LEOFWIN (_entering_). And waste the land about thee as thou goest,
And be thy hand as winter on the field,
To leave the foe no forage.
HAROLD. Noble Gurth!
Best son of Godwin! If I fall, I fall--
The doom of God! How should the people fight
When the king flies? And, Leofwin, art thou mad?
How should the King of England waste the fields
Of England, his own people?--No glance yet
Of the Northumbrian helmet on the heath?
LEOFWIN. No, but a shoal of wives upon the heath,
And someone saw thy willy-nilly nun
Vying a tress against our golden fern.
HAROLD. Vying a tear with our cold dews, a sigh
With these low-moaning heavens. Let her be fetch'd.
We have parted from our wife without reproach,
Tho' we have dived thro' all her practices;
And that is well.
LEOFWIN. I saw her even now:
She hath not left us.
HAROLD. Nought of Morcar then?
GURTH. Nor seen, nor heard; thine, William's or his own
As wind blows, or tide flows: belike he watches,
If this war-storm in one of its rough rolls
Wash up that old crown of Northumberland.
HAROLD. I married her for Morcar--a sin against
The truth of love. Evil for good, it seems,
Is oft as childless of the good as evil
For evil.
LEOFWIN. Good for good hath borne at times
A bastard false as William.
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