Part 33 (2/2)
MISTRESS FATE
”Faint heart never won fair lady,” Mistress Fate herself should be courted, not with feminine finesse, but with masculine courage and aggression.
Flout her power, young man!
She is merely shrewish, scolding,-- She is plastic to your molding, She is woman in her yielding to the fires desires fan.
Flout her power, young man!
Fight her fair, strong man!
Such a serpent love is this,-- Bitter wormwood in her kiss!
When she strikes, be nerved and ready; Keep your gaze both bright and steady, Chance no rapier-play, but hotly press the quarrel she began!
Fight her fair, strong man!
Gaze her down, old man!
Now no laughter may defy her, Not a shaft of scorn come nigh her, But she waits within the shadows, in dark shadows very near.
And her silence is your fear.
Meet her world-old eyes of warning! Gaze them down with courage! _Can You gaze them down, old man?_
_William Rose Benet._
From ”Merchants from Cathay.”
SLEEP AND THE MONARCH
(FROM ”2 HENRY IV.”)
The great elemental blessings cannot be ”cornered.” Indeed they cannot be bought at all, but are the natural property of the man whose ways of life are such as to retain them. In this pa.s.sage a disappointed and hara.s.sed king comments on the slumber which he cannot woo to his couch, yet which his humblest subject enjoys.
How many thousand of my poorest subjects Are at this hour asleep! O sleep! O gentle sleep!
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee, That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs, Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee, And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber, Than in the perfumed chambers of the great, Under the canopies of costly state, And lulled with sound of sweetest melody?
O thou dull G.o.d! why liest thou with the vile In loathsome beds, and leav'st the kingly couch A watch-case or a common 'larum bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast Seal up the s.h.i.+p-boy's eyes, and rock his brains In cradle of the rude imperious surge, And in the visitation of the winds, Who take the ruffian billows by the top, Curling their monstrous heads, and hanging them With deafning clamor in the slippery clouds, That with the hurly death itself awakes?
Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude, And in the calmest and most stillest night, With all appliances and means to boot, Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
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