The third Part of Henry the Sixt
Page: 28

O Phoebus! had'st thou neuer giuen consent,
That Phæton should checke thy fiery Steeds,
Thy burning Carre neuer had scorch'd the earth.
And Henry, had'st thou sway'd as Kings should do,
Or as thy Father, and his Father did,
Giuing no ground vnto the house of Yorke,
They neuer then had sprung like Sommer Flyes:
I, and ten thousand in this lucklesse Realme,
Had left no mourning Widdowes for our death,
And thou this day, had'st kept thy Chaire in peace.
For what doth cherrish Weeds, but gentle ayre?
And what makes Robbers bold, but too much lenity?
Bootlesse are Plaints, and Curelesse are my Wounds:
No way to flye, no strength to hold out flight:
The Foe is mercilesse, and will not pitty:
For at their hands I haue deseru'd no pitty.
The ayre hath got into my deadly Wounds,
And much effuse of blood, doth make me faint:
Come Yorke, and Richard, Warwicke, and the rest,
I stab'd your Fathers bosomes; Split my brest.

Alarum & Retreat. Enter Edward, Warwicke, Richard, and
Soldiers, Montague,
& Clarence.

Ed. Now breath we Lords, good fortune bids vs pause,
And smooth the frownes of War, with peacefull lookes:
Some Troopes pursue the bloody-minded Queene,
That led calme Henry, though he were a King,
As doth a Saile, fill'd with a fretting Gust
Command an Argosie to stemme the Waues.
But thinke you (Lords) that Clifford fled with them?
War. No, 'tis impossible he should escape:
(For though before his face I speake the words)
Your Brother Richard markt him for the Graue.
And wheresoere he is, hee's surely dead.

Clifford grones

Rich. Whose soule is that which takes hir heauy leaue?
A deadly grone, like life and deaths departing.
See who it is

Ed. And now the Battailes ended,
If Friend or Foe, let him be gently vsed

Rich. Reuoke that doome of mercy, for 'tis Clifford,
Who not contented that he lopp'd the Branch
In hewing Rutland, when his leaues put forth,
But set his murth'ring knife vnto the Roote,
From whence that tender spray did sweetly spring,
I meane our Princely Father, Duke of Yorke

War. From off the gates of Yorke, fetch down y head,
Your Fathers head, which Clifford placed there: