No More Learning

Sleeping or dying there? If this be death,
Then our great Council wait to crown thee King--
Come hither, I have a power; [_To_ HAROLD.
They call me near, for I am close to thee
And England--I, old shrivell'd Stigand, I,
Dry as an old wood-fungus on a dead tree,
I have a power!
See here this little key about my neck!
There lies a treasure buried down in Ely:
If e'er the Norman grow too hard for thee,
Ask me for this at thy most need, son Harold,
At thy most need--not sooner.

HAROLD. So I will.

STIGAND. Red gold--a hundred purses--yea, and more!
If thou canst make a wholesome use of these
To chink against the Norman, I do believe
My old crook'd spine would bud out two young wings
To fly to heaven straight with.

HAROLD. Thank thee, father!
Thou art English, Edward too is English now,
He hath clean repented of his Normanism.

STIGAND. Ay, as the libertine repents who cannot
Make done undone, when thro' his dying sense
Shrills 'lost thro' thee.
' They have built their castles here;
Our priories are Norman; the Norman adder
Hath bitten us; we are poison'd: our dear England
Is demi-Norman. He! --
[_Pointing to_ KING EDWARD, _sleeping_.

HAROLD. I would I were
As holy and as passionless as he!
That I might rest as calmly! Look at him--
The rosy face, and long down-silvering beard,
The brows unwrinkled as a summer mere. --

STIGAND. A summer mere with sudden wreckful gusts
From a side-gorge. Passionless? How he flamed
When Tostig's anger'd earldom flung him, nay,
He fain had calcined all Northumbria
To one black ash, but that thy patriot passion
Siding with our great Council against Tostig,
Out-passion'd his! Holy? ay, ay, forsooth,
A conscience for his own soul, not his realm;
A twilight conscience lighted thro' a chink;
Thine by the sun; nay, by some sun to be,
When all the world hath learnt to speak the truth,
And lying were self-murder by that state
Which was the exception.

HAROLD. That sun may God speed!

STIGAND.