Queen Mary and Harold eBook

A. TENNYSON.

SHOW-DAY AT BATTLE ABBEY, 1876.

A garden here—­May breath and bloom of spring—­
The cuckoo yonder from an English elm
Crying ’with my false egg I overwhelm
The native nest:’  and fancy hears the ring
Of harness, and that deathful arrow sing,
And Saxon battleaxe clang on Norman helm. 
Here rose the dragon-banner of our realm: 
Here fought, here fell, our Norman-slander’d king. 
O Garden blossoming out of English blood! 
O strange hate-healer Time!  We stroll and stare
Where might made right eight hundred years ago;
Might, right? ay good, so all things make for good—­
But he and he, if soul be soul, are where
Each stands full face with all he did below.

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

KING EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 
STIGAND, created Archbishop of Canterbury by the Antipope Benedict. 
ALDRED, Archbishop of York. 
THE NORMAN BISHOP OF LONDON. 
HAROLD, Earl of Wessex, afterwards King of England, Son of Godwin
TOSTIG, Earl of Northumbria, Son of Godwin
GURTH, Earl of East Anglia, Son of Godwin
LEOFWIN, Earl of Kent and Essex, Son of Godwin
WULFNOTH
COUNT WILLIAM OF NORMANDY. 
WILLIAM RUFUS. 
WILLIAM MALET, a Norman Noble.[1]
EDWIN, Earl of Mercia, Son of Alfgar of Mercia
MORCAR, Earl of Northumbria after Tostig, Son of Alfgar of Mercia
GAMEL, a Northumbrian Thane. 
GUY, Count of Ponthieu. 
ROLF, a Ponthieu Fisherman. 
HUGH MARGOT, a Norman Monk. 
OSGOD and ATHELRIC, Canons from Waltham. 
THE QUEEN, Edward the Confessor’s Wife, Daughter of Godwin. 
ALDWYTH, Daughter of Alfgar and Widow of Griffyth, King of Wales. 
EDITH, Ward of King Edward. 
Courtiers, Earls and Thanes, Men-at-Arms, Canons of Waltham,
Fishermen, etc.

[Footnote 1:  ... quidam partim Normannus et Anglus Compater Heraldi. (Guy of Amiens, 587.)]

HAROLD

ACT I.

SCENE I.—­LONDON.  THE KING’S PALACE.

    (A comet seen through the open window.)

ALDWYTH, GAMEL, COURTIERS talking together.

FIRST COURTIER.  Lo! there once more—­this is the seventh night!  Yon grimly-glaring, treble-brandish’d scourge Of England!

SECOND COURTIER.  Horrible!

FIRST COURTIER.  Look you, there’s a star
That dances in it as mad with agony!

THIRD COURTIER.  Ay, like a spirit in Hell who skips and flies
To right and left, and cannot scape the flame.

SECOND COURTIER.  Steam’d upward from the undescendable
Abysm.

FIRST COURTIER.  Or floated downward from the throne
Of God Almighty.