 | William Rufus |  |
Scene IV.
—Hastings. A Street. Enter Bishop Gundulf, Eadmer, and Baldwin.Gundulf.
Alas! the dew of penitence is dry,
And parched the healèd soul. Once more the blood
Swells through the kingly veins with shining red;
But in its triumph grace is overthrown.
The king is hard and healthy, and his strength,
New-knit by God, is braced to threat the sky
In horrible revenge. With him I strove,
And prayed him cherish in his days of sun
His roughly-scattered, precious, winter seed.
His visage fired and deepened till the gem
Of darkest blood within his crown was pale
To the swart blush of fury as he swore:
“A good man God shall never find in me;
I have too deeply suffered at His hands.”
With that he sent to bind about the limbs,
Slack with sweet-breathing freedom, the close chains;
His gifts were straight recalled; each debt was held
Due as of old, and all that he had sworn
Undone in doing.
Eadmer.
Save the heavy grant
To our dear master, who hath borne hard days
And looks for no relief.
Gundulf.
How suffers he?
Eadmer.
The king is bent against the Norman duke,
And hath much need of money. To his feet
Cometh our master with the ready gold,
Which, sweetly tendered, is received with grace.
But afterward, thro' lust of wealth, the gift
Is scorned as small and sent unkindly back.
But he who is a father to the poor,
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Would take no further from his lacking churls;
But poured the spurned gold in the beggar's lap
Compassionate. This moved the king to wrath,
Which still sits cloudy on his thankless brow.
Here by the sleepy verge of this green strait
The ships await the rising of the wind,
And holy Anselm stays to bless the fleet.
Baldwin.
The breeze will sleep, while the Court reeks with sin,
Monstrous and strange. Our dear Archbishop grieves,
Resentful, with armed looks.
Eadmer.
A seraph's zeal
Is sworded in his eyes; his stainless brow
Is Faith's own shield.
Gundulf.
The people love him well.
Eadmer.
He is their blissful advocate. Our race
Ties round his heart its locks of flaxen hair
As once they bound the Roman Gregory.
Baldwin.
Methinks your king's damnation pains his soul;
Eadmer says that he will seek his side
With moving low entreaty.
Gundulf.
Let us hence,
And see how looks the ocean's sterile plain
That with our fair fleet should be forested.
Baldwin.
A wind! Methinks a tiny brook of air
Steals down the parchèd channels of this calm.
Gundulf.
Too fond a hope! Let's to the water side.
[Exeunt.
| William Rufus | |