No More Learning

Father, we so loved--

ALDRED. The more the love, the mightier is the prayer;
The more the love, the more acceptable
The sacrifice of both your loves to heaven.
No sacrifice to heaven, no help from heaven;
That runs thro' all the faiths of all the world.
And sacrifice there must be, for the king
Is holy, and hath talk'd with God, and seen
A shadowing horror; there are signs in heaven--

HAROLD. Your comet came and went.

ALDRED. And signs on earth!
Knowest thou Senlac hill?

HAROLD. I know all Sussex;
A good entrenchment for a perilous hour!

ALDRED. Pray God that come not suddenly! There is one
Who passing by that hill three nights ago--
He shook so that he scarce could out with it--
Heard, heard--

HAROLD. The wind in his hair?

ALDRED.
A ghostly horn
Blowing continually, and faint battle-hymns,
And cries, and clashes, and the groans of men;
And dreadful shadows strove upon the hill,
And dreadful lights crept up from out the marsh--
Corpse-candles gliding over nameless graves--

HAROLD. At Senlac?

ALDRED. Senlac.

EDWARD (_waking_).
Senlac! Sanguelac,
The Lake of Blood!

STIGAND. This lightning before death
Plays on the word,--and Normanizes too!

HAROLD. Hush, father, hush!

EDWARD. Thou uncanonical fool,
Wilt _thou_ play with the thunder? North and South
Thunder together, showers of blood are blown
Before a never-ending blast, and hiss
Against the blaze they cannot quench--a lake,
A sea of blood--we are drown'd in blood--for God
Has fill'd the quiver, and Death has drawn the bow--
Sanguelac! Sanguelac! the arrow!