The Life and Death of Brian the First

From IT IS HIGH commenter, John M

From “The Life and Death of Brian the First,” Act I
by Wee Willie Shakespeare

CASHCHESTER:
Someday will the winter of our discontent
Be made glorious summer by the sun of N’ York;
And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house
In the deep bosom of the East River buried.

Then will our Yanks be bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised bullpen arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to winning warbles,
Our dreadful marches to OBP walks.

Grim-visaged Bud willst smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And then, instead of mounting barbed suits
To fright the souls of fearful A-versaries,
He’ll caper nimbly in a nurse’s home
To the lascivious pleasing of a ’lude.

I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous super-model;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want a Series’ majesty
To strut before a wanton stalking nymph;

I, that am curtail’d of Jeet’s fair proportion,
Cheated of winning by my owners’ nature,
Defanged, unfund'd, sent before my time
Into this offseason, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and un-Cashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;

Why, I, in this weak spending time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descent on mine own rappellery:

And therefore, since I cannot craft a winner,
To entertain these cold well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a bozo
And curse the idle pleasures of these days.

Hags have I laid, inductions dangerous,
And drunken prophecized, libeled and schem’d,
To set Hal’s brother Henry and the king
In deadly hate the one against the other:

And if King Harold be as true and just
As I am subtle, false and treacherous,
This month should Harold closely be mew'd up,
About a prophecy, which says that 'Hank'
Of Harold’s tribe the murderer shall be.
Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here
Harold comes.