Go forth, for it is there!'
_Kipling._
NOTES
I
This descant upon one of the most glorious feats of arms that
even England has achieved is selected and pieced together from
the magnificent verse assigned to the Chorus--'_Enter RUMOUR
painted full of tongues_'--to _King Henry V._, the noble piece of
pageantry produced in 1598, and a famous number from the _Poems
Lyrick and Pastorall_ (_circ._ 1605) of Michael Drayton. 'Look,'
says Ben Jonson, in his _Vision on the Muses of his Friend,
Michael Drayton_:--
Look how we read the Spartans were inflamed
With bold Tyrtaeus' verse; when thou art named
So shall our English youths urge on, and cry
An AGINCOURT! an AGINCOURT! or die.
This, it is true, was in respect of another _Agincourt_, but
we need not hesitate to appropriate it to our own: in respect
of which--'To the Cambro-Britons and their Harp, His _Ballad
of Agincourt_,' is the poet's own description--it is to note
that Drayton had no model for it; that it remains wellnigh
unique in English letters for over two hundred years; and that,
despite such lapses into doggerel as the third stanza, and some
curious infelicities of diction which need not here be specified,
it remains, with a certain Sonnet, its author's chief title
to fame.
Pages:
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272