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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=538706" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>King Canute</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">KING CANUTE was weary hearted; he had reigned for years a score,<br>Battling, struggling, pushing, fighting, killing much and robbing more;<br>And he thought upon his actions, walking by the wild sea-shore.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Twixt the Chancellor and Bishop walked the King with steps sedate,<br>Chamberlains and grooms came after, silversticks and goldsticks great,<br>Chaplains, aides-de-camp, and pages,—all the officers of state.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sliding after like his shadow, pausing when he chose to pause,<br>If a frown his face contracted, straight the courtiers dropped their jaws;<br>If to laugh the king was minded, out they burst in loud hee-haws.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But that day a something vexed him, that was clear to old and young:<br>Thrice his Grace had yawned at table, when his favorite gleemen sung,<br>Once the Queen would have consoled him, but he bade her hold her tongue.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Something ails my gracious master,' cried the Keeper of the Seal.<br>'Sure, my lord, it is the lampreys served to dinner, or the veal?'<br>'Psha!' exclaimed the angry monarch, 'Keeper, 'tis not that I feel.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">''Tis the HEART, and not the dinner, fool, that doth my rest impair:<br>Can a king be great as I am, prithee, and yet know no care?<br>Oh, I'm sick, and tired, and weary.'—Some one cried, 'The King's arm-chair!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then towards the lackeys turning, quick my Lord the Keeper nodded,<br>Straight the King's great chair was brought him, by two footmen able-bodied;<br>Languidly he sank into it: it was comfortably wadded.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Leading on my fierce companions,' cried he, 'over storm and brine,<br>I have fought and I have conquered! Where was glory like to mine?'<br>Loudly all the courtiers echoed: 'Where is glory like to thine?'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'What avail me all my kingdoms? Weary am I now and old;<br>Those fair sons I have begotten, long to see me dead and cold;<br>Would I were, and quiet buried, underneath the silent mould!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Oh, remorse, the writhing serpent! at my bosom tears and bites;<br>Horrid, horrid things I look on, though I put out all the lights;<br>Ghosts of ghastly recollections troop about my bed at nights.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Cities burning, convents blazing, red with sacrilegious fires;<br>Mothers weeping, virgins screaming vainly for their slaughtered sires.—'<br>Such a tender conscience,' cries the Bishop, 'every one admires.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'But for such unpleasant bygones, cease, my gracious lord, to search,<br>They're forgotten and forgiven by our Holy Mother Church;<br>Never, never does she leave her benefactors in the lurch.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Look! the land is crowned with minsters, which your Grace's bounty raised;<br>Abbeys filled with holy men, where you and Heaven are daily praised:<br>YOU, my lord, to think of dying? on my conscience I'm amazed!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Nay, I feel,' replied King Canute, 'that my end is drawing near.'<br>'Don't say so,' exclaimed the courtiers (striving each to squeeze a tear).<br>'Sure your Grace is strong and lusty, and may live this fifty year.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Live these fifty years!' the Bishop roared, with actions made to suit.<br>'Are you mad, my good Lord Keeper, thus to speak of King Canute!<br>Men have lived a thousand years, and sure his Majesty will do't.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Adam, Enoch, Lamech, Cainan, Mahaleel, Methusela,<br>Lived nine hundred years apiece, and mayn't the King as well as they?'<br>'Fervently,' exclaimed the Keeper, 'fervently I trust he may.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'HE to die?' resumed the Bishop. He a mortal like to US?<br>Death was not for him intended, though communis omnibus:<br>Keeper, you are irreligious, for to talk and cavil thus.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'With his wondrous skill in healing ne'er a doctor can compete,<br>Loathsome lepers, if he touch them, start up clean upon their feet;<br>Surely he could raise the dead up, did his Highness think it meet.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Did not once the Jewish captain stay the sun upon the hill,<br>And, the while he slew the foemen, bid the silver moon stand still?<br>So, no doubt, could gracious Canute, if it were his sacred will.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Might I stay the sun above us, good sir Bishop?' Canute cried;<br>'Could I bid the silver moon to pause upon her heavenly ride?<br>If the moon obeys my orders, sure I can command the tide.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Will the advancing waves obey me, Bishop, if I make the sign?'<br>Said the Bishop, bowing lowly, 'Land and sea, my lord, are thine.'<br>Canute turned towards the ocean—'Back!' he said, 'thou foaming brine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'From the sacred shore I stand on, I command thee to retreat;<br>Venture not, thou stormy rebel, to approach thy master's seat:<br>Ocean, be thou still! I bid thee come not nearer to my feet!'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But the sullen ocean answered with a louder, deeper roar,<br>And the rapid waves drew nearer, falling sounding on the shore;<br>Back the Keeper and the Bishop, back the king and courtiers bore.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And he sternly bade them never more to kneel to human clay,<br>But alone to praise and worship That which earth and seas obey:<br>And his golden crown of empire never wore he from that day.<br>King Canute is dead and gone: Parasites exist alway.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Makepeace+Thackeray">William Makepeace Thackeray</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=538706" data-title="King Canute de William Makepeace Thackeray" data-description="KING CANUTE was weary hearted; he had reigned for years a score,
Battling, struggling, pushing, fighting, killing much and robbing more;
And he thought upon his actions, walking by the wild sea-shore.

'Twixt the Chancellor and Bishop walked the K..."></div>
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