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Created May 15, 2020 20:10
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This is a little assignment I had to write in high school my senior year.
I had recently received a speeding ticket if I remember correctly.
By the way, Mr. Welsh was the teacher who through some quirk of fate was in charge of detentions.
This is ironic because he was a pretty nice guy and not a good disciplinarian.
“To speed or not to speed – that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The agony of a detention with Mr. Welsh
Or to disregard the law and drive 70 mph
Down the highway, risking a speeding ticket. To live, to fly-
No More-and by flying to say we end the
Detentions and the thousand natural tardies that
The o’ersleeper is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To live, to fly-
To fly- perchance to be caught: ay, there’s the rub,
For when we fly down the road, what enemies may lie ahead
Unseen to clock our speed and give a fine,
Must give us pause. Ther’s the respect
That makes calamity of not hearing the alarm that morning.
For who would bear the tickets and fines of the police,
The feeling of cowardice, the countless lectures from parents,
The pangs of a grounding, the law’s punishment,
The insolence of a policeman, the feeling you get when
Ten impatient cars pass you when you’re driving the limit.
To sit and obey the laws of the road,
But that the dread of facing the judge again,
The unhappy sound of the gavel after the sentence is passed,
It frightens the will, and makes us bear the tardiness we have
Than fly down the highway, to our fate we know not.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native lust for speed
Is sickled o’er with the thought of reason,
And of great fear of the consequences awaiting us
And with the regard their foot is raised off the accelerator
And lose the desire to speed.”
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