Voices from the Past Part 99

Papa is was.h.i.+ng his face. There's fruit. There's sleep.

There's tomorrow. There's kindness. There's forgetfulness.

Best to cover him.

I'll cover him. There, that blanket may keep him from s.h.i.+vering. His mother's sick too. I'll rub his hands and arms. Water, Papa, give him some. There!

"Papa, you get some rest, while I stay with Slade.

You'd better go home and turn in. You didn't sleep much last night. Things are better now. No. I'm not hungry.

I'll eat later."

I'll sit with you, boy, and we'll deny harsh fortune.

Did you ever see a play, boy? The play's the thing: it takes you out of yourself. Listen...I'll recite some lines for you...

Farewell! a long farewell, to all this...

This is the state of man: today he puts forth

The tender leaves of hope; tomorrow blossoms,

And bears his blus.h.i.+ng honors thick upon him;

The third day comes a frost, a killing frost;

And, when he thinks, good easy man, fully surely

His greatness is a ripening, nips his root,

And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured,

Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders

This many summers in a sea...

Farewell, he's dead.

Papa, you and I have lost him. He'll never race across the fields or pack his creel or kiss a girl on the bridge. The plague has killed him.

Was it you who wanted a new cap?

Now you'll have a cap of dirt.

I throw my heart against the flint of time. O sun, burn your great spheres... I importune death a while. The pa.s.sing of so small a thing should make a crack at least.

Stained with his own blood...

Grey yelping dogs chase a coach through London fog:

Fog drips from coach lamps, from trees, iron railings.

Someone in the fog screams and

a cloaked figure stabs Ellen

as she gets into her coach.

Ellen's cloak, blood, fog,

Shakespeare's anguished face.

Henley Street