Part 7

The wind that brings us from the springtide south Strange music as from love's or life's own mouth Blew hither, when the blast of battle ceased That swept back southward Spanish prince and priest, A sound more sweet than April's flower-sweet rain, And bade bright England smile on pardoned Spain. The land that cast out Philip and his God Grew gladly subject where Cervantes trod. Even he whose name above all names on earth Crowns England queen by grace of Shakespeare's birth Might scarce have scorned to smile in God's wise down And gild with praise from heaven an earthlier crown. And he whose hand bade live down lengthening years Quixote, a name lit up with smiles and tears, Gave the glad watchword of the gipsies' life, Where fear took hope and grief took joy to wife. Times change, and fame is fitful as the sea: But sunset bids not darkness always be, And still some light from Shakespeare and the sun Burns back the cloud that masks not Middleton. With strong swift strokes of love and wrath he drew Shakespearean London's loud and lusty crew: No plainer might the likeness rise and stand When Hogarth took his living world in hand. No surer then his fire-fledged shafts could hit, Winged with as forceful and as faithful wit: No truer a tragic depth and heat of heart Glowed through the painter's than the poet's art. He lit and hung in heaven the wan fierce moon Whose glance kept time with witchcraft's air-struck tune: He watched the doors where loveless love let in The pageant hailed and crowned by death and sin: He bared the souls where love, twin-born with hate, Made wide the way for passion-fostered fate. All English-hearted, all his heart arose To scourge with scorn his England's cowering foes: And Rome and Spain, who bade their scorner be Their prisoner, left his heart as England's free. Now give we all we may of all his due To one long since thus tried and found thus true.

PROLOGUE TO THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN

Sweet as the dewfall, splendid as the south, Love touched with speech Boccaccio's golden mouth, Joy thrilled and filled its utterance full with song, And sorrow smiled on doom that wrought no wrong. A starrier lustre of lordlier music rose Beyond the sundering bar of seas and snows When Chaucer's thought took life and light from his And England's crown was one with Italy's. Loftiest and last, by grace of Shakespeare's word, Arose above their quiring spheres a third, Arose, and flashed, and faltered: song's deep sky Saw Shakespeare pass in light, in music die. No light like his, no music, man might give To bid the darkened sphere, left songless, live. Soft though the sound of Fletcher's rose and rang And lit the lunar darkness as it sang, Below the singing stars the cloud-crossed moon Gave back the sunken sun's a trembling tune. As when at highest high tide the sovereign sea Pauses, and patience doubts if passion be, Till gradual ripples ebb, recede, recoil, Shine, smile, and whisper, laughing as they toil, Stark silence fell, at turn of fate's high tide, Upon his broken song when Shakespeare died, Till Fletcher's light sweet speech took heart to say What evening, should it speak for morning, may. And fourfold now the gradual glory shines That shows once more in heaven two twinborn signs, Two brethren stars whose light no cloud may fret, No soul whereon their story dawns forget.

THE AFTERGLOW OF SHAKESPEARE

Let there be light, said Time: and England heard: And manhood grew to godhead at the word. No light had shone, since earth arose from sleep, So far; no fire of thought had cloven so deep. A day beyond all days bade life acclaim Shakespeare: and man put on his crowning name. All secrets once through darkling ages kept Shone, sang, and smiled to think how long they slept. Man rose past fear of lies whereon he trod: And Dante's ghost saw hell devour his God. Bright Marlowe, brave as winds that brave the sea When sundawn bids their bliss in battle be, Lit England first along the ways whereon Song brighter far than sunlight soared and shone. He died ere half his life had earned his right To lighten time with song's triumphant light. Hope shrank, and felt the stroke at heart: but one She knew not rose, a man to match the sun. And England's hope and time's and man's became Joy, deep as music's heart and keen as flame. Not long, for heaven on earth may live not long, Light sang, and darkness died before the song. He passed, the man above all men, whose breath Transfigured life with speech that lightens death. He passed: but yet for many a lustrous year His light of song bade England shine and hear. As plague and fire and faith in falsehood spread, So from the man of men, divine and dead, Contagious godhead, seen, unknown, and heard, Fulfilled and quickened England; thought and word, When men would fain set life to music, grew More sweet than years which knew not Shakespeare knew. The simplest soul that set itself to song Sang, and may fear not time's or change's wrong. The lightest eye that glanced on life could see Through grief and joy the God that man might be. All passion whence the living soul takes fire Till death fulfil despair and quench desire, All love that lightens through the cloud of chance, All hate that lurks in hope and smites askance, All holiness of sorrow, all divine Pity, whose tears are stars that save and shine, All sunbright strength of laughter like the sea's When spring and autumn loose their lustrous breeze, All sweet, all strange, all sad, all glorious things, Lived on his lips, and hailed him king of kings. All thought, all strife, all anguish, all delight, Spake all he bade, and speak till day be night. No soul that heard, no spirit that beheld, Knew not the God that lured them and compelled. On Beaumont's brow the sun arisen afar Shed fire which lit through heaven the younger star That sank before the sunset: one dark spring Slew first the kinglike subject, then the king. The glory left above their graves made strong The heart of Fletcher, till the flower-sweet song That Shakespeare culled from Chaucer's field, and died, Found ending on his lips that smiled and sighed. From Dekker's eyes the light of tear-touched mirth Shone as from Shakespeare's, mingling heaven and earth. Wild witchcraft's lure and England's love made one With Shakespeare's heart the heart of Middleton. Harsh, homely, true, and tragic, Rowley told His heart's debt down in rough and radiant gold. The skies that Tourneur's lightning clove and rent Flamed through the clouds where Shakespeare's thunder went. Wise Massinger bade kings be wise in vain Ere war bade song, storm-stricken, cower and wane. Kind Heywood, simple-souled and single-eyed, Found voice for England's home-born praise and pride. Strange grief, strange love, strange terror, bared the sword That smote the soul by grace and will of Ford. The stern grim strength of Chapman's thought found speech Loud as when storm at ebb-tide rends the beach: And all the honey brewed from flowers in May Made sweet the lips and bright the dreams of Day. But even as Shakespeare caught from Marlowe's word Fire, so from his the thunder-bearing third, Webster, took light and might whence none but he Hath since made song that sounded so the sea Whose waves are lives of men--whose tidestream rolls From year to darkening year the freight of souls. Alone above it, sweet, supreme, sublime, Shakespeare attunes the jarring chords of time; Alone of all whose doom is death and birth, Shakespeare is lord of souls alive on earth.

CLEOPATRA

"Her beauty might outface the jealous hours, Turn shame to love and pain to a tender sleep, And the strong nerve of hate to sloth and tears; Make spring rebellious in the sides of frost, Thrust out lank winter with hot August growths, Compel sweet blood into the husks of death, And from strange beasts enforce harsh courtesy."

T. HAYMAN, _Fall of Antony_, 1655.

CLEOPATRA

I

Her mouth is fragrant as a vine, A vine with birds in all its boughs; Serpent and scarab for a sign Between the beauty of her brows And the amorous deep lids divine.

II

Her great curled hair makes luminous Her cheeks, her lifted throat and chin Shall she not have the hearts of us To shatter, and the loves therein To shred between her fingers thus?

III

Small ruined broken strays of light, Pearl after pearl she shreds them through Her long sweet sleepy fingers, white As any pearl's heart veined with blue, And soft as dew on a soft night.

IV

As if the very eyes of love Shone through her shutting lids, and stole The slow looks of a snake or dove; As if her lips absorbed the whole Of love, her soul the soul thereof.

V

Lost, all the lordly pearls that were Wrung from the sea's heart, from the green Coasts of the Indian gulf-river; Lost, all the loves of the world--so keen Towards this queen for love of her.

VI

You see against her throat the small Sharp glittering shadows of them shake; And through her hair the imperial Curled likeness of the river snake, Whose bite shall make an end of all.

VII

Through the scales sheathing him like wings, Through hieroglyphs of gold and gem, The strong sense of her beauty stings, Like a keen pulse of love in them, A running flame through all his rings.

VIII

Under those low large lids of hers She hath the histories of all time; The fruit of foliage-stricken years; The old seasons with their heavy chime That leaves its rhyme in the world's ears.

IX

She sees the hand of death made bare, The ravelled riddle of the skies, The faces faded that were fair, The mouths made speechless that were wise, The hollow eyes and dusty hair;

X

The shape and shadow of mystic things, Things that fate fashions or forbids; The staff of time-forgotten Kings Whose name falls off the Pyramids, Their coffin-lids and grave-clothings;

XI

Dank dregs, the scum of pool or clod, God-spawn of lizard-footed clans, And those dog-headed hulks that trod Swart necks of the old Egyptians, Raw draughts of man's beginning God;

XII

The poised hawk, quivering ere he smote, With plume-like gems on breast and back; The asps and water-worms afloat Between the rush-flowers moist and slack; The cat's warm black bright rising throat.

XIII

The purple days of drouth expand Like a scroll opened out again; The molten heaven drier than sand, The hot red heaven without rain, Sheds iron pain on the empty land.

XIV

All Egypt aches in the sun's sight; The lips of men are harsh for drouth, The fierce air leaves their cheeks burnt white, Charred by the bitter blowing south, Whose dusty mouth is sharp to bite.

XV

All this she dreams of, and her eyes Are wrought after the sense hereof. There is no heart in her for sighs; The face of her is more than love-- A name above the Ptolemies.

XVI

Her great grave beauty covers her As that sleek spoil beneath her feet Clothed once the anointed soothsayer; The hallowing is gone forth from it Now, made unmeet for priests to wear.

XVII

She treads on gods and god-like things, On fate and fear and life and death, On hate that cleaves and love that clings, All that is brought forth of man's breath And perisheth with what it brings.

XVIII

She holds her future close, her lips Hold fast the face of things to be; Actium, and sound of war that dips Down the blown valleys of the sea, Far sails that flee, and storms of ships;

XIX

The laughing red sweet mouth of wine At ending of life's festival; That spice of cerecloths, and the fine White bitter dust funereal Sprinkled on all things for a sign;

XX

His face, who was and was not he, In whom, alive, her life abode; The end, when she gained heart to see Those ways of death wherein she trod, Goddess by god, with Antony.

DEDICATION

DEDICATION

The sea that is life everlasting And death everlasting as life Abides not a pilot's forecasting, Foretells not of peace or of strife. The might of the night that was hidden Arises and darkens the day, A glory rebuked and forbidden, Time's crown, and his prey.

No sweeter, no kindlier, no fairer, No lovelier a soul from its birth Wore ever a brighter and rarer Life's raiment for life upon earth Than his who enkindled and cherished Art's vestal and luminous flame, That dies not when kingdoms have perished In storm or in shame.

No braver, no trustier, no purer, No stronger and clearer a soul Bore witness more splendid and surer For manhood found perfect and whole Since man was a warrior and dreamer Than his who in hatred of wrong Would fain have arisen a redeemer By sword or by song.

Twin brethren in spirit, immortal As art and as love, which were one For you from the birthday whose portal First gave you to sight of the sun, To-day nor to-night nor to-morrow May bring you again from above, Drawn down by the spell of the sorrow Whose anguish is love.

No light rearising hereafter Shall lighten us here as of old When seasons were lustrous as laughter Of waves that are snowshine and gold. The dawn that imbues and enkindles Life's fluctuant and fugitive sea Dies down as the starshine that dwindles And cares not to be.

Men, mightier than death which divides us, Friends, dearer than sorrow can say, The light that is darkness and hides us Awhile from each other away Abides but awhile and endures not, We know, though the day be as night, For souls that forgetfulness lures not Till sleep be in sight.

The sleep that enfolds you, the slumber Supreme and eternal on earth, Whence ages of numberless number Shall bring us not back into birth, We know not indeed if it be not What no man hath known if it be, Life, quickened with light that we see not If spirits may see.

The love that would see and would know it Is even as the love of a child. But the fire of the fame of the poet Who gazed on the past, and it smiled, But the light of the fame of the painter Whose hand was as morning's in May, Death bids not be darker or fainter, Time casts not away.

We, left of them loveless and lonely, Who lived in the light of their love, Whose darkness desires it, we only, Who see them afar and above, So far, if we die not, above us, So lately no dearer than near, May know not of death if they love us, Of night if they hear.

We, stricken and darkling and living, Who loved them and love them, abide A day, and the gift of its giving, An hour, and the turn of its tide, When twilight and midnight and morrow Shall pass from the sight of the sun, And death be forgotten, and sorrow Discrowned and undone.

For us as for these will the breathless Brief minute arise and pass by: And if death be not utterly deathless, If love do not utterly die, From the life that is quenched as an ember The soul that aspires as a flame Can choose not but wholly remember Love, lovelier than fame.

Though sure be the seal of their glory And fairer no fame upon earth, Though never a leaf shall grow hoary Of the crowns that were given them at birth, While time as a vassal doth duty To names that he towers not above, More perfect in price and in beauty For ever is love.

The night is upon us, and anguish Of longing that yearns for the dead. But mourners that faint not or languish, That veil not and bow not the head, Take comfort to heart if a token Be given them of comfort to be: While darkness on earth is unbroken, Light lives on the sea.

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