The Saints Tragedy | Page 9

them.
Isen [strikes him]. Monkey! To whom are you speaking?
Eliz. Oh, peace, peace, peace! I'll go with him.
Page. Then be quick, my music-master's waiting. Corpo di Bacco! as if our elders did not teach us to whom we ought to be rude! [Ex. Eliz. and Page.]
Isen. See here, Sir Saxon, how this pearl of price Is faring in your hands! The peerless image, To whom this court is but the tawdry frame,-- The speck of light amid its murky baseness,-- The salt which keeps it all from rotting,--cast To be the common fool,--the laughing stock For every beardless knave to whet his wit on! Tar-blooded Germans!--Here's another of them.
[A young Knight enters.]
Knight. Heigh! Count! What? learning to sing psalms? They are waiting For you in the manage-school, to give your judgment On that new Norman mare.
Wal. Tell them I'm busy.
Knight. Busy? St. Martin! Knitting stockings, eh? To clothe the poor withal? Is that your business? I passed that canting baby on the stairs; Would heaven that she had tripped, and broke her goose-neck, And left us heirs de facto. So, farewell. [Exit.]
Wal. A very pretty quarrel! matter enough To spoil a waggon-load of ash-staves on, And break a dozen fools' backs across their cantlets. What's Lewis doing?
Isen. Oh--befooled,-- Bewitched with dogs and horses, like an idiot Clutching his bauble, while a priceless jewel Sticks at his miry heels.
Wal. The boy's no fool,-- As good a heart as hers, but somewhat given To hunt the nearest butterfly, and light The fire of fancy without hanging o'er it The porridge-pot of practice. He shall hear or--
Isen. And quickly, for there's treason in the wind. They'll keep her dower, and send her home with shame Before the year's out.
Wal. Humph! Some are rogues enough for't. As it falls out, I ride with him to-day.
Isen. Upon what business?
Wal. Some shaveling has been telling him that there are heretics on his land: Stadings, worshippers of black cats, baby-eaters, and such like. He consulted me; I told him it would be time enough to see to the heretics when all the good Christians had been well looked after. I suppose the novelty of the thing smit him, for now nothing will serve but I must ride with him round half a dozen hamlets, where, with God's help, I will show him a mansty or two, that shall astonish his delicate chivalry.
Isen. Oh, here's your time! Speak to him, noble Walter. Stun his dull ears with praises of her grace; Prick his dull heart with shame at his own coldness. Oh right us, Count.
Wal. I will, I will: go in And dry your eyes. [Exeunt separately.]
SCENE II
A Landscape in Thuringia. Lewis and Walter riding.
Lewis. So all these lands are mine; these yellow meads-- These village greens, and forest-fretted hills, With dizzy castles crowned. Mine! Why that word Is rich in promise, in the action bankrupt. What faculty of mine, save dream-fed pride, Can these things fatten? Mass! I had forgot: I have a right to bark at trespassers. Rare privilege! While every fowl and bush, According to its destiny and nature (Which were they truly mine, my power could alter), Will live, and grow, and take no thought of me. Those firs, before whose stealthy-marching ranks The world-old oaks still dwindle and retreat, If I could stay their poisoned frown, which cows The pale shrunk underwood, and nestled seeds Into an age of sleep, 'twere something: and those men O'er whom that one word 'ownership' uprears me-- If I could make them lift a finger up But of their own free will, I'd own my seizin. But now--when if I sold them, life and limb, There's not a sow would litter one pig less Than when men called her mine.--Possession's naught; A parchment ghost; a word I am ashamed To claim even here, lest all the forest spirits, And bees who drain unasked the free-born flowers, Should mock, and cry, 'Vain man, not thine, but ours.'
Wal. Possession's naught? Possession's beef and ale-- Soft bed, fair wife, gay horse, good steel.--Are they naught? Possession means to sit astride of the world, Instead of having it astride of you; Is that naught? 'Tis the easiest trade of all too; For he that's fit for nothing else, is fit To own good land, and on the slowest dolt His state sits easiest, while his serfs thrive best.
Lewis. How now? What need then of long discipline, Not to mere feats of arms, but feats of soul; To courtesies and high self-sacrifice, To order and obedience, and the grace Which makes commands, requests, and service, favour? To faith and prayer, and pure thoughts, ever turned To that Valhalla, where the virgin saints And stainless heroes tend the Queen of heaven? Why these, if I but need, like stalled ox To chew the grass