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.
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