Poet's corner No. 25

It is late last night the dog was speaking of you;

the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh.

It is you are the lonely bird through the woods;

and that you may be without a mate until you find me.

You promised me, and you said a lie to me,

that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked;

I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you,

and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb.

You promised me a thing that was hard for you,

a ship of gold under a silver mast;

twelve towns with a market in all of them,

and a fine white court by the side of the sea.

You promised me a thing that is not possible,

that you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish;

that you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird;

and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland.

When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness,

I sit down and I go through my trouble;

when I see the world and do not see my boy,

he that has an amber shade in his hair.

It was on that Sunday I gave my love to you;

the Sunday that is last before Easter Sunday

and myself on my knees reading the Passion;

and my two eyes giving love to you for ever.

My mother has said to me not to be talking with you today,

or tomorrow, or on the Sunday;

it was a bad time she took for telling me that;

it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.

My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe,

or as the black coal that is on the smith's forge;

or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls;

it was you put that darkness over my life.

You have taken the east from me, you have taken the west from me;

you have taken what is before me and what is behind me;

you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me;

and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!

Donald Og

Lady Augusta Gregory

There is absolutely no reason to get up in the mornings any more

"While I was shaving, I heard her talking on the phone. When I came out of the bathroom, Pinky had her overcoat on, her face was made up, and she wore her glasses. She said, " i want to kiss you". Then she walked out. In front of the door there were two bottles of milk and two newspapers. The letters on the top paper were unusually fat: 

WAR IN EUROPE OVER. 

There is absolutely no reason to get up in the mornings any more."

Robert Capa

Slightly out of focus

Poet's corner No. 23

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Dylan Thomas

Poet's corner No. 22

O what can ail thee, knight at arms,

Alone and palely loitering?

The sedge has wither'd from the lake,

And no birds sing.

O What can ail thee, knight at arms,

So haggard and so woe-begone?

The squirrel's granary is full,

And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow

With anguish moist and fever dew,

And on thy cheeks a fading rose

Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,

Full beautiful, a fairy's child;

Her hair was long, her foot was light,

And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;

She look'd at me as she did love,

And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,

And nothing else saw all day long,

For sidelong would she bend, and sing

A fairy's song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,

And honey wild, and manna dew,

And sure in language strange she said—

I love thee true.

She took me to her elfin grot,

And there she wept, and sigh'd full sore,

And there I shut her wild wild eyes

With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep,

And there I dream'd—Ah! woe betide!

The latest dream I ever dream'd

On the cold hill's side.

I saw pale kings, and princes too,

Pale warriors, death pale were they all;

They cried—"La belle dame sans merci

Hath thee in thrall!"

I saw their starv'd lips in the gloam

With horrid warning gaped wide,

And I awoke and found me here

On the cold hill's side.

And this is why I sojourn here,

Alone and palely loitering,

Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,

And no birds sing.

John Keats

La Belle Dame Sans Merci 

Happy Birthday John.

A gambler

"If at this point my son should interrupt me, and ask, 'What is the difference between the war correspondent and any other man in uniform?' I would say that the war correspondent gets more drinks, more girls, better pay, and greater freedom than the soldier, but at this stage of the game, having the freedom to choose his spot and being allowed to be a coward and not be executed for it is his torture. The war correspondent has his stake - his life - in his own hands, and he can put it on this horse or that horse, or he can put it back in his pocket at the very last minute. I am a gambler. I decided to go in with Company E in the first wave."

Slightly out of focus: Robert Capa died today, May 25 1954.

Poet's Corner No.19

"All thoughts, all passions, all delights,

Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

All are but ministers of Love,

         And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I

Live o'er again that happy hour,

When midway on the mount I lay,

         Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene

Had blended with the lights of eve;

And she was there, my hope, my joy,

         My own dear Genevieve!

She leant against the arm{'e}d man,

The statue of the arm{'e}d knight;

She stood and listened to my lay,

         Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,

My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!

She loves me best, whene'er I sing

         The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,

I sang an old and moving story—

An old rude song, that suited well

         That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes and modest grace;

For well she knew, I could not choose

         But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore

Upon his shield a burning brand;

And that for ten long years he wooed

         The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!

The deep, the low, the pleading tone

With which I sang another's love,

         Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes, and modest grace;

And she forgave me, that I gazed

         Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,

And that he crossed the mountain-woods,

         Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,

And sometimes from the darksome shade,

And sometimes starting up at once

         In green and sunny glade,—

There came and looked him in the face

An angel beautiful and bright;

And that he knew it was a Fiend,

         This miserable Knight!

And that unknowing what he did,

He leaped amid a murderous band,

And saved from outrage worse than death

         The Lady of the Land!

And how she wept, and clasped his knees;

And how she tended him in vain—

And ever strove to expiate

         The scorn that crazed his brain;—

And that she nursed him in a cave;

And how his madness went away,

When on the yellow forest-leaves

         A dying man he lay;—

His dying words—but when I reached

That tenderest strain of all the ditty,

My faltering voice and pausing harp

         Disturbed her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense

Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;

The music and the doleful tale,

         The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,

An undistinguishable throng,

And gentle wishes long subdued,

         Subdued and cherished long!

She wept with pity and delight,

She blushed with love, and virgin-shame;

And like the murmur of a dream,

         I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved—she stepped aside,

As conscious of my look she stepped—

Then suddenly, with timorous eye

         She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,

She pressed me with a meek embrace;

And bending back her head, looked up,

         And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly love, and partly fear,

And partly 'twas a bashful art,

That I might rather feel, than see,

         The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm,

And told her love with virgin pride;

And so I won my Genevieve,

         My bright and beauteous Bride."

Love

 Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Poet's Corner No.18

"In Belmont is a lady richly left;

And she is fair, and, fairer than that word,

Of wondrous virtues: sometimes from her eyes

I did receive fair speechless messages:

Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued

To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia:

Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth,

For the four winds blow in from every coast

Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks

Hang on her temples like a golden fleece;

Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand,

And many Jasons come in quest of her.

O my Antonio, had I but the means

To hold a rival place with one of them,

I have a mind presages me such thrift,

That I should questionless be fortunate!"

William Shakespeare
The Merchant of Venice, Act 1, Scene 1 

Because Hamlet means the World to me

To be, or not to be--that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep--

No more--and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep--

To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause. There's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life.

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th' oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th' unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprise of great pitch and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry

And lose the name of action. 

Happy Birthday Sir Kenneth.

Because Hamlet means the World to me and I owe you so much.

My dear Watson

"I moved my head to look at the cabinet behind me. When I turned again, Sherlock Holmes was standing smiling at me across my study table. I rose to my feet, stared at him for some seconds in utter amazement, and then it appears that I must have fainted for the first and the last time in my life. Certainly a gray mist swirled before my eyes, and when it cleared I found my collar-ends undone and the tingling after-taste of brandy upon my lips. Holmes was bending over my chair, his flask in his hand. "My dear Watson," said the well-remembered voice, "I owe you a thousand apologies. I had no idea that you would be so affected." I gripped him by the arms. "Holmes!" I cried. "Is it really you? Can it indeed be that you are alive? Is it possible that you succeeded in climbing out of that awful abyss?"

"Wait a moment," said he. "Are you sure that you are really fit to discuss things? I have given you a serious shock by my unnecessarily dramatic reappearance."

"I am all right, but indeed, Holmes, I can hardly believe my eyes. Good heavens! to think that you -- you of all men -- should be standing in my study." Again I gripped him by the sleeve, and felt the thin, sinewy arm beneath it. "Well, you're not a spirit anyhow," said I. "My dear chap, I'm overjoyed to see you. Sit down, and tell me how you came alive out of that dreadful chasm."

He sat opposite to me, and lit a cigarette in his old, nonchalant manner.[...] Holmes looked even thinner and keener than of old, but there was a dead-white tinge in his aquiline face which told me that his life recently had not been a healthy one."

Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventure of The Empty House

Make sense of things that don't even make sense

"My father died at 9-11. After he died I wouldn't go into his room for a year because it was too hard and it made me want to cry. But one day, I put on heavy boots and went in his room anyway. I miss doing taekwondo with him because it always made me laugh. When I went into his closet, where his clothes and stuff were, I reached up to get his old camera. It spun around and dropped about a hundred stairs, and I broke a blue vase! Inside was a key in an envelope with black written on it and I knew that dad left something somewhere for me that the key opened and I had to find. So I take it to Walt, the locksmith. I give it to Stan, the doorman, who tells me keys can open anything. He gave me the phone book for all the five boroughs. I count there are 472 people with the last name black. There are 216 addresses. Some of the blacks live together, obviously. I calculated that if I go to 2 every Saturday plus holidays, minus my hamlet school plays, my minerals, coins, and comic convention, it's going to take me 3 years to go through all of them. But that's what I'm going to do! Go to every single person named black and find out what the key fits and see what dad needed me to find. I made the very best possible plan but using the last four digits of each phone number, I divide the people by zones. I had to tell my mother another lie, because she wouldn't understand how I need to go out and find what the key fits and help me make sense of things that don't even make sense like him being killed in the building by people that didn't even know him at all! And I see some people who don't speak English, who are hiding, one black said that she spoke to God. If she spoke to god how come she didn't tell him not to kill her son or not to let people fly planes into buildings and maybe she spoke to a different god than them!"

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young British Man

Hallo!Hoe gaat het? Come avrete capito dall'intro scrupolosamente copia-incollato dal mio traduttore olandese di fiducia, anche quest'anno siamo in partenza per il continente e saranno proprio i canali della splendida Amsterdam ad accoglierci: se i miei calcoli sono esatti, faccio bene ad aspettarmi meravigliositudine in abbondanza ad ogni angolo.

Dato che si tratta anche e soprattutto della patria dei miei amatissimi Rembrandt, Van Gogh e Vermeer, mentre mi preparo psicologicamente ad annegare nelle meraviglie realizzate da questi artisti straordinari nonchè presenze intoccabili nell'hit parade dei pittori più amati di sempre della sottoscritta, non potevo non salutarvi con alcune clip e immagini delle loro incarnazioni sul grande e piccolo schermo prestate con tutti gli onori da un impeccabile trio di british gentleman: i cari Holmes e Watson Benedict Cumberbatch e Martin Freeman, rispettivamente Vincent Van Gogh nel documentario BBC Van Gogh Painted With Words e Rembrandt nell'estenuante Nightwatching di Peter Greenaway, e ovviamente sua Maestà Colin Firth, fascinoso Johannes Vermeer in Girl with a Pearl Earring di Peter Webber.

Vi lascio quindi in buona compagnia, dandovi appuntamento alla prossima settimana con nuove recensioni e si spera sempre sempre sempre più cinema e serie tv...Tot ziens!

The story can resume

"Dearest Cecilia, the story can resume. The one I had been planning on that evening walk. I can become again the man who once crossed the surrey park at dusk, in my best suit, swaggering on the promise of life. The man who, with the clarity of passion, made love to you in the library. The story can resume. I will return. Find you, love you, marry you and live without shame."

A great English Landowner

"Tietjens had walked in the sunlight down the lines, past the hut with the evergreen climbing rose, in the sunlight, thinking in an interval, good-humouredly about his official religion: about the Almighty as, on a colossal scale, a great English Landowner, benevolently awful, a colossal duke who never left his study and was thus invisible, but knowing all about the estate down to the last hind at the home farm and the last oak; Christ, an almost too benevolent Land-Steward, son of the Owner, knowing all about the estate down to the last child at the porter’s lodge, apt to be got round by the more detrimental tenants; the Third Person of the Trinity, the spirit of the estate, the Game as it were, as distinct from the players of the game; the atmosphere of the estate, that of the interior of Winchester Cathedral just after a Handel anthem has been finished, a perpetual Sunday, with, probably, a little cricket for the young men. Like Yorkshire on a Saturday afternoon; if you looked down on the whole broad country you would not see a single village green without its white flannels. That was why Yorkshire always led the averages… Probably by the time you got to heaven you would be so worn out by work on this planet that you would accept the English Sunday, for ever, with extreme relief!

With his belief that all that was good in English literature ended with the seventeenth century, his imaginations of heaven must be materialist – like Bunyan’s. He laughed good-humouredly at his projection of a hereafter. It was probably done with. Along with cricket. There would be no more parades of that sort. Probably they would play some beastly yelping game… Like baseball or Association football… And heaven?… Oh it would be a revival meeting on a Welsh hillside. Or Chatauqua, wherever that was… And God? A Real Estate Agent, with Marxist views… He hoped to be out of it before the cessation of the hostilities, in which case he might be just in time for the last train to the old heaven. . ."

Ford Madox Ford

No More Parades

Parade's End

He must. He must!

"Now he must take me in his arms. He must. He must!’ The deepest of her instincts came to the surface, from beneath layers of thought hardly known to her. She could feel his arms round her: she had in her nostrils the peculiar scent of his hair—like the scent of the skin of an apple, but very faint. ‘You must! You must!’ she said to herself. There came back to her overpoweringly the memory of their drive together and the moment, the overwhelming moment, when, climbing out of the white fog into the blinding air, she had felt the impulse of his whole body towards her and the impulse of her whole body towards him. A sudden lapse: like the momentary dream when you fall…She saw the white disk of the sun over the silver mist and behind them was the long, warm night..."

Ford Madox Ford

Parade's End

The structure of the novel is, indeed, very difficult to follow(a nightmare!), but I think I'm deeply in love with it anyway.

Peculiarly English

"It has been remarked that the peculiarly English habit of self-suppression in matters of the emotion puts the Englishman at a great disadvantage in moments of unusual stresses. In the smaller matters of the general run of life he will be impeccable and not to be moved; but in sudden confrontations of anything but physical dangers he is apt—he is, indeed, almost certain—to go to pieces very badly.

This, at least, was the view of Christopher Tietjens, and he very much dreaded his interview with Lord Port Scatho—because he feared that he must be near breaking point.

In electing to be peculiarly English in habits and in as much of his temperament as he could control—for, though no man can choose the land of his birth or his ancestry, he can, if he have industry and determination, so watch over himself as materially to modify his automatic habits—Tietjens had quite advisedly and of set purpose adopted a habit of behaviour that he considered to be the best in the world for the normal life. If every day and all day long you chatter at high pitch and with the logic and lucidity of the Frenchman; if you shout in self-assertion, with your hat on your stomach, bowing from a stiff spine and by implication threaten all day long to shoot your interlocutor, like the Prussian; if you are as lachrymally emotional as the Italian, or as drily and epigrammatically imbecile over inessentials as the American, you will have a noisy, troublesome and thoughtless society without any of the surface calm that should distinguish the atmosphere of men when they are together. You will never have deep arm-chairs in which to sit for hours in clubs, thinking of nothing at all—or of the off-theory in bowling. On the other hand, in the face of death—except at sea, by fire, railway accident, or accidental drowning in rivers; in the face of madness, passion, dishonour or—and particularly—prolonged mental strain, you will have all the disadvantages of the beginner at any game and may come off very badly indeed. Fortunately death, love, public dishonour and the like are rare occurrences in the life of the average man, so that the great advantage would seem to have lain with English society; at any rate before the later months of the year 1914. Death for man came but once: the danger of death so seldom as to be practically negligible: love of a distracting kind was a disease merely of the weak: public dishonour for persons of position, so great was the hushing-up power of the ruling class and the power of absorption of the remoter Colonies, was practically unknown.

Tietjens found himself now faced by all these things, coming upon him cumulatively and rather suddenly, and he had before him an interview that might cover them all and with a man whom he much respected and very much desired not to hurt."

Ford Madox Ford, Parade's End

Mr Ford, just being very Austenesque at the beginning of a chapter.

Here's a Valentine

"They had just run into a bank of solid fog that seemed to encounter them with a soft, ubiquitous blow. It was blinding; it was deadening to sounds; it was in a sense mournful; but it was happy, too, in its romantic unusualness. They couldn't see the gleam of the lamps; they could hardly hear the step of the horse; the horse had fallen at once to a walk. They agreed that neither of them could be responsible for losing the way; in the circumstances that was impossible. Fortunately the horse would take them somewhere; it had belonged to a local higgler: a man that used the roads buying poultry for re-sale...They agreed that they had no responsibilities; and after that went on for unmeasured hours in silence; the mist growing, but very, very gradually, more luminous...Once or twice, at a rise in the road, they saw again the stars and the moon, but mistily. On the fourth occasion they had emerged into the silver lake; like mermen rising to the surface of a tropical sea...

Tietjens had said:

'You'd better get down and take the lamp. See if you can find a milestone; I'd get down myself, but you might not be able to hold the horse...' She had plunged in...

And he had sat, feeling, he didn't know why, like a Guy Fawkes; up in the light, thinking by no means disagreeable thoughts--intent, like Miss Wannop herself, on a complete holiday of forty-eight hours; [...]

He was to have, above all, a holiday from himself and to take it like other men, free of his conventions, his strait waistcoatings...

The girl said:

'I'm coming up now! I've found out something...' He watched intently the place where she must appear; it would give him pointers about the impenetrability of mist to the eye.

Her otter-skin cap had beads of dew; beads of dew were on her hair beneath: she scrambled up, a little awkwardly: her eyes sparkled with fun: panting a little: her cheeks bright. Her hair was darkened by the wetness of the mist, but she appeared golden in the sudden moonlight.

Before she was quite up, Tietjens almost kissed her. Almost. An all but irresistible impulse!"

Parade's End,

Ford Madox Ford

I'm sorry, I'm reading Parade's End and Little Miss Wannop is the only Valentine I can give you today. Anyway, Have a great Valentine's Day!

A very Sherlock Christmas

 

 

A very Sherlock Christmas to all of you. 

And a Happy New Year!

Bewitched

"You must know, surely you must know, it was all for you. You are too generous to trifle with me. I believe you spoke with my aunt last night, and it has taught me to hope as I'd scarcely allowed myself before. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes have not changed, but one word from you will silence me forever. If, however, your feelings have changed, I would have to tell you: you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love... I love... I love you. And I never wish to be parted from you from this day on." (Pride & Prejudice, Joe Wright)

Happy Birthday Jane

16/12/1775

My angel, my all...my other self

"My angel, my all...my other self. Just a few words today, and that in pencil. Yours. Only tomorrow will I know for certain where I am to stay...a worthless waste of time and such. Why this deep sorrow? If we could be united, we would feel this pain no longer. Where I am, you are with me too. Soon we shall live together, and what a life it will be!

The journey was dreadful. I did not arrive here until 4 in the morning. At the last stop, they told me not to travel at night and tried to frighten me about a forest...but that only tempted me The coach had to break down on such a terrible road for no reason. Just a country road. And now I am held up completely. But I have found another, and we will surely see one another soon. Today, I hope. I have to see you.

However much you love me, I love you more. Never hide yourself from me.

While still in my bed, my thoughts turn to you...my Immortal Beloved. Some of them happy, some sad...waiting to see whether fate will hear us. I can live only completely with you or not at all. Yes, it must be.

I must go to sleep now. Be calm, love. Today, yesterday,what longing with tears for you. You...You're my life, my everything.

Farewell, then. Go on loving me. Ever yours, ever mine, forever."

Happy Saint Crispin's Day!

WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here 

    But one ten thousand of those men in England 

    That do no work to-day! 

  

KING. What's he that wishes so? 

    My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin; 

    If we are mark'd to die, we are enow 

    To do our country loss; and if to live, 

    The fewer men, the greater share of honour. 

    God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. 

    By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, 

    Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; 

    It yearns me not if men my garments wear; 

    Such outward things dwell not in my desires. 

    But if it be a sin to covet honour, 

    I am the most offending soul alive. 

    No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England. 

    God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour 

    As one man more methinks would share from me 

    For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more! 

    Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, 

    That he which hath no stomach to this fight, 

    Let him depart; his passport shall be made, 

    And crowns for convoy put into his purse; 

    We would not die in that man's company 

    That fears his fellowship to die with us. 

    This day is call'd the feast of Crispian. 

    He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, 

    Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd, 

    And rouse him at the name of Crispian. 

    He that shall live this day, and see old age, 

    Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, 

    And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.' 

    Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, 

    And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.' 

    Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, 

    But he'll remember, with advantages, 

    What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, 

    Familiar in his mouth as household words- 

    Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, 

    Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester- 

    Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red. 

    This story shall the good man teach his son; 

    And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, 

    From this day to the ending of the world, 

    But we in it shall be remembered- 

    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; 

    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me 

    Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, 

    This day shall gentle his condition; 

    And gentlemen in England now-a-bed 

    Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, 

    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks 

    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

 Agincourt, 25 October 1415

Happy Saint Crispin's Day!