Explore "The King's Diamond" by Helen Gray Cone on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
_This diamond he greets your wife withal / By the name of most kind hostess._ / MACBETH, Act II. Sc. I.
Duncan the King, -- Heaven rest his bier! -- / Had a diamond icy-clear; / Clear as ice and fierce as flame, -- / I wot not whence he had the same. / Its fellow was not in the land. / It shot keen shafts of every hue / On the old king's trembling hand / Where the veins were large and blue. / A jewel of price was that indeed, / Fit to buy a prince's life; / A royal gift for the lady wife / Of a kinsman bold and true / Who had served the king at need. / Who was he, but the Red Macbeth / That wrought the false Macdonwald's death, / And drave the sea-wolf in dismay, / Sweyn the king of Norroway? / Being guest to that great thane, / Ere his limbs on couch had lain, / Duncan sent that frozen flame / To Lady Gruach, the gracious dame. / (Clear as ice was the lady's fame, / A flawless jewel indeed! )