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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 | |
| As modest stillness, and humility: | |
| But when the blast of war blows in our ears, | 5 |
| Then imitate the action of the tiger; | |
| Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, | |
| Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage: | |
| Then lend the eye a terrible aspéct; | |
| Let it pry through the portage of the head, | 10 |
| Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it, | |
| As fearfully as doth a galléd rock | |
| O’erhang and jutty his confounded base, | |
| Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean. | |
| Now set the teeth, and stretch the nostril wide; | 15 |
| 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! | |
| Fathers, that, like so many Alexanders, | |
| Have, in these parts, from morn till even fought, | 20 |
| 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! | |
| Be copy now to men of grosser blood, | |
| And teach them how to war!—And you, good yeomen, | 25 |
| 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; | |
| For there is none of you so mean and base, | |
| That hath not noble lustre in your eyes. | 30 |
| I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, | |
| Straining upon the start. The game ’s afoot; | |
| Follow your spirit: and, upon this charge, | |
| Cry, God for Harry! England! and Saint George! | |
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