EDITH (_taking the ring_).
Yea, but Earl Tostig--
HAROLD. That's a truer fear!
For if the North take fire, I should be back;
I shall be, soon enough.
EDITH. Ay, but last night
An evil dream that ever came and went--
HAROLD. A gnat that vext thy pillow! Had I been by,
I would have spoil'd his horn. My girl, what was it?
EDITH. Oh! that thou wert not going!
For so methought it was our marriage-morn,
And while we stood together, a dead man
Rose from behind the altar, tore away
My marriage ring, and rent my bridal veil;
And then I turn'd, and saw the church all fill'd
With dead men upright from their graves, and all
The dead men made at thee to murder thee,
But thou didst back thyself against a pillar,
And strike among them with thy battle-axe--
There, what a dream!
HAROLD. Well, well--a dream--no more!
EDITH. Did not Heaven speak to men in dreams of old?
HAROLD. Ay--well--of old. I tell thee what, my child;
Thou hast misread this merry dream of thine,
Taken the rifted pillars of the wood
For smooth stone columns of the sanctuary,
The shadows of a hundred fat dead deer
For dead men's ghosts. True, that the battle-axe
Was out of place; it should have been the bow.--
Come, thou shalt dream no more such dreams; I swear it,
By mine own eyes--and these two sapphires--these
Twin rubies, that are amulets against all
The kisses of all kind of womankind
In Flanders, till the sea shall roll me back
To tumble at thy feet.
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