Our silence is our
reverence
for the king!
Tennyson
God help me! I know nothing--can but pray
For Harold--pray, pray, pray--no help but prayer,
A breath that fleets beyond this iron world,
And touches Him that made it.
ACT IV.
SCENE I. --IN NORTHUMBRIA.
ARCHBISHOP ALDRED, MORCAR, EDWIN, _and_ FORCES. _Enter_ HAROLD.
_The standard of the golden Dragon of Wessex preceding him_.
HAROLD. What! are thy people sullen from defeat?
Our Wessex dragon flies beyond the Humber,
No voice to greet it.
EDWIN. Let not our great king
Believe us sullen--only shamed to the quick
Before the king--as having been so bruised
By Harold, king of Norway; but our help
Is Harold, king of England. Pardon us, thou!
Our silence is our reverence for the king!
HAROLD. Earl of the Mercians! if the truth be gall,
Cram me not thou with honey, when our good hive
Needs every sting to save it.
VOICES. Aldwyth! Aldwyth!
HAROLD. Why cry thy people on thy sister's name?
MORCAR. She hath won upon our people thro' her beauty,
And pleasantness among them.
VOICES. Aldwyth, Aldwyth!
HAROLD. They shout as they would have her for a queen.
MORCAR.
