King Henry the Fifth

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1. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
2. Or close the wall up with our English dead.
3. In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
4. As modest stillness and humility;
5. But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
6. Then imitate the action of the tiger;
7. Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood,
8. Disguise fair nature with hard-favor’d rage;
9. Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
10. Let it pry through the portage of the head
11. Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
12. As fearfully as doth a galled rock
13. O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
14. Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.
15. Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
16. Hold hard the breath, and bend up every spirit
17. To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,
18. Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
19. Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
20. Have in these parts from morn till even fought,
21. And sheath’d their swords for lack of argument.
22. Dishonor not your mothers; now attest
23. That those whom you call’d fathers did beget you.
24. Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
25. And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,
26. Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
27. The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
28. That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not;
29. For there is none of you so mean and base
30. That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
31. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
32. Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot!
33. Follow your spirit; and upon this charge
34. Cry, “God for Harry, England, and Saint George!”