Once More Unto the Breach

¹Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; or close the wall up with our English dead.

²In peace there's nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility:

³But when the blast of war blows in our ears, then imitate the action of the tiger;

⁴Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;

⁵Then lend the eye a terrible aspect; let it pry through the portage of the head like the brass cannon;

⁶let the brow o'erwhelm it as fearfully as doth a galled rock o'erhang and jutty his confounded base, swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.

⁷Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit to his full height.

⁸On, on, you noblest English, whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof! Fathers that, like so many Alexanders, have in these parts from morn till even fought and sheathed their swords for lack of argument.

⁹Dishonour not your mothers; now attest that those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.

¹⁰Be copy now to men of grosser blood, and teach them how to war.

¹¹And you, good yeoman, whose limbs were made in England, show us here the mettle of your pasture; let us swear that you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;

¹²For there is none of you so mean and base, that hath not noble lustre in your eyes. I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start. The game's afoot:

¹³Follow your spirit, and upon this charge cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'