No More Learning

ALDWYTH. Why? --I stay with these,
Lest thy fierce Tostig spy me out alone,
And flay me all alive.

HAROLD. Canst thou love one
Who did discrown thine husband, unqueen thee?
Didst thou not love thine husband?

ALDWYTH. Oh! my lord,
The nimble, wild, red, wiry, savage king--
That was, my lord, a match of policy.

HAROLD. Was it?
I knew him brave: he loved his land: he fain
Had made her great: his finger on her harp
(I heard him more than once) had in it Wales,
Her floods, her woods, her hills: had I been his,
I had been all Welsh.

ALDWYTH. Oh, ay--all Welsh--and yet
I saw thee drive him up his hills--and women
Cling to the conquer'd, if they love, the more;
If not, they cannot hate the conqueror.
We never--oh!
good Morcar, speak for us,
His conqueror conquer'd Aldwyth.

HAROLD. Goodly news!

MORCAR. Doubt it not thou! Since Griffith's
head was sent
To Edward, she hath said it.

HAROLD. I had rather
She would have loved her husband. Aldwyth, Aldwyth,
Canst thou love me, thou knowing where I love?

ALDWYTH. I can, my lord, for mine own sake, for thine,
For England, for thy poor white dove, who flutters
Between thee and the porch, but then would find
Her nest within the cloister, and be still.

HAROLD. Canst thou love one, who cannot love again?

ALDWYTH. Full hope have I that love will answer love.

HAROLD.