Classic Poem

CATESBY : Rescue, my Lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!
The king enacts more wonders than a man,
Daring an opposite to every danger:
His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,
Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.
Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost!
KING RICHARD : A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!
CATESBY : Withdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse.
KING RICHARD : Slave, I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die.
I think there be six Richmonds in the field;
Five have I slain to-day instead of him.
A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!

RICHMOND : God and your arms be praised, victorious friends!
The day is ours; the bloody dog is dead.
DERBY : Courageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee.
Lo, here, this long usurped royalty
From the dead temples of this bloody wretch
Have I pluck'd off, to grace thy brows withal;
Wear it, enjoy it, and make much of it.
RICHMOND : O now, let Richmond and Elizabeth,
The true succeeders of each royal house,
By God's fair ordinance conjoin together;
And let their heirs, (God, if thy will be so,)
Enrich the time to come with smooth-faced peace,
With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days;
Now civil wounds are stopp'd, peace lives again:
That she may long live here, God say—Amen.