Читать книгу A Satire Anthology - Wells Carolyn - Страница 13

MY liege, I did deny no prisoners;

But I remember, when the fight was done,

When I was dry with rage and extreme toil,

Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,

Came there a certain lord, neat, trimly dress’d,

Fresh as a bridegroom; and his chin, new reap’d,

Show’d like a stubble-land at harvest-home.

He was perfuméd like a milliner,

And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he held

A pouncet-box, which ever and anon

He gave his nose and took ’t away again;

Who, therewith angry, when it next came there,

Took it in snuff: and still he smil’d and talk’d,

And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,

He call’d them untaught knaves, unmannerly,

To bring a slovenly, unhandsome corse

Betwixt the wind and his nobility.

With many holiday and lady terms

He question’d me; among the rest, demanded

My prisoners in your Majesty’s behalf.

I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,

To be so pester’d with a popinjay,

Out of my grief and my impatience,

Answer’d neglectingly I know not what,

He should, or he should not; for he made me mad

To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,

And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman

Of guns and drums and wounds – God save the mark! —

And telling me the sovereign’st thing on earth

Was parmaceti for an inward bruise;

And that it was great pity, so it was,

This villainous saltpetre should be digg’d

Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,

Which many a good tall fellow had destroy’d

So cowardly; and but for these vile guns,

He would himself have been a soldier.

This bald, unjointed chat of his, my lord,

I answer’d indirectly, as I said;

And I beseech you, let not this report

Come current for an accusation

Betwixt my love and your high Majesty.