Of him descends a Prince, stout, just, and sage
(In all things happy, but in him, his son),
In whom wise Nature did herself engage,
More than in man, in Edward to have done;
Whose happy reign recurred the former rage,
By the large bounds he to his empire won:
"O God," quoth he, "had he my pattern been, Heaven had not poured these plagues upon my sin!"
Turning the leaf, he found at unawares
What day young Edward, Prince of Wales, was born;
Which letters looked like conjuring characters,
Or to despite him they were set in scorn,
Blotting the paper like disfiguring scars:
"O, let that name," quoth he, "from books be torn,
Lest in that place the sad displeased earth
Doth loathe itself, as slandered with my birth.
"Be thence hereafter human birth exiled,
Sunk to a lake, or swallowed by the sea;
And future ages, asking for that child,
Say 'twas abortive, or 'twas stolen away;
And lest, O Time, thou be therewith defiled,
In thy unnumbered hours devour that day:
Let all be done that power can bring to pass,
To make forgot that such a one there was.'
The troubled tears then standing in his eyes,
Through which he did upon the letters look,
Made them to seem like roundlets that arise
By a stone cast into a standing brook,
Appearing to him in such various wise,
And at one time such sundry fashions took,
As like deluding goblins did affright,
And with their foul shapes terrify his sight.
And on his deathbed sits him down at last,
His fainting spirits foreshowing danger nigh,
When the doors forth a fearful howling cast,
To let those in by whom he was to die;
At whose approach, whilst there he lay aghast,
Those ruthless villains did upon him fly:
Who, seeing none to whom to call for aid,
Thus to these cruel regicides he said:
"O be not authors of so vile an act,
My blood on your posterity to bring,
Which after-time with horror shall distract,
When fame shall tell it how you killed a King;
And yet more, by the manner of the fact,
Mortality so much astonishing,
That they should count their wickedness scarce sin,
Compared to that which done by you hath been.
"And since you deadly hate me, let me live;
Yea, this advantage angry Heaven hath left,
Which, except life, hath ta'en what it did give;
But that revenge should not from you be reft,
Me yet with greater misery to grieve,
Hath still reserved this from its former theft ;
That this, which might of all these plagues prevent
Were I deprived it, lasteth to torment me."
Thus spake this woful and distresséd lord,
As yet his breath found passage to and fro,
With many a short pant, many a broken word,
Many a sore groan, many a grievous throe,
Whilst him his spirit could any strength afford
To his last gasp, to move them with his woe;
Till overmastered by their too much strength,
His sickly heart submitted at the length.
When 'twixt two beds they closed his wearied corse,
Basely uncovering his most secret part,
And without human pity or remorse,
With a hot spit they thrust him to the heart.
O that my pen had in it but that force
To express the pain! but that surpasseth art;
And that the soul must even with trembling do,
For words want weight, nor can they reach thereto.
When those (i' th' depth and dead time of the night)
Poor simple people, that then dwelléd near,
Whom that strange noise did wondrously affright,
That his last shriek did in his parting hear,
As pitying that most miserable wight,
(Betwixt compassion and obedient fear)
Turned up their eyes, with heaviness opprest,
Praying to Heaven to give the soul good rest.
Berkeley, whose fair seat hath been famous long, Let thy sad echoes shriek a deadly sound, To the vast air complain his grievous wrong, And keep the blood that issued from his wound, The tears that dropped from his dead eyes among, In their black footsteps printed on the ground, Thereby that all the ages that succeed May call to mind the foulness of their deed.
Let thy large buildings still retain his groans,
His sad complaints by learning to repeat,
And let the dull walls and the senseless stones
By the impression of his torment sweat,
And for not able to express his moans,
Therefore with pain and agony replete,
That all may thither come that shall be told it,
As in a mirror clearly to behold it.
And let the Genius of that woful place
Become the guide to his more frightful ghost,
With hair dishevelled and a ghastly face,
And haunt the prison where his life was lost,
And as the den of horror and disgrace,
Let it be fearful over all the coast;
That those hereafter that do travel near
Never may view it but with heavy cheer.
Lord Mortimer made Earl of March, how he
And the bright Queen rule all things by their might;
The state wherein at Nottingham they be,
The cost wherewith their pompous Court is dight,
Envied by those their hateful pride that see:
The King attempts the dreadful cave by night,
Entering the Castle, taketh him from thence,
And March at London dies for his offence.
Now, whilst of sundry accidents we sing, Some of much sadness, others of delight, In our conceit strange objects fashioning; We our free numbers tenderly invite Somewhat to slack this melancholy string: For we too soon of death come to indite, When things of moment in the course we hold Fall in their order fitly to be told.
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