MY DEAR LORD LYTTON,-After old-world records-such as the Bayeux tapestry and the Roman de Rou,-Edward Freeman's History of the Norman Conquest, and your father's Historical Romance treating of the same times, have been mainly helpful to me in writing this Drama. Your father dedicated his 'Harold' to my father's brother; allow me to dedicate my 'Harold' to yourself. A. TENNYSON. SHOW-DAY AT BATTLE ABBEY, 1876. A GARDEN here-May breath and bloom of spring— Here fought, here fell, our Norman slander'd king. O strange hate-healer Time! We stroll and stare 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. Courtiers, Earls and Thanes, Men-at-Arms, Canons of Waltham, Fishermen, &c. *. . . quidam partim Normannus et Anglus Compater Heraldi. (Guy of Amiens, 587.) Gurth. O father, mock not at a public fear, But tell us, is this pendent hell in heaven A harm to England? Stigand. Ask it of King Edward! And he may tell thee, I am a harm to England. Old uncanonical Stigand-ask of me Who had my pallium from an Antipope! Not he the man - for in our windy world What's up is faith, what's down is heresy. Our friends, the Normans, holp to shake his chair. I have a Norman fever on me, son, And cannot answer sanely . . . What it means? Advise him speak him sweetly, he will hear thee. He is passionate but honest. Stand thou by him! More talk of this to-morrow, if yon weird sign Not blast us in our dreams. -Well, father Stigand [To Stigand, who advances to him. Stigand (pointing to the comet). War there, my son? is that the doom of England? Harold. Why not the doom of all the world as well? For all the world sees it as well as Eng land. These meteors came and went before our day, Not harming any: it threatens us no more Than French or Norman. War? the worst that follows Things that seem jerk'd out of the common rut Of Nature is the hot religious fool, credit Makes it on earth: but look, where Edward draws A faint foot hither, leaning upon Tostig. He hath learnt to love our Tostig much of late. Leofwin. And he hath learnt, despite the tiger in him, To sleek and supple himself to the king's hand. Gurth. I trust the kingly touch that cures the evil May serve to charm the tiger out of him. Leofwin. He hath as much of cat as tiger in him. Our Tostig loves the hand and not the man. Harold. Nay! Better die than lie! |