No More Learning

'I would they were cut off
That trouble you. ' Let the dead letter live!
Trace it in fire, that all the louts to whom
Their A B C is darkness, clowns and grooms
May read it! so you quash rebellion too,
For heretic and traitor are all one:
Two vipers of one breed--an amphisbaena,
Each end a sting: Let the dead letter burn!

PAGET. Yet there be some disloyal Catholics,
And many heretics loyal; heretic throats
Cried no God-bless-her to the Lady Jane,
But shouted in Queen Mary. So there be
Some traitor-heretic, there is axe and cord.
To take the lives of others that are loyal,
And by the churchman's pitiless doom of fire,
Were but a thankless policy in the crown,
Ay, and against itself; for there are many.

MARY. If we could burn out heresy, my Lord Paget,
We reck not tho' we lost this crown of England--
Ay! tho' it were ten Englands!

GARDINER. Right, your Grace.
Paget, you are all for this poor life of ours,
And care but little for the life to be.

PAGET.
I have some time, for curiousness, my Lord
Watch'd children playing at _their_ life to be,
And cruel at it, killing helpless flies;
Such is our time--all times for aught I know.

GARDINER. We kill the heretics that sting the soul--
They, with right reason, flies that prick the flesh.

PAGET. They had not reach'd right reason; little children!
They kill'd but for their pleasure and the power
They felt in killing.

GARDINER. A spice of Satan, ha!
Why, good! what then? granted! --we are fallen creatures;
Look to your Bible, Paget! we are fallen.

PAGET. I am but of the laity, my Lord Bishop,
And may not read your Bible, yet I found
One day, a wholesome scripture, 'Little children,
Love one another. '

GARDINER.