Would ye be
Norsemen?
Tennyson
They have been plotting here!
[_Aside_.
VOICE. He calls us little!
HAROLD. The kingdoms of this world began with little,
A hill, a fort, a city--that reach'd a hand
Down to the field beneath it, 'Be thou mine,
Then to the next, 'Thou also! ' If the field
Cried out 'I am mine own;' another hill
Or fort, or city, took it, and the first
Fell, and the next became an Empire.
VOICE. Yet
Thou art but a West Saxon: _we_ are Danes!
HAROLD. My mother is a Dane, and I am English;
There is a pleasant fable in old books,
Ye take a stick, and break it; bind a score
All in one faggot, snap it over knee,
Ye cannot.
VOICE. Hear King Harold! he says true!
HAROLD.
Would ye be Norsemen?
VOICES. No!
HAROLD. Or Norman?
VOICES. No!
HAROLD. Snap not the faggot-band then.
VOICE. That is true!
VOICE. Ay, but thou art not kingly, only grandson
To Wulfnoth, a poor cow-herd.
HAROLD. This old Wulfnoth
Would take me on his knees and tell me tales
Of Alfred and of Athelstan the Great
Who drove you Danes; and yet he held that Dane,
Jute, Angle, Saxon, were or should be all
One England, for this cow-herd, like my father,
Who shook the Norman scoundrels off the throne,
Had in him kingly thoughts--a king of men,
Not made but born, like the great king of all,
A light among the oxen.
VOICE.
VOICE. He calls us little!
HAROLD. The kingdoms of this world began with little,
A hill, a fort, a city--that reach'd a hand
Down to the field beneath it, 'Be thou mine,
Then to the next, 'Thou also! ' If the field
Cried out 'I am mine own;' another hill
Or fort, or city, took it, and the first
Fell, and the next became an Empire.
VOICE. Yet
Thou art but a West Saxon: _we_ are Danes!
HAROLD. My mother is a Dane, and I am English;
There is a pleasant fable in old books,
Ye take a stick, and break it; bind a score
All in one faggot, snap it over knee,
Ye cannot.
VOICE. Hear King Harold! he says true!
HAROLD.
Would ye be Norsemen?
VOICES. No!
HAROLD. Or Norman?
VOICES. No!
HAROLD. Snap not the faggot-band then.
VOICE. That is true!
VOICE. Ay, but thou art not kingly, only grandson
To Wulfnoth, a poor cow-herd.
HAROLD. This old Wulfnoth
Would take me on his knees and tell me tales
Of Alfred and of Athelstan the Great
Who drove you Danes; and yet he held that Dane,
Jute, Angle, Saxon, were or should be all
One England, for this cow-herd, like my father,
Who shook the Norman scoundrels off the throne,
Had in him kingly thoughts--a king of men,
Not made but born, like the great king of all,
A light among the oxen.
VOICE.
