The Hollow Crown

King Richard:
Let's talk of graves, of worms and epitaphs. Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. Let's choose executors and talk of wills. And yet not so. For what can we bequeath , save our deposed bodies to the ground? Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's. And nothing can we call our own but death. And that small model of the barren earth wich serves as paste and cover to our bones. For god's sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings. How some have been deposed; some slain in war; Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed; Some poisoned by their wives; some sleeping killed All murdered. For within the hollow crown that rounds the mortal temples of a king. Keeps death his court. And there the antic sits, scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp Allowing him a breath, a little scene, to monarchise Be deared and kill with looks Infusing with self and vain conceit, As if this flesh wich walls about out life, Were brass impregnable. And humoured thus, comes at the last And, with a little pin, bores through his castle wall and, Farewell, King!