is that all?
My ring and gloves;—Count Edmund, there he goes;
How that fool brags about his pedigree.
His veins must run pure ichor, ours mere blood.
I'd gladly try my rapier on his ribs,
And bleed him much as any plough-boy bleeds.
How can a man speak any such vain words?—
I hear him swinging down the corridor,
With all his plumage and bedizened hide
As clean as a cobswan's—trust him for that—
He has no thought above his skin and gloves,
Or at what angle his trim beard should grow:
Despatch, thou slave; complete me, or indeed
He'll be before me with the duchess yet.