Explore "Feigned Courage" by Charles Lamb on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Horatio, of ideal courage vain, / Was flourishing in air his father's cane, / And, as the fumes of valour swell'd his pate, / Now thought himself _this_ hero, and now _that_: / "And now," he cried, "I will Achilles be; / My sword I brandish; see, the Trojans flee! / Now I'll be Hector, when his angry blade / A lane through heaps of slaughter'd Grecians made! / And now my deeds, still, braver I'll evince, / I am no less than Edward the Black Prince.
Give way, ye coward French! " As thus he spoke, / And aim'd in fancy a sufficient stroke / To fix the fate of Crecy or Poictiers / (The Muse relates the Hero's fate with tears), / He struck his milk-white hand against a nail, / Sees his own blood, and feels his courage fail.
Ah! where is now that boasted valour flown, / That in the tented field so late was shown? / Achilles weeps, great Hector hangs his head, / And the Black Prince goes whimpering to bed.