Yorick's Skull
Clown — this same scull, Sir, was Yorick's scull, the King's jester.
Hamlet — (taking the scull) This?
Clown — E'en that.
Hamlet— Alas! poor Yorick! * * * *
* * * Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her let her paint an inch thick, to this' favour she must come; make her laugh at that.
--Shakespeare
It is a most humiliating thought,
That man, who deems himself the lord of all,
(Alas ! why doth he thus himself miscal?)
Must one day turn to nought, or worse than nought;
Despite of all his glory, he must fall
Like a frail leaf in autumn ; and his power
Weighs lighter than his breath in his last hour;
And then earth's lord is fragile as a flower.—
This is a lesson for thee, Pride!—thy book
Should be the charnel; into it once look,
And when thou'st read it, feed upon the thought,
The most humiliating thought, that thine
And thou shall be unto this favour one day brought—
Behold! this is the "human face divine!"
April, 1827.