The Tell-Tale Rocker

[Terrance]

Now is the winter of our discontent
    Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
    And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house
    In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
    Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
    Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
    Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
    Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
    Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;
    And now, instead of mounting barded steeds
    To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
    He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
    To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
    But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
    Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
    I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
    To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
    I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
    Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
    Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
    Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
    And that so lamely and unfashionable
    That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
    Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
    Have no delight to pass away the time,
    Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
    And descant on mine own deformity:
    And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
    To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
    I am determined to prove a villain
    And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
    Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
    By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,
    To set my brother Clarence and the king
    In deadly hate the one against the other:
    And if King Edward be as true and just
    As I am subtle, false and treacherous,
    This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,
    About a prophecy, which says that 'G'
    Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.
    Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here
    Clarence comes.

Pointsman has a dog named GLOUCESTER. 



Paul Mackin wrote:
> 
> Richard Duke of York exemplifies Poe's human compulsion toward death and
> destruction. (HenryVI, part 3)
> 
> Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.
> I have no brother, I am like no brother;
> And this word "love", which greybeards call divine,
> Be resident in men like one another
> And not in me: I am myself alone.
> Clarence, beware: you keep me from the light.
> But I will sort a pitchy day for thee;
> For I shall buzz abroad such prophecies
> That Edward shall be fearful of his life,
> And then, to purge his fear, I'll be thy death.
> King Henry and the Prince his son are gone.
> Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest,
> Counting myself but bad till I be best.
> 
>         P.