Fair Em eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 46 pages of information about Fair Em.

Fair Em eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 46 pages of information about Fair Em.

Marques
Let William but bethink what may avail,
And let me die if I deny my aide.

William
Then thus:  The Duke Dirot, and Therle Dimarch,
Will I leave substitutes to rule my Realm,
While mighty love forbids my being here;
And in the name of Sir Robert of Windsor
Will go with thee unto the Danish Court. 
Keep Williams secrets, Marques, if thou love him. 
Bright Blaunch, I come!  Sweet fortune, favour me,
And I will laud thy name eternally.

[Exeunt.]

SCENE II.

Manchester.  The Interior of a Mill.

[Enter the Miller and Em, his daughter.]

Miller
Come, daughter, we must learn to shake of pomp,
To leave the state that earst beseemd a Knight
And gentleman of no mean discent,
To undertake this homelie millers trade: 
Thus must we mask to save our wretched lives,
Threatned by Conquest of this hapless Yle,
Whose sad invasions by the Conqueror
Have made a number such as we subject
Their gentle necks unto their stubborn yoke
Of drudging labour and base peasantry. 
Sir Thomas Godard now old Goddard is,
Goddard the miller of fair Manchester. 
Why should not I content me with this state,
As good Sir Edmund Trofferd did the flaile? 
And thou, sweet Em, must stoop to high estate
To join with mine that thus we may protect
Our harmless lives, which, led in greater port,
Would be an envious object to our foes,
That seek to root all Britains Gentry
From bearing countenance against their tyranny.

Em
Good Father, let my full resolved thoughts
With settled patiens to support this chance
Be some poor comfort to your aged soul;
For therein rests the height of my estate,
That you are pleased with this dejection,
And that all toils my hands may undertake
May serve to work your worthiness content.

Miller
Thanks, my dear Daughter. 
These thy pleasant words
Transfer my soul into a second heaven: 
And in thy settled mind my joys consist,
My state revived, and I in former plight. 
Although our outward pomp be thus abased,
And thralde to drudging, stayless of the world,
Let us retain those honorable minds
That lately governed our superior state,
Wherein true gentry is the only mean
That makes us differ from base millers borne. 
Though we expect no knightly delicates,
Nor thirst in soul for former soverainty,
Yet may our minds as highly scorn to stoop
To base desires of vulgars worldliness,
As if we were in our precedent way. 
And, lovely daughter, since thy youthful years
Must needs admit as young affections,
And that sweet love unpartial perceives
Her dainty subjects through every part,
In chief receive these lessons from my lips,
The true discovers of a Virgins due,

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Fair Em from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.