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Oh, give me men of excess,
round, rude men full of ale
& crumbs, Dry Sack & wine,
who would spoil the even tenor
of a country dinner, spouting
jokes, singing bawdy songs.
Wings of angels in the voice
but the voice sings of fornication
& appetite, the happy passages
giving over to the slightest
temptation of the belly or the groin.
Such men are made for natural
sport & are the best
audience for a prince
awaiting the cares of state
& power, the indistinct
vapors of intrigue, the ominous
schemes, the machinations of the court.
Oh, give me men who would teach
a prince how to be young
& careless, not like a king
in anythinguntil the load
of duty rests on the unkind,
youthful shoulders & the new-made
king will make him dance
a mortal dance for good
this corpulent clown whose crime
is to have shown the fault
& bribery of flesh, the suck
of living utterly for meat,
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solely for the rioting
& falling down, in the hours
when the parishioners lie abed,
dreaming of night,
dreaming of wandering in pools
of dark, reeling with pleasures.
Oh, here is this shaken creation,
Falstaff shivering the last,
unable to believe it even
as it happens
a man who liked life instant
by instant & lived solely
for laughter & failure.
The one in whose rough,
ruddy face our faces show,
so much more
closely similar to that coarse mask
than to the visage of a king.
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Richard Bauschs books include
Hello to the Cannibals, In the Night Season, and The Last Good Time.
He is the recipient of the Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Award
and the Award in Literature from
the American Academy of Arts
and Letters. He lives with his
wife, Karen, and their five children
in rural Virginia.
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