Friends, Malaysians, countrymen, lend me your ears
I come to bury Liberty, not to praise Liberty.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Liberty. The noble Prime Minister
Hath told you Liberty was menacing
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Liberty answered it.
Here, under leave of the Prime Minister and the rest —
For the Prime Minister is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men —
Come I to speak in Liberty’s funeral.
Liberty was my friend, faithful and just to me
But the Prime Minister says Liberty was a menace;
And the Prime Minister is an honorable man.
He hath brought many captives home,
Whose shackle did Liberty breaks
Did this in Liberty seem menacing?
When that the shackled had cried, Liberty hath wept.
Menace should be made of sterner stuff
Yet the Prime Minister says Liberty was menacing;
And the Prime Minister is an honorable man.
You all did see that before
When the Prime Minister was slumbering,
Liberty saved us: was this menacing?
Yet the Prime Minister says Liberty was menacing;
And, sure, the Prime Minister is an honorable man.
I speak not to disprove what the Prime Minister spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love Liberty once, not without cause
What cause withholds you then to mourn for Liberty?
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason! Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Liberty,
And I must pause till my heart comes back to me.
p/s — surely, whose lines improvised, is clear for attribution. Else pick up those leaves, and turn them religiously.
