Page:Henry V (1918) Yale.djvu/115

Henry the Fifth, V. Chorus

The dead with charity enclos'd in clay.

And then to Calais; and to England then,

Where ne'er from France arriv'd more happy men.

Exeunt.

 

Vouchsafe to those that have not read the story,

That I may prompt them: and of such as have,

I humbly pray them to admit the excuse

Of time, of numbers, and due course of things,

Which cannot in their huge and proper life

Be here presented. Now we bear the king

Toward Calais: grant him there; there seen,

Heave him away upon your winged thoughts

Athwart the sea. Behold, the English beach

Pales in the flood with men, with wives, and boys,

Whose shouts and claps out-voice the deep-mouth'd sea,

Which, like a mighty whiffler 'fore the king,

Seems to prepare his way: so let him land

And solemnly see him set on to London.

So swift a pace hath thought that even now

You may imagine him upon Blackheath;

Where that his lords desire him to have borne

His bruised helmet and his bended sword

Before him through the city: he forbids it,

Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride;

Giving full trophy, signal and ostent,

Quite from himself, to God. But now behold,

In the quick forge and working-house of thought,

 7 grant: imagine

10 Pales in: encompasses

12 whiffler: officer who went at the head of a procession

21 signal: symbols of victory

ostent: triumphal show 