"
A great hum of good-will ran through the crowd as he spoke; then he
smiled as in a kind of pride, and again he spoke:
"Wherefore did ye take me out of the archbishop's prison but three
days agone, when ye lighted the archbishop's house for the candle of
Canterbury, but that I might speak to you and pray you: therefore I
will not keep silence, whether I have done ill, or whether I have done
well. And herein, good fellows and my very brethren, I would have you
to follow me; and if there be such here, as I know full well there be
some, and may be a good many, who have been robbers of their
neighbours ('And who is my neighbour?' quoth the rich man), or
lechers, or despiteful haters, or talebearers, or fawners on rich men
for the hurt of the poor (and that is the worst of all)--Ah, my poor
brethren who have gone astray, I say not to you, go home and repent
lest you mar our great deeds, but rather come afield and there repent.
Many a day have ye been fools, but hearken unto me and I shall make
you wise above the wisdom of the earth; and if ye die in your wisdom,
as God wot ye well may, since the fields ye wend to bear swords for
daisies, and spears for bents, then shall ye be, though men call you
dead, a part and parcel of the living wisdom of all things, very
stones of the pillars that uphold the joyful earth.
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