A Choice of Shakespeare's Verse by Ted Hughes

Author:Ted Hughes [Ted Hughes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571262250
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2011-08-09T16:00:00+00:00

153

Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law

My services are bound. Wherefore should I

Stand in the plague of custom, and permit

The curiosity of nations to deprive me,

For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines

Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?

When my dimensions are as well compact,

My mind as generous, and my shape as true,

As honest madam’s issue? Why brand they us

With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?

Who in the lusty stealth of nature take

More composition and fierce quality

Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,

Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,

Got ’tween asleep and wake? Well then,

Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:

Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund

As to the legitimate. Fine word, ‘legitimate!’

Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,

And my invention thrive, Edmund the base

Shall top the legitimate: – I grow, I prosper;

Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

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