if the wit be not exceeding great,
’Tis best the wit be most exceeding small;
And he that holds the reins should let the horse
Range on, feed where he will, live and let live.
Custom and selfishness will keep all steady
For half a life.—Six months before you die
You may begin to think of interfering.
Lewis. Alas! while each day blackens with fresh clouds,
Complaints of ague, fever, crumbling huts,
Of land thrown out to the forest, game and keepers,
Bailiffs and barons, plundering all alike;
Need, greed, stupidity: To clear such ruin
Would task the rich prime of some noble hero—
But can I nothing do?
Wal. Oh! plenty, Sir;
Which no man yet has done or e’er will do.
It rests with you, whether the priest be honoured;
It rests with you, whether the knight be knightly;
It rests with you, whether those fields grow corn;
It rests with you, whether those toiling peasants
Lift to their masters free and loyal eyes,
Or crawl, like jaded hacks, to welcome graves.
It rests with you—and will rest.
Lewis. I’ll crowd my court and dais with men of God,
As doth my peerless namesake, King of France.
Wal. Priests, Sir? The Frenchman keeps two counsellors
Worth any drove of priests.
Lewis. And who are they?
Wal. God and his lady-love, [aside] He’ll open at that—
Lewis. I could be that man’s squire.
Wal [aside] Again run riot—
Now for another cast, [aloud] If you’d sleep sound, Sir,
You’ll let priests pray for you, but school you never.
Lewis. Mass! who more fitted?
Wal. None, if you could trust them;
But they are the people’s creatures; poor men give them
Their power at the church, and take it back at the ale-house:
Then what’s the friar to the starving peasant?
Just what the abbot is to the greedy noble—
A scarecrow to lear wolves. Go ask the church plate,
Safe in knights’ cellars, how these priests are feared.
Bruised reeds when you most need them.—No, my Lord;
Copy them, trust them never.
Lewis. Copy? wherein?
Wal. In letting every man
Do what he likes, and only seeing he does it
As you do your work—well. That’s the Church secret
For breeding towns, as fast as you breed roe-deer;
Example, but not meddling. See that hollow—
I knew it once all heath, and deep peat-bog—
I drowned a black mare in that self-same spot
Hunting with your good father: Well, he gave
One jovial night, to six poor Erfurt monks—
Six picked-visaged, wan, bird-fingered wights—
All in their rough hair shirts, like hedgehogs starved—
I told them, six weeks’ work would break their hearts:
They answered, Christ would help, and Christ’s great mother,
And make them strong when weakest: So they settled:
And starved and froze.
Lewis. And dug and built, it seems.
Wal. Faith, that’s true. See—as garden walls draw snails,
They have drawn a hamlet round; the slopes are blue,
Knee-deep with flax, the orchard boughs are breaking
With strange outlandish fruits. See those young rogues
Marching to school; no poachers here, Lord Landgrave,—
Too much to be done at home; there’s not a village
Of yours, now, thrives like this. By God’s good help
These men have made their ownership worth something.
Here comes one of them.
Lewis. I would speak to him—
And learn his secret.—We’ll await him here.
[Enter Conrad.]
Con. Peace to you, reverend and war-worn knight,
And you, fair youth, upon whose swarthy lip
Blooms the rich promise of a noble manhood.
Methinks, if simple monks may read your thoughts,
That with no envious or distasteful eyes
Ye watch the labours of God’s poor elect.
Wal. Why—we were saying, how you cunning rooks
Pitch as by instinct on the fattest fallows.
Con. For He who feeds the ravens, promiseth
Our bread and water sure, and leads us on
By peaceful streams in pastures green to lie,
Beneath our Shepherd’s eye.
Lewis. In such a nook, now,
To nestle from this noisy world—
Con. And drop
The burden of thyself upon the threshold.
Lewis. Think what rich dreams may haunt those lowly roofs!
Con. Rich dreams,—and more; their dreams will find fulfilment—
Their discipline breeds strength—’Tis we alone
Can join the patience of the labouring ox
Unto the eagle’s foresight,—not a fancy
Of ours, but grows in time to mighty deeds;
Victories in heavenly warfare: but yours, yours, Sir,
Oh, choke them, choke the panting hopes of youth,
Ere they be born, and wither in slow pains,
Cast by for the next bauble!
Lewis. ’Tis too true!
I dread no toil; toil is the true knight’s pastime—
Faith fails, the will intense and fixed, so easy
To thee, cut off from life and love, whose powers
In one close channel must condense their stream:
But I, to whom this life blooms rich and busy,
Whose heart goes out a-Maying all the year
In this new Eden—in my fitful thought
What