Chapter 12
cloister leading up to the chapel door. The forest is seen in the distance, the sun beginning to set behind it. The PRIORESS and a NOVICE are sitting in a window-seat engaged in broidery work._
NOVICE
He must be a good man--this Robin Hood! I long to see him. Father used to say England had known none like him since the days Of Hereward the Wake.
PRIORESS
He will be here By vespers. You shall let him in. Who's that? Can that be he? It is not sundown yet. See who is there.
[_Exit NOVICE. She returns excitedly._]
NOVICE
A lady asks to see you! She is robed like any nun and yet she spoke Like a great lady--one that is used to rule More than obey; and on her breast I saw A ruby smouldering like a secret fire Beneath her cloak. She bade me say she came On Robin Hood's behest.
PRIORESS
What? Bring her in Quickly.
[_Exit NOVICE and returns with QUEEN ELINOR in a nun's garb. At the sign from the PRIORESS the NOVICE retires._]
ELINOR
Madam, I come to beg a favour. I am a friend of Robin Hood. I have heard-- One of his Foresters, this very noon Brought me the news--that he is sorely wounded; And purposes to seek your kindly help At Kirklee Priory.
PRIORESS
Oh, then indeed, You must be a great friend, for this was kept Most secret from all others.
ELINOR
A great friend! He was my page some fifteen years ago, And all his life I have watched over him As if he were my son! I have come to beg A favour--let me see him when he comes. My husband was a soldier, and I am skilled In wounds. In Palestine I saved his life When every leech despaired of it, a wound Caused by a poisoned arrow.
PRIORESS
You shall see him. I have some skill myself in balms and simples, But, in these deadlier matters I would fain Trust to your wider knowledge.
ELINOR
Let me see him alone; Alone, you understand. His mind is fevered. I have an influence over him. Do not say That I am here, or aught that will excite him. Better say nothing--lead him gently in, And leave him. In my hands he is like a child.
PRIORESS
It shall be done. I see you are subtly versed In the poor workings of our mortal minds.
ELINOR
I learnt much from a wise old Eastern leech When I was out in Palestine.
PRIORESS
I have heard They have great powers and magic remedies; They can restore youth to the withered frame.
ELINOR
There is only one thing that they cannot do.
PRIORESS
And what?
ELINOR
They cannot raise the dead.
PRIORESS
Ah, no; I am most glad to hear you say it, most glad To know we think alike. That is most true-- Yes--yes--most true; for God alone, dear friend, Can raise the dead!
[_A bell begins tolling slowly._]
The bell for even-song! You have not long to wait.
[_Shadowy figures of nuns pass the windows and enter the chapel. The sunset deepens._]
Will you not pray With me?
[_The PRIORESS and QUEEN ELINOR kneel down together before a little shrine. Enter the NOVICE._]
NOVICE
There is a forester at the door. Mother, I think 'tis he!
PRIORESS
[_Rising._]
Admit him, then.
ELINOR
Leave me: I will keep praying till he comes.
PRIORESS
You are trembling! You are not afraid?
ELINOR
[_With eyes closed as in strenuous devotion._]
No; no; Leave me, I am but praying!
[_A chant swells up in the chapel. Exit PRIORESS. ELINOR continues muttering as in prayer. Enter ROBIN HOOD, steadying himself on his bow, weak and white. She rises and passes between him and the door to confront him._]
ELINOR
Ah, Robin, you have come to me at last For healing. Pretty Marian cannot help you With all her kisses.
ROBIN HOOD
[_Staring at her wildly._]
You! I did not know That you were here. I did not ask your help. I must go--Marian!
[_He tries to reach the door, but reels in a half faint on the way. ELINOR supports him as he pauses, panting for breath._]
ELINOR
Robin, your heart is hard, Both to yourself and me. You cannot go, Rejecting the small help which I can give As if I were a leper. Ah, come back. Are you so unforgiving? God forgives! Did you not see me praying for your sake? Think, if you think not of yourself, oh, think Of Marian--can you leave her clinging arms Yet, for the cold grave, Robin? I have risked Much, life itself, to bring you help this day! I have some skill in wounds.
[_She holds him closer and brings her face near to his own, looking into his eyes._]
Ah, do you know How slowly, how insidiously this death Creeps, coil by tightening coil, around a man, When he is weak as you are? Do you know How the last subtle coil slips round your throat And the flat snake-like head lifts up and peers With cruel eyes of cold, keen inquisition, Rivetting your own, until the blunt mouth sucks Your breath out with one long, slow, poisonous kiss?
ROBIN HOOD
O God, that nightmare! Leave me! Let me go!
ELINOR
You stare at me as if you saw that snake. Ha! Ha! Your nerves are shaken; you are so weak! You cannot go! What! Fainting? Ah, rest here Upon this couch.
[_She half supports, half thrusts him back to a couch, in an alcove out of sight and draws a curtain. There is a knock at the door._]
ELINOR
Who's there?
PRIORESS
Madam, I came To know if I could help in anything.
ELINOR
Nothing! His blood runs languidly. It needs The pricking of a vein to make the heart Beat, and the sluggish rivers flow. I have brought A lance for it. I'll let a little blood. Not over-much; enough, enough to set The pulses throbbing.
PRIORESS
Maid Marian came with him. She waits without and asks--
ELINOR
Let her not come Near him till all is done. Let her not know Anything, or the old fever will awake. I'll lance his arm now!
[_The PRIORESS closes the door. ELINOR goes into the alcove. The chant from the chapel swells up again. QUEEN ELINOR comes out of the alcove, white and trembling. She speaks in a low whisper as she looks back._]
Now, trickle down, sweet blood. Grow white, fond lips That have kissed Marian--yet, she shall not boast You kissed her last; for I will have you wake To the fierce memory of this kiss in heaven Or burn with it in hell;
[_She kneels down as if to kiss the face of ROBIN, within. The chant from the chapel swells up more loudly. The door slowly opens. MARIAN steals in. ELINOR rises and confronts her._]
ELINOR
[_Laying a hand upon ROBIN'S bow beside her._]
Hush! Do not wake him!
MARIAN
[_In a low voice._]
What have you done with him?
ELINOR
[_As MARIAN advances towards the couch._]
He is asleep. Hush! Not a step further! Stay where you are! His life Hangs on a thread.
MARIAN Why do you stare upon me? What have you done? What's this that trickles down--
[_Stoops to the floor and leaps back with a scream._]
It is blood. You have killed him!
ELINOR
[_Seizes the bow and shoots. MARIAN falls._]
Follow him--down to hell. King John will find you there.
[_Exit. The scene grows dark._]
MARIAN
[_Lifts her head with a groan._]
I am dying, Robin! O God, I cannot wake him! Robin! Robin! Give me one word to take into the dark! He will not wake! He will not wake! O God, Help him!
[_She falls back unconscious. SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF, a green spray in his hand, opens the casement and stands for a moment in the window against the last glow of sunset, then enters and runs to the side of ROBIN._]
SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF
[_Hurriedly._]
Awake, awake, Robin, awake! The forest waits to help you! All the leaves Are listening for your bugle. Ah, where is it? Let but one echo sound and the wild flowers Will break thro' these grey walls and the green sprays Drag down these deadly towers. Wake, Robin, wake, And let the forest drown the priest's grey song With happy murmurs. Robin, the gates are open For you and Marian! All I had to give I have given to thrust them open, the dear gates Of fairyland which I shall never pass Again. I can no more, I am but a shadow, Dying as mortals die! It is not I That calls, not I, but Marian. Hear her voice! Robin, awake! O, master mine, farewell!
[_Exit lingeringly through the casement._]
ROBIN
[_ROBIN is dimly seen in the mouth of the alcove. He stretches out his hands blindly in the dark._]
Marian! Why do you call to me in dreams? Why do you call me? I must go. What's this? Help me, kind God, for I must say one word, Only one word--good-bye--to Marian, To Marian--Ah, too weak, too weak!
[_He sees the dark body of MARIAN and utters a cry, falling on his knees beside her._]
O God, Marian! Marian! My bugle! Ah, my bugle!
[_He rises to his feet and, drowning the distant organ-music, he blows a resounding forest-call. It is answered by several in the forest. He falls on his knees by MARIAN and takes her in his arms._]
O Marian, Marian, who hath used thee so?
MARIAN
Robin, it is my death-wound. Ah, come close.
ROBIN
Marian, Marian, what have they done to thee?
[_The OUTLAWS are heard thundering at the gates with cries._]
OUTLAWS
Robin! Robin! Robin! Break down the doors.
[_The terrified nuns stream past the window, out of the chapel. The OUTLAWS rush into the room. The scene still darkens._]
SCARLET
Robin and Marian!
LITTLE JOHN
Christ, what devil's hand Hath played the butcher here? Quick, hunt them down, They passed out yonder. Let them not outlive Our murdered king and queen.
REYNOLD GREENLEAF
O Robin, Robin, Who shot this bitter shaft into her breast?
[_Several stoop and kneel by the two lovers._]
ROBIN HOOD
Speak to me, Marian, speak to me, only speak! Just one small word, one little loving word Like those--do you remember?--you have breathed So many a time and often, against my cheek, Under the boughs of Sherwood, in the dark At night, with nothing but the boughs and stars Between us and the dear God up in heaven! O God, why does a man's heart take so long To break? It would break sooner if you spoke A word to me, a word, one small kind word.
MARIAN
Sweetheart!
ROBIN
Sweetheart! You have broken it, broken it! Oh, kind, Kind heart of Marian!
MARIAN
Robin, come soon!
[_Dies._]
ROBIN
Soon, sweetheart! Oh, her sweet brave soul is gone! Marian, I follow quickly!
SCARLET
God, Kirklee Shall burn for this!
LITTLE JOHN
Kirklee shall burn for this! O master, master, you shall be avenged!
ROBIN
No; let me stand upright! Your hand, good Scarlet! We have lived our lives and God be thanked we go Together thro' this darkness. We shall wake, Please God, together. It is growing darker! I cannot see your faces. Give me my bow Quickly into my hands, for my strength fails And I must shoot one last shaft on the trail Of yonder setting sun, never to reach it! But where this last, last bolt of all my strength, My hope, my love, shall fall, there bury us both, Together, and tread the green turf over us! The bow!
[_SCARLET hands him his bow. He stands against the faint glow of the window, draws the bow to full length, shoots and falls back into the arms of LITTLE JOHN._]
LITTLE JOHN
[_Laying him down._]
Weep, England, for thine outlawed lover, Dear Robin Hood, the poor man's friend, is dead.
[_The scene becomes quite dark. Then out of the darkness, and as if at a distance, the voice of SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF is heard singing the fairy song of the first scene. The fairy glade in Sherwood begins to be visible in the gloom by the soft light of the ivory gates which are swinging open once more among the ferns. As the scene grows clearer the song of SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF grows more and more triumphant and is gradually caught up by the chorus of the fairy host within the woods._]
[_Song of SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF._]
I
The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! The world begins again! And O, the red of the roses, And the rush of the healing rain!
II
The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! The Princess wakes from sleep; For the soft green keys of the wood-land Have opened her donjon-keep!
III
The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! Their grey walls hemmed us round; But, under my greenwood oceans, Their castles are trampled and drowned.
IV
The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! My green sprays climbed on high, And the ivy laid hold on their turrets And haled them down from the sky!
V
The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! They were strong! They are overthrown! For the little soft hands of the wild-flowers Have broken them, stone by stone.
VI
The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! Though Robin lie dead, lie dead, And the green turf by Kirklee Lie light over Marian's head,
VII
Green ferns on the crimson sky-line, What bugle have you heard? Was it only the peal of the blue-bells, Was it only the call of a bird?
VIII
The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! The rose o'er the fortalice floats! My nightingales chant in their chapels, My lilies have bridged their moats!
IX
The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! King Death, in the light of the sun, Shrinks like an elfin shadow! His reign is over and done!
X
The hawthorn whitens the wood-land; My lovers, awake, awake, Shake off the grass-green coverlet, Glide, bare-foot, thro' the brake!
XI
The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! And, under the great green boughs, I have found out a place for my lovers, I have built them a beautiful house.
XII
Green ferns in the dawn-red dew-fall, This gift by my death I give,-- They shall wander immortal thro' Sherwood! In my great green house they shall live!
XIII
The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! When the first wind blows from the South, They shall meet by the Gates of Faërie! She shall set her mouth to his mouth!
XIV
He shall gather her, fold her and keep her; They shall pass thro' the Gates, they shall live! For the Forest, the Forest has conquered! This gift by my death I give!
XV
The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! The Forest has conquered! The world awakes anew; And O, the scent of the hawthorn, And the drip of the healing dew!
[_The song ceases. TITANIA and OBERON come out into the moon-lit glade._]
OBERON
Yet one night more the gates of fairyland Are opened by a mortal's kindly deed. But Robin Hood and Marian now are driven As we shall soon be driven, from the world Of cruel mortals.
TITANIA
Mortals call them dead; Oberon, what is death?
OBERON
Only a sleep. But these may dream their happy dreams in death Before they wake to that new lovely life Beyond the shadows; for poor Shadow-of-a-Leaf Has given them this by love's eternal law Of sacrifice, and they shall enter in To dream their lover's dream in fairyland.
TITANIA
And Shadow-of-a-Leaf?
OBERON
He cannot enter now. The gates are closed against him.
TITANIA
But is this For ever?
OBERON We fairies have not known or heard What waits for those who, like this wandering Fool, Throw all away for love. But I have heard There is a great King, out beyond the world, Not Richard, who is dead, nor yet King John; But a great King who one day will come home Clothed with the clouds of heaven from His Crusade.
TITANIA
The great King!
OBERON
Hush, the poor dark mortals come!
[_The crowd of serfs, old men, poor women, and children, begin to enter as the fairy song swells up within the gates again. ROBIN and MARIAN are led along by a crowd of fairies at the end of the procession._]
TITANIA
And there, see, there come Robin and his bride. And the fairies lead them on, strewing their path With ferns and moon-flowers. See, they have entered in!
[_The last fairy vanishes thro' the gates._]
OBERON
And we must follow, for the gates may close For ever now. Hundreds of years may pass Before another mortal gives his life To help the poor and needy.
[_OBERON and TITANIA follow hand in hand thro' the gates. They begin to close. SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF steals wistfully and hesitatingly across, as if to enter. They close in his face. He goes up to them and leans against them sobbing, a small green figure, looking like a greenwood spray against their soft ivory glow. The fairy music dies. He sinks to his knees and holds up his hands. Immediately a voice is heard singing and drawing nearer thro' the forest._]
[_Song--drawing nearer._]
Knight on the narrow way, Where wouldst thou ride? "Onward," I heard him say, "Love, to thy side!"
"Nay," sang a bird above, "Stay, for I see Death in the mask of love Waiting for thee."
[_Enter BLONDEL, leading a great white steed. He stops and looks at the kneeling figure._]
BLONDEL
Shadow-of-a-Leaf!
SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF
[_Rising to his feet._]
Blondel!
BLONDEL
I go to seek My King!
SHADOW-OF-A-LEAF
[_In passionate grief._]
The King is dead!
BLONDEL
[_In yet more passionate joy and triumph._]
The great King lives!
[_Then more tenderly._]
Will you not come and look for Him with me?
[_They go slowly together through the forest and are lost to sight. BLONDEL'S voice is heard singing the third stanza of the song in the distance, further and further away._]
"Death? What is Death?" he cried. "I must ride on!"
[_Curtain._]
TALES OF THE MERMAID TAVERN
I
A KNIGHT OF THE OCEAN-SEA
Under that foggy sunset London glowed, Like one huge cob-webbed flagon of old wine. And, as I walked down Fleet Street, the soft sky Mowed thro' the roaring thoroughfares, transfused Their hard sharp outlines, blurred the throngs of black On either pavement, blurred the rolling stream Of red and yellow busses, till the town Turned to a golden suburb of the clouds. And, round that mighty bubble of St. Paul's, Over the up-turned faces of the street, An air-ship slowly sailed, with whirring fans, A voyager in the new-found realms of gold, A shadowy silken chrysalis whence should break What radiant wings in centuries to be.
So, wandering on, while all the shores of Time Softened into Eternity, it seemed A dead man touched me with his living hand, A flaming legend passed me in the streets Of London--laugh who will--that City of Clouds, Where what a dreamer yet, in spite of all, Is man, that splendid visionary child Who sent his fairy beacon through the dusk, On a blue bus before the moon was risen,-- _This Night, at eight, The Tempest!_
Dreaming thus, (Small wonder that my footsteps went astray!) I found myself within a narrow street, Alone. There was no rumour, near or far, Of the long tides of traffic. In my doubt I turned and knocked upon an old inn-door, Hard by, an ancient inn of mullioned panes, And crazy beams and over-hanging eaves: And, as I knocked, the slowly changing west Seemed to change all the world with it and leave Only that old inn steadfast and unchanged, A rock in the rich-coloured tides of time.
And, suddenly, as a song that wholly escapes Remembrance, at one note, wholly returns, There, as I knocked, memory returned to me. I knew it all--the little twisted street, The rough wet cobbles gleaming, far away, Like opals, where it ended on the sky; And, overhead, the darkly smiling face Of that old wizard inn; I knew by rote The smooth sun-bubbles in the worn green paint Upon the doors and shutters.
There was one Myself had idly scratched away one dawn, One mad May-dawn, three hundred years ago, When out of the woods we came with hawthorn boughs And found the doors locked, as they seemed to-night. Three hundred years ago--nay, Time was dead! No need to scan the sign-board any more Where that white-breasted siren of the sea Curled her moon-silvered tail among such rocks As never in the merriest seaman's tale Broke the blue-bliss of fabulous lagoons Beyond the Spanish Main.
And, through the dream, Even as I stood and listened, came a sound Of clashing wine-cups: then a deep-voiced song Made the old timbers of the Mermaid Inn Shake as a galleon shakes in a gale of wind When she rolls glorying through the Ocean-sea.
SONG
I
Marchaunt Adventurers, chanting at the windlass, Early in the morning, we slipped from Plymouth Sound, All for Adventure in the great New Regions, All for Eldorado and to sail the world around! Sing! the red of sun-rise ripples round the bows again. Marchaunt Adventurers, O sing, we're outward bound, All to stuff the sunset in our old black galleon, All to seek the merchandise that no man ever found.
_Chorus:_ Marchaunt Adventurers! Marchaunt Adventurers!
Marchaunt Adventurers, O, whither are ye bound?-- All for Eldorado and the great new Sky-line, All to seek the merchandise that no man ever found.
II
Marchaunt Adventurers, O, what'ull ye bring home again?-- Wonders and works and the thunder of the sea! Whom will ye traffic with?--The King of the Sunset! What shall be your pilot then?--A wind from Galilee. Nay, but ye be marchaunts, will ye come back empty-handed?-- Ay, we be marchaunts, though our gain we ne'er shall see. Cast we now our bread upon the waste wild waters. After many days, it shall return with usury.
_Chorus:_ Marchaunt Adventurers! Marchaunt Adventurers!
What shall be your profit in the mighty days to be?-- Englande!--Englande!--Englande!--Englande!-- Glory everlasting and the lordship of the sea!
And there, framed in the lilac patch of sky That ended the steep street, dark on its light, And standing on those glistering cobblestones Just where they took the sunset's kiss, I saw A figure like foot-feathered Mercury, Tall, straight and splendid as a sunset-cloud.
Clad in a crimson doublet and trunk-hose, A rapier at his side; and, as he paused, His long fantastic shadow swayed and swept Against my feet.
A moment he looked back, Then swaggered down as if he owned a world Which had forgotten--did I wake or dream?-- Even his gracious ghost!
Over his arm He swung a gorgeous murrey-coloured cloak Of Ciprus velvet, caked and smeared with mud As on the day when--did I dream or wake? And had not all this happened once before?-- When he had laid that cloak before the feet Of Gloriana! By that mud-stained cloak, 'Twas he! Our Ocean-Shepherd! Walter Raleigh! He brushed me passing, and with one vigorous thrust Opened the door and entered. At his heels I followed--into the Mermaid!--through three yards Of pitch-black gloom, then into an old inn-parlour Swimming with faces in a mist of smoke That up-curled, blue, from long Winchester pipes, While--like some rare old picture, in a dream Recalled--quietly listening, laughing, watching, Pale on that old black oaken wainscot floated One bearded oval face, young, with deep eyes, Whom Raleigh hailed as "Will!"
But as I stared A sudden buffet from a brawny hand Made all my senses swim, and the room rang With laughter as upon the rush-strewn floor My feet slipped and I fell. Then a gruff voice Growled over me--"Get up now, John-a-dreams, Or else mine host must find another drawer! Hast thou not heard us calling all this while?" And, as I scrambled up, the rafters rang With cries of "Sack! Bring me a cup of sack! Canary! Sack! Malmsey! and Muscadel!" I understood and flew. I was awake, A leather-jerkined pot-boy to these gods, A prentice Ganymede to the Mermaid Inn!
There, flitting to and fro with cups of wine, I heard them toss the Chrysomelan names From mouth to mouth--Lyly and Peele and Lodge, Kit Marlowe, Michael Drayton, and the rest, With Ben, rare Ben, brick-layer Ben, who rolled Like a great galleon on his ingle-bench. Some twenty years of age he seemed; and yet This young Gargantua with the bull-dog jaws, The T, for Tyburn, branded on his thumb, And grim pock-pitted face, was growling tales To Dekker that would fright a buccaneer.-- How in the fierce Low Countries he had killed His man, and won that scar on his bronzed fist; Was taken prisoner, and turned Catholick; And, now returned to London, was resolved To blast away the vapours of the town With Boreas-throated plays of thunderous mirth. "I'll thwack their Tribulation-Wholesomes, lad, Their Yellow-faced Envies and lean Thorns-i'-the-Flesh, At the _Black-friars Theatre_, or _The Rose_, Or else _The Curtain_. Failing these, I'll find Some good square inn-yard with wide galleries, And windows level with the stage. 'Twill serve My Comedy of Vapours; though, I grant. For Tragedy a private House is best, Or, just as Burbage tip-toes to a deed Of blood, or, over your stable's black half-door, Marked _Battlements_ in white chalk, your breathless David Glowers at the whiter Bathsheba within, Some humorous coach-horse neighs a 'hallelujah'! And the pit splits its doublets. Over goes The whole damned apple-barrel, and the yard Is all one rough and tumble, scramble and scratch Of prentices, green madams, and cut-purses For half-chewed Norfolk pippins. Never mind! We'll build the perfect stage in Shoreditch yet. And Will, there, hath half promised I shall write A piece for his own company! What d'ye think Of _Venus and Adonis_, his first heir, Printed last week? A bouncing boy, my lad! And he's at work on a Midsummer's Dream That turns the world to fairyland!"
All these And many more were there, and all were young! There, as I brimmed their cups, I heard the voice Of Raleigh ringing across the smoke-wreathed room,-- "Ben, could you put a frigate on the stage, I've found a tragedy for you. Have you heard The true tale of Sir Humphrey Gilbert?"
"No!"
"Why, Ben, of all the tragical affairs Of the Ocean-sea, and of that other Ocean Where all men sail so blindly, and misjudge Their friends, their charts, their storms, their stars, their God, If there be truth in the blind crowder's song I bought in Bread Street for a penny, this Is the brief type and chronicle of them all. Listen!" Then Raleigh sent these rugged rhymes Of some blind crowder rolling in great waves Of passion across the gloom. At each refrain He sank his voice to a broad deep undertone, As if the distant roar of breaking surf Or the low thunder of eternal tides Filled up the pauses of the nearer storm, Storm against storm, a soul against the sea:--
A KNIGHT OF THE OCEAN-SEA
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, hard of hand, Knight-in-chief of the Ocean-sea, Gazed from the rocks of his New Found Land And thought of the home where his heart would be.
He gazed across the wintry waste That weltered and hissed like molten lead,-- "He saileth twice who saileth in haste! I'll wait the favour of Spring," he said.
_Ever the more, ever the more, He heard the winds and the waves roar! Thunder on thunder shook the shore._
The yellow clots of foam went by Like shavings that curl from a ship-wright's plane, Clinging and flying, afar and nigh, Shuddering, flying and clinging again.
A thousand bubbles in every one Shifted and shimmered with rainbow gleams; But--had they been planets and stars that spun He had let them drift by his feet like dreams:
Heavy of heart was our Admirall, For, out of his ships--and they were but three!-- He had lost the fairest and most tall, And--he was a Knight of the Ocean-sea.
_Ever the more, ever the more, He heard the winds and the waves roar! Thunder on thunder shook the shore._
Heavy of heart, heavy of heart, For she was a galleon mighty as May, And the storm that ripped her glory apart Had stripped his soul for the winter's way;
And he was aware of a whisper blown From foc'sle to poop, from windward to lee, That the fault was his, and his alone, And--he was a Knight of the Ocean-sea.
"Had he done that! Had he done this!" And yet his mariners loved him well; But an idle word is hard to miss, And the foam hides more than the deep can tell.
And the deep had buried his best-loved books, With many a hard-worn chart and plan: And a king that is conquered must see strange looks, So bitter a thing is the heart of man!
And--"Who will you find to pay your debt? For a venture like this is a costly thing! Will they stake yet more, tho' your heart be set On the mightier voyage you planned for the Spring?"
He raised his head like a Viking crowned,-- "I'll take my old flag to her Majestie, And she will lend me ten thousand pound To make her Queen of the Ocean-sea!"
_Ever the more, ever the more, He heard the winds and the waves roar! Thunder on thunder shook the shore._
Outside--they heard the great winds blow! Outside--the blustering surf they heard, And the bravest there would ha' blenched to know That they must be taken at their own word.
For the great grim waves were as molten lead --And he had two ships who sailed with three!-- "And I sail not home till the Spring," he said, "They are all too frail for the Ocean-sea."
But the trumpeter thought of an ale-house bench, And the cabin-boy longed for a Devonshire lane, And the gunner remembered a green-gowned wench, And the fos'cle whisper went round again,--
"Sir Humphrey Gilbert is hard of hand, But his courage went down with the ship, may-be, And we wait for the Spring in a desert land, For--_he is afraid of the Ocean-sea_."
_Ever the more, ever the more, He heard the winds and the waves roar! Thunder on thunder shook the shore._
He knew, he knew how the whisper went! He knew he must master it, last or first! He knew not how much or how little it meant; But his heart was heavy and like to burst.
"Up with your sails, my sea-dogs all! The wind has veered! And my ships," quoth he, "They will serve for a British Admirall Who is Knight-in-chief of the Ocean-sea!"
His will was like a North-east wind That swept along our helmless crew; But he would not stay on the _Golden Hynde_, For that was the stronger ship of the two.
"My little ship's-company, lads, hath passed Perils and storms a-many with me! Would ye have me forsake them at the last? They'll need a Knight of the Ocean-sea!"
_Ever the more, ever the more, We heard the winds and the waves roar! Thunder on thunder shook the shore._
Beyond Cape Race, the pale sun splashed The grim grey waves with silver light Where, ever in front, his frigate crashed Eastward, for England and the night.
And still as the dark began to fall, Ever in front of us, running free, We saw the sails of our Admirall Leading us home through the Ocean-sea.
_Ever the more, ever the more, We heard the winds and the waves roar! But he sailed on, sailed on before._
On Monday, at noon of the third fierce day A-board our _Golden Hynde_ he came, With a trail of blood, marking his way On the salt wet decks as he walked half-lame.
For a rusty nail thro' his foot had pierced. "Come, master-surgeon, mend it for me; Though I would it were changed for the nails that amerced The dying thief upon Calvary."
The surgeon bathed and bound his foot, And the master entreated him sore to stay; But roughly he pulled on his great sea-boot With--"The wind is rising and I must away!"
I know not why so little a thing, When into his pinnace we helped him down, Should make our eyelids prick and sting As the salt spray were into them blown,
But he called as he went--"Keep watch and steer By my lanthorn at night!" Then he waved his hand With a kinglier watch-word, "We are as near To heaven, my lads, by sea as by land!"
_Ever the more, ever the more, We heard the gathering tempest roar! But he sailed on, sailed on before._
Three hundred leagues on our homeward road, We strove to signal him, swooping nigh, That he would ease his decks of their load Of nettings and fights and artillery.
And dark and dark that night 'gan fall, And high the muttering breakers swelled, Till that strange fire which seamen call "Castor and Pollux," we beheld,
An evil sign of peril and death, Burning pale on the high main-mast; But calm with the might of Gennesareth Our Admirall's voice went ringing past,
Clear thro' the thunders, far and clear, Mighty to counsel, clear to command, Joyfully ringing, "We are as near To heaven, my lads, by sea as by land!"
_Ever the more, ever the more, We heard the rising hurricane roar! But he sailed on, sailed on before._
And over us fled the fleet of the stars, And, ever in front of us, far or nigh, The lanthorn on his cross-tree spars Dipped to the Pit or soared to the Sky!
'Twould sweep to the lights of Charles's Wain, As the hills of the deep 'ud mount and flee. Then swoop down vanishing cliffs again To the thundering gulfs of the Ocean-sea.
We saw it shine as it swooped from the height, With ruining breakers on every hand, Then--a cry came out of the black mid-night, _As near to heaven by sea as by land!_
And the light was out! Like a wind-blown spark; All in a moment! And we--and we-- Prayed for his soul as we swept thro' the dark: For he was a Knight of the Ocean-sea.
_Over our fleets for evermore The winds 'ull triumph and the waves roar! But he sails on, sails on before!_
Silence a moment held the Mermaid Inn, Then Michael Drayton, raising a cup of wine, Stood up and said,--"Since many have obtained Absolute glory that have done great deeds, But fortune is not in the power of man, So they that, truly attempting, nobly fail, Deserve great honour of the common-wealth. Such glory did the Greeks and Romans give To those that in great enterprises fell Seeking the true commodity of their country And profit to all mankind; for, though they failed, Being by war, death, or some other chance, Hindered, their images were set up in brass, Marble and silver, gold and ivory, In solemn temples and great palace-halls, No less to make men emulate their virtues Than to give honour to their just deserts. God, from the time that He first made the world, Hath kept the knowledge of His Ocean-sea And the huge Æquinoctiall Continents Reserved unto this day. Wherefore I think No high exploit of Greece and Rome but seems A little thing to these Discoveries Which our adventurous captains even now Are making, out there, Westward, in the night, Captains most worthy of commendation, Hugh Willoughby--God send him home again Safe to the Mermaid!--and Dick Chauncellor, That excellent pilot. Doubtless this man, too, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, was worthy to be made Knight of the Ocean-sea. I bid you all Stand up, and drink to his immortal fame!"
II
A COINER OF ANGELS
Some three nights later, thro' the thick brown fog, A link-boy, dropping flakes of crimson fire, Flared to the door and, through its glowing frame, Ben Jonson and Kit Marlowe, arm in arm, Swaggered into the Mermaid Inn and called For red-deer pies. There, as they supped, I caught Scraps of ambrosial talk concerning Will, His _Venus and Adonis_. "Gabriel thought 'Twas wrong to change the old writers and create A cold Adonis." --"Laws were made for Will, Not Will for laws, since first he stole a buck In Charlecote woods." --"Where never a buck chewed fern," Laughed Kit, "unless it chewed the fern seed, too, And walked invisible." "Bring me some wine," called Ben, And, with his knife thrumming upon the board, He chanted, while his comrade munched and smiled.
I
Will Shakespeare's out like Robin Hood With his merry men all in green, To steal a deer in Charlecote wood Where never a deer was seen.
II
He's hunted all a night of June, He's followed a phantom horn, He's killed a buck by the light of the moon, Under a fairy thorn.
III
He's carried it home with his merry, merry band, There never was haunch so fine; For this buck was born in Elfin-land And fed upon sops-in-wine.
IV
This buck had browsed on elfin boughs Of rose-marie and bay, And he's carried it home to the little white house Of sweet Anne Hathaway.
V
"The dawn above your thatch is red! Slip out of your bed, sweet Anne! I have stolen a fairy buck," he said, "The first since the world began.
VI
"Roast it on a golden spit, And see that it do not burn; For we never shall feather the like of it Out of the fairy fern."
VII
She scarce had donned her long white gown And given him kisses four, When the surly Sheriff of Stratford-town Knocked at the little green door.
VIII
They have gaoled sweet Will for a poacher; But squarely he fronts the squire, With "When did you hear in your woods of a deer? Was it under a fairy briar?"
IX
Sir Thomas he puffs,--"If God thought good My water-butt ran with wine, Or He dropt me a buck in Charlecote wood, I wot it is mine, not thine!"
X
"If you would eat of elfin meat," Says Will, "you must blow up your horn! Take your bow, and feather the doe That's under the fairy thorn!
XI
"If you would feast on elfin food, You've only the way to learn! Take your bow and feather the doe That's under the fairy fern!"
XII
They're hunting high, they're hunting low, They're all away, away, With horse and hound to feather the doe That's under the fairy spray!
XIII
Sir Thomas he raged! Sir Thomas he swore! But all and all in vain; For there never was deer in his woods before, And there never would be again!
And, as I brought the wine--"This is my grace," Laughed Kit, "Diana grant the jolly buck That Shakespeare stole were toothsome as this pie."
He suddenly sank his voice,--"Hist, who comes here? Look--Richard Bame, the Puritan! O, Ben, Ben, Your Mermaid Inn's the study for the stage, Your only teacher of exits, entrances, And all the shifting comedy. Be grave! Bame is the godliest hypocrite on earth! Remember I'm an atheist, black as coal. He has called me Wormall in an anagram. Help me to bait him; but be very grave. We'll talk of Venus." As he whispered thus, A long white face with small black-beaded eyes Peered at him through the doorway. All too well, Afterwards, I recalled that scene, when Bame, Out of revenge for this same night, I guessed, Penned his foul tract on Marlowe's tragic fate; And, twelve months later, I watched our Puritan Riding to Tyburn in the hangman's cart For thieving from an old bed-ridden dame With whom he prayed, at supper-time, on Sundays.
Like a conspirator he sidled in, Clasping a little pamphlet to his breast, While, feigning not to see him, Ben began:--
"Will's _Venus and Adonis_, Kit, is rare, A round, sound, full-blown piece of thorough work, On a great canvas, coloured like one I saw In Italy, by one--Titian! None of the toys Of artistry your lank-haired losels turn, Your Phyllida--Love-lies-bleeding--Kiss-me-Quicks, Your fluttering Sighs and Mark-how-I-break-my-beats, Begotten like this, whenever and how you list, Your Moths of verse that shrivel in every taper; But a sound piece of craftsmanship to last Until the stars are out. 'Tis twice the length Of Vergil's books--he's listening! Nay, don't look!-- Two hundred solid stanzas, think of that; But each a square celestial brick of gold Laid level and splendid. I've laid bricks and know What thorough work is. If a storm should shake The Tower of London down, Will's house would stand. Look at his picture of the stallion, Nostril to croup, that's thorough finished work!"
"'Twill shock our Tribulation-Wholesomes, Ben! Think of that kiss of Venus! Deep, sweet, slow, As the dawn breaking to its perfect flower And golden moon of bliss; then slow, sweet, deep, Like a great honeyed sunset it dissolves Away!" A hollow groan, like a bass viol, Resounded thro' the room. Up started Kit In feigned alarm--"What, Master Richard Bame! Quick, Ben, the good man's ill. Bring him some wine! Red wine for Master Bame, the blood of Venus That stained the rose!" "White wine for Master Bame," Ben echoed, "Juno's cream that" ... Both at once They thrust a wine-cup to the sallow lips And smote him on the back. "Sirs, you mistake!" coughed Bame, waving his hands And struggling to his feet, "Sirs, I have brought A message from a youth who walked with you In wantonness, aforetime, and is now Groaning in sulphurous fires!" "Kit, that means hell!" "Yea, sirs, a pamphlet from the pit of hell, Written by Robert Greene before he died. Mark what he styles it--_A Groatsworth of Wit Bought with a Million of Repentance_!" "Ah, Poor Rob was all his life-time either drunk, Wenching, or penitent, Ben! Poor lad, he died Young. Let me see now, Master Bame, you say Rob Greene wrote this on earth before he died, And then you printed it yourself in hell!" "Stay, sir, I came not to this haunt of sin To make mirth for Beëlzebub!" "O, Ben, That's you!" "'Swounds, sir, am I Beëlzebub? Ogs-gogs!" roared Ben, his hand upon his hilt! "Nay, sir, I signified the god of flies! I spake out of the scriptures!" snuffled Bame With deprecating eye. "I come to save A brand that you have kindled at your fire, But not yet charred, not yet so far consumed, One Richard Cholmeley, who declares to all He was persuaded to turn atheist By Marlowe's reasoning. I have wrestled with him, But find him still so constant to your words That only you can save him from the fire." "Why, Master Bame," said Kit, "had I the keys To hell, the damned should all come out and dance A morrice round the Mermaid Inn to-night." "Nay, sir, the damned are damned!" "Come, sit you down! Take some more wine! You'd have them all be damned Except Dick Cholmeley. What must I unsay To save him?" A quick eyelid dropt at Ben. "Now tell me, Master Bame!" "Sir, he derides The books of Moses!" "Bame, do you believe?-- There's none to hear us but Beëlzebub-- Do you believe that we must taste of death Because God set a foolish naked wench Too near an apple-tree, how long ago? Five thousand years? But there were men on earth Long before that!" "Nay, nay, sir, if you read The books of Moses...." "Moses was a juggler!" "A juggler, sir, how, what!" "Nay, sir, be calm! Take some more wine--the white, if that's too red! I never cared for Moses! Help yourself To red-deer pie. Good! All the miracles You say that he performed--why, what are they? I know one Heriots, lives in Friday Street, Can do much more than Moses! Eat your pie In patience, friend, the mouth of man performs One good work at a time. What says he, Ben? The red-deer stops his--what? Sticks in his gizzard? O--_led them through the wilderness_! No doubt He did--for forty years, and might have made The journey in six months. Believe me, sir, That is no miracle. Moses gulled the Jews! Skilled in the sly tricks of the Egyptians, Only one art betrayed him. Sir, his books Are filthily written. I would undertake-- If I were put to write a new religion-- A method far more admirable. Eh, what? _Gruel in the vestibule?_ Interpret, Ben! His mouth's too full! _O, the New Testament!_ Why, there, consider, were not all the Apostles Fishermen and base fellows, without wit Or worth?"--again his eyelid dropt at Ben.-- "The Apostle Paul alone had wit, and he Was a most timorous fellow in bidding us Prostrate ourselves to worldly magistrates Against our conscience! I shall fry for this? I fear no bugbears or hobgoblins, sir, And would have all men not to be afraid Of roasting, toasting, pitch-forks, or the threats Of earthly ministers, tho' their mouths be stuffed With curses or with crusts of red-deer pie! One thing I will confess--if I must choose-- Give me the Papists that can serve their God Not with your scraps, but solemn ceremonies, Organs, and singing men, and shaven crowns. Your protestant is a hypocritical ass!"
"Profligate! You blaspheme!" Up started Bame, A little unsteady now upon his feet, And shaking his crumpled pamphlet over his head!
"Nay--if your pie be done, you shall partake A second course. Be seated, sir, I pray. We atheists will pay the reckoning! I had forgotten that a Puritan Will swallow Moses like a red-deer pie Yet choke at a wax-candle! Let me read Your pamphlet. What, 'tis half addressed to me! Ogs-gogs! Ben! Hark to this--the Testament Of poor Rob Greene would cut Will Shakespeare off With less than his own Groatsworth! Hark to this!" And there, unseen by them, a quiet figure Entered the room and beckoning me for wine Seated himself to listen, Will himself, While Marlowe read aloud with knitted brows. "'_Trust them not; for there is an upstart crow Beautified with our feathers!_' --O, he bids All green eyes open:--'_And, being an absolute Johannes fac-totum is in his own conceit The only Shake-scene in a country!_'" "Feathers!" Exploded Ben. "Why, come to that, he pouched Your eagle's feather of blank verse, and lit His Friar Bacon's little magic lamp At the Promethean fire of Faustus. Jove, It was a faery buck, indeed, that Will Poached in that greenwood." "Ben, see that you walk Like Adam, naked! Nay, in nakedness Adam was first. Trust me, you'll not escape This calumny! Vergil is damned--he wears A hen-coop round his waist, nicked in the night From Homer! Plato is branded for a thief, Why, he wrote Greek! And old Prometheus, too, Who stole his fire from heaven!" "Who printed it?" "Chettle! I know not why, unless he too Be one of those same dwarfs that find the world Too narrow for their jealousies. Ben, Ben, I tell thee 'tis the dwarfs that find no world Wide enough for their jostling, while the giants, The gods themselves, can in one tavern find Room wide enough to swallow the wide heaven With all its crowded solitary stars."
"Why, then, the Mermaid Inn should swallow this," The voice of Shakespeare quietly broke in, As laying a hand on either shoulder of Kit He stood behind him in the gloom and smiled Across the table at Ben, whose eyes still blazed With boyhood's generous wrath. "Rob was a poet. And had I known ... no matter! I am sorry He thought I wronged him. His heart's blood beats in this. Look, where he says he dies forsaken, Kit!" "Died drunk, more like," growled Ben. "And if he did," Will answered, "none was there to help him home, Had not a poor old cobbler chanced upon him, Dying in the streets, and taken him to his house, And let him break his heart on his own bed. Read his last words. You know he left his wife And played the moth at tavern tapers, burnt His wings and dropt into the mud. Read here, His dying words to his forsaken wife, Written in blood, Ben, blood. Read it, '_I charge thee, Doll, by the love of our youth, by my soul's rest, See this man paid! Had he not succoured me I had died in the streets._' How young he was to call Thus on their poor dead youth, this withered shadow That once was Robin Greene. He left a child-- See--in its face he prays her not to find The father's, but her own. '_He is yet green And may grow straight_,' so flickers his last jest, Then out for ever. At the last he begged A penny-pott of malmsey. In the bill, All's printed now for crows and daws to peck, You'll find four shillings for his winding sheet. He had the poet's heart and God help all Who have that heart and somehow lose their way For lack of helm, souls that are blown abroad By the great winds of passion, without power To sway them, chartless captains. Multitudes ply Trimly enough from bank to bank of Thames Like shallow wherries, while tall galleons, Out of their very beauty driven to dare The uncompassed sea, founder in starless nights, And all that we can say is--'They died drunk!'"
"I have it from veracious witnesses," Bame snuffled, "that the death of Robert Greene Was caused by a surfeit, sir, of Rhenish wine And pickled herrings. Also, sir, that his shirt Was very foul, and while it was at wash He lay i' the cobbler's old blue smock, sir!" "Gods," The voice of Raleigh muttered nigh mine ear, "I had a dirty cloak once on my arm; But a Queen's feet had trodden it! Drawer, take Yon pamphlet, have it fried in cod-fish oil And bring it hither. Bring a candle, too, And sealing-wax! Be quick. The rogue shall eat it, And then I'll seal his lips." "No--not to-night," Kit whispered, laughing, "I've a prettier plan For Master Bame." "As for that scrap of paper," The voice of Shakespeare quietly resumed, "Why, which of us could send his heart and soul Thro' Caxton's printing-press and hope to find The pretty pair unmangled. I'll not trust The spoken word, no, not of my own lips, Before the Judgment Throne against myself Or on my own defence; and I'll not trust The printed word to mirror Robert Greene. See--here's another Testament, in blood, Written, not printed, for the Mermaid Inn. Rob sent it from his death-bed straight to me. Read it. 'Tis for the Mermaid Inn alone; And when 'tis read, we'll burn it, as he asks."
Then, from the hands of Shakespeare, Marlowe took A little scroll, and, while the winds without Rattled the shutters with their ghostly hands And wailed among the chimney-tops, he read:--
Greeting to all the Mermaid Inn From their old Vice and Slip of Sin, Greeting, Ben, to you, and you Will Shakespeare and Kit Marlowe, too. Greeting from your Might-have-been, Your broken sapling, Robert Greene.
Read my letter--'Tis my last, Then let Memory blot me out, I would not make my maudlin past A trough for every swinish snout.
First, I leave a debt unpaid, It's all chalked up, not much all told, For Bread and Sack. When I am cold, Doll can pawn my Spanish blade And pay mine host. She'll pay mine'host! But ... I have chalked up other scores In your own hearts, behind the doors, Not to be paid so quickly. Yet, O, if you would not have my ghost Creeping in at dead of night, Out of the cold wind, out of the wet, With weeping face and helpless fingers Trying to wipe the marks away, Read what I can write, still write, While this life within them lingers. Let me pay, lads, let me pay.
_Item_, for a peacock phrase, Flung out in a sudden blaze, Flung out at his friend Shake-scene, By this ragged Might-have-been, This poor Jackdaw, Robert Greene.
Will, I knew it all the while! And you know it--and you smile! My quill was but a Jackdaw's feather, While the quill that Ben, there, wields, Fluttered down thro' azure fields, From an eagle in the sun; And yours, Will, yours, no earth-born thing, A plume of rainbow-tinctured grain, Dropt out of an angel's wing. Only a Jackdaw's feather mine, And mine ran ink, and Ben's ran wine, And yours the pure Pierian streams.
But I had dreams, O, I had dreams! Dreams, you understand me, Will; And I fretted at the tether That bound me to the lowly plain, Gnawed my heart out, for I knew Once, tho' that was long ago, I might have risen with Ben and you Somewhere near that Holy Hill Whence the living rivers flow. Let it pass. I did not know One bitter phrase could ever fly So far through that immortal sky --Seeing all my songs had flown so low-- One envious phrase that cannot die From century to century.
Kit Marlowe ceased a moment, and the wind, As if indeed the night were all one ghost, Wailed round the Mermaid Inn, then sent once more Its desolate passion through the reader's voice:--
Some truth there was in what I said. Kit Marlowe taught you half your trade; And something of the rest you learned From me,--but all you took you earned. You took the best I had to give, You took my clay and made it live; And that--why that's what God must do!-- My music made for mortal ears You flung to all the listening spheres. You took my dreams and made them true. And, if I claimed them, the blank air Might claim the breath I shape to prayer. I do not claim it! Let the earth Claim the thrones she brings to birth. Let the first shapers of our tongue Claim whate'er is said or sung, Till the doom repeal that debt And cancel the first alphabet. Yet when, like a god, you scaled The shining crags where my foot failed; When I saw my fruit of the vine Foam in the Olympian cup, Or in that broader chalice shine Blood-red, a sacramental drink, With stars for bubbles, lifted up, Through the universal night, Up to the celestial brink, Up to that quintessential Light Where God acclaimed you for the wine Crushed from those poor grapes of mine; O, you'll understand, no doubt, How the poor vine-dresser fell, How a pin-prick can let out All the bannered hosts of hell, Nay, a knife-thrust, the sharp truth-- I had spilt my wine of youth, The Temple was not mine to build. My place in the world's march was filled.
Yet--through all the years to come-- Men to whom my songs are dumb Will remember them and me For that one cry of jealousy, That curse where I had come to bless, That harsh voice of unhappiness. They'll note the curse, but not the pang, Not the torment whence it sprang, They'll note the blow at my friend's back, But not the soul stretched on the rack. They'll note the weak convulsive sting, Not the crushed body and broken wing.
_Item_, for my thirty years, Dashed with sun and splashed with tears, Wan with revel, red with wine, This Jack-o-lanthorn life of mine. Other wiser, happier men, Take the full three-score-and-ten, Climb slow, and seek the sun. Dancing down is soon done. Golden boys, beware, beware,-- The ambiguous oracles declare Loving gods for those that die Young, as old men may; but I, Quick as was my pilgrimage, Wither in mine April age.
_Item_, one groatsworth of wit, Bought at an exceeding price, Ay, a million of repentance. Let me pay the whole of it. Lying here these deadly nights, Lads, for me the Mermaid lights Gleam as for a castaway Swept along a midnight sea The harbour-lanthorns, each a spark, A pin-prick in the solid dark, That lets trickle through a ray Glorious out of Paradise, To stab him with new agony. Let me pay, lads, let me pay! Let the Mermaid pass the sentence: I am pleading guilty now, A dead leaf on the laurel-bough, And the storm whirls me away.
Kit Marlowe ceased; but not the wailing wind That round and round the silent Mermaid Inn Wandered, with helpless fingers trying the doors, Like a most desolate ghost.
A sudden throng Of players bustled in, shaking the rain From their plumed hats. "Veracious witnesses," The snuffle of Bame arose anew, "declare It was a surfeit killed him, Rhenish wine And pickled herrings. His shirt was very foul. He had but one. His doublet, too, was frayed, And his boots broken ..."
"What! Gonzago, you!" A short fat player called in a deep voice Across the room and, throwing aside his cloak To show the woman's robe he wore beneath, Minced up to Bame and bellowed--"'Tis such men As you that tempt us women to our fall!" And all the throng of players rocked and roared, Till at a nod and wink from Kit a hush Held them again.
"Look to the door," he said, "Is any listening?" The young player crept, A mask of mystery, to the door and peeped. "All's well! The coast is clear!" "Then shall we tell Our plan to Master Bame?" Round the hushed room Went Kit, a pen and paper in his hand, Whispering each to read, digest, and sign, While Ben re-filled the glass of Master Bame. "And now," said Kit aloud, "what think you, lads? Shall he be told?" Solemnly one or two 'Gan shake their heads with "Safety! safety! Kit!" "O, Bame can keep a secret! Come, we'll tell him! He can advise us how a righteous man Should act! We'll let him share an he approve. Now, Master Bame,--come closer--my good friend, Ben Jonson here, hath lately found a way Of--hush! Come closer!--coining money, Bame." "Coining!" "Ay, hush, now! Hearken! A certain sure And indiscoverable method, sir! He is acquainted with one Poole, a felon Lately released from Newgate, hath great skill In mixture of metals--hush!--and, by the help Of a right cunning maker of stamps, we mean To coin French crowns, rose-nobles, pistolettes, Angels and English shillings." For one breath Bame stared at him with bulging beetle-eyes, Then murmured shyly as a country maid In her first wooing, "Is't not against the law?" "Why, sir, who makes the law? Why should not Bame Coin his own crowns like Queen Elizabeth? She is but mortal! And consider, too, The good works it should prosper in your hands, Without regard to red-deer pies and wine White as the Milky Way. Such secrets, Bame, Were not good for the general; but a few Discreet and righteous palms, your own, my friend, And mine,--what think you?" With a hesitant glance Of well-nigh child-like cunning, screwing his eyes, Bame laughed a little huskily and looked round At that grave ring of anxious faces, all Holding their breath and thrilling his blunt nerves With their stage-practice. "And no risk?" breathed Bame, "No risk at all?" "O, sir, no risk at all! We make the very coins. Besides, that part Touches not you. Yours is the honest face, That's all we want." "Why, sir, if you be sure There is no risk ..." "You'll help to spend it. Good! We'll talk anon of this, and you shall carry More angels in your pocket, master Bame, Than e'er you'll meet in heaven. Set hand on seal To this now, master Bame, to prove your faith. Come, all have signed it. Here's the quill, dip, write. Good!" And Kit, pocketing the paper, bowed The gull to the inn-door, saying as he went,-- "You shall hear further when the plan's complete. But there's one great condition--not one word, One breath of scandal more on Robert Greene. He's dead; but he was one of us. The day You air his shirt, I air this paper, too." No gleam of understanding, even then, Illumed that long white face: no stage, indeed, Has known such acting as the Mermaid Inn That night, and Bame but sniggered, "Why, of course, There's good in all men; and the best of us Will make mistakes." "But no mistakes in this," Said Kit, "or all together we shall swing At Tyburn--who knows what may leap to light?-- You understand? No scandal!" "Not a breath!" So, in dead silence, Master Richard Bame Went out into the darkness and the night, To ask, as I have heard, for many a moon, The price of malmsey-butts and silken hose, And doublets slashed with satin. As the door Slammed on his back, the pent-up laughter burst With echo and re-echo round the room, But ceased as Will tossed on the glowing hearth The last poor Testament of Robert Greene. All watched it burn. The black wind wailed and moaned Around the Mermaid as the sparks flew up. "God, what a night for ships upon the sea," Said Raleigh, peering through the wet black panes, "Well--we may thank Him for the Little Red Ring!" "_The Little Red Ring_," cried Kit, "_the Little Red Ring!_" Then up stood Dekker on the old black settle. "Give it a thumping chorus, lads," he called, And sang this brave song of the Mermaid Inn:--
I
Seven wise men on an old black settle, Seven wise men of the Mermaid Inn, Ringing blades of the one right metal, What is the best that a blade can win? Bread and cheese, and a few small kisses? Ha! ha! ha! Would you take them--you? --Ay, if Dame Venus would add to her blisses A roaring fire and a friend or two!
_Chorus:_ Up now, answer me, tell me true!-- --Ay, if the hussy would add to her blisses A roaring fire and a friend or two!
II
What will you say when the world is dying? What, when the last wild midnight falls Dark, too dark for the bat to be flying Round the ruins of old St. Paul's? What will be last of the lights to perish? What but the little red ring we knew, Lighting the hands and the hearts that cherish A fire, a fire, and a friend or two!
_Chorus:_ Up now, answer me, tell me true! What will be last of the stars to perish? --The fire that lighteth a friend or two!
III
Up now, answer me, on your mettle Wisest man of the Mermaid Inn, Soberest man on the old black settle, Out with the truth! It was never a sin.-- Well, if God saved me alone of the seven, Telling me _you_ must be damned, or _you_, "This," I would say, "This is hell, not heaven! Give me the fire and a friend or two!"
_Chorus:_ Steel was never so ringing true: "God," we would say, "this is hell, not heaven! Give us the fire, and a friend or two!"
III
BLACK BILL'S HONEY-MOON
The garlands of a Whitsun ale were strewn About our rushes, the night that Raleigh brought Bacon to sup with us. There, on that night, I saw the singer of the _Faërie Queen_ Quietly spreading out his latest cantos For Shakespeare's eye, like white sheets in the sun. Marlowe, our morning-star, and Michael Drayton Talked in that ingle-nook. And Ben was there, Humming a song upon that old black settle: "Or leave a kiss but in the cup And I'll not ask for wine." But, meanwhile, he drank malmsey. Francis Bacon Straddled before the fire; and, all at once, He said to Shakespeare, in a voice that gripped The Mermaid Tavern like an arctic frost:
"_There are no poets in this age of ours, Not to compare with Plautus. They are all Dead, the men that were famous in old days._" "Why--so they are," said Will. The humming stopped. I saw poor Spenser, a shy gentle soul, With haunted eyes like starlit forest pools, Smuggling his cantos under his cloak again. "There's verse enough, no doubt," Bacon went on, "But English is no language for the Muse. Whom would you call our best? There's Gabriel Harvey, And Edward, Earl of Oxford. Then there's Dyer, And Doctor Golding; while, for tragedy, Thomas, Lord Buckhurst, hath a lofty vein. And, in a lighter prettier vein, why, Will, There is _thyself!_ But--where's Euripides?"
"Dead," echoed Ben, in a deep ghost-like voice. And drip--drip--drip--outside we heard the rain Miserably dropping round the Mermaid Inn.
"Thy Summer's Night--eh, Will? Midsummer's Night?-- That's a quaint fancy," Bacon droned anew, "But--Athens was an error, Will! Not Athens! Titania knew not Athens! Those wild elves Of thy Midsummer's Dream--eh? Midnight's Dream?-- Are English all. Thy woods, too, smack of England; They never grew round Athens. Bottom, too, He is not Greek!" "Greek?" Will said, with a chuckle, "Bottom a Greek? Why, no, he was the son Of Marian Hacket, the fat wife that kept An ale-house, Wincot-way. I lodged with her Walking from Stratford. You have never tramped Along that countryside? By Burton Heath? Ah, well, you would not know my fairylands. It warms my blood to let my home-spuns play Around your cold white Athens. There's a joy In jumping time and space." But, as he took The cup of sack I proffered, solemnly The lawyer shook his head. "Will, couldst thou use Thy talents with discretion, and obey Classic examples, those mightst match old Plautus, In all except priority of the tongue. This English tongue is only for an age, But Latin for all time. So I propose To embalm in Latin my philosophies. Well seize your hour! But, ere you die, you'll sail A British galleon to the golden courts Of Cleopatra." "Sail it!" Marlowe roared, Mimicking in a fit of thunderous glee The drums and trumpets of his Tamburlaine: "And let her buccaneers bestride the sphinx, And play at bowls with Pharaoh's pyramids, And hale white Egypt with their tarry hands Home to the Mermaid! Lift the good old song That Rob Greene loved. Gods, how the lad would shout it! Stand up and sing, John Davis!" "Up!" called Raleigh, "Lift the chanty of Black Bill's Honey-moon, Jack! We'll keep the chorus going!" "Silence, all!" Ben Jonson echoed, rolling on his bench: "This gentle lawyer hath a longing, lads, To hear a right Homeric hymn. Now, Jack! But wet your whistle, first! A cup of sack For the first canto! Muscadel, the next! Canary for the last!" I brought the cup. John Davis emptied it at one mighty draught, Leapt on a table, stamped with either foot, And straight began to troll this mad sea-tale:
CANTO THE FIRST
Let Martin Parker at hawthorn-tide Prattle in Devonshire lanes, Let all his pedlar poets beside Rattle their gallows-chains, A tale like mine they never shall tell Or a merrier ballad sing, Till the Man in the Moon pipe up the tune And the stars play Kiss-in-the-Ring!
_Chorus:_ Till Philip of Spain in England reign, And the stars play Kiss-in-the-Ring!
All in the gorgeous dawn of day From grey old Plymouth Sound Our galleon crashed thro' the crimson spray To sail the world around: _Cloud i' the Sun_ was her white-scrolled name,-- There was never a lovelier lass For sailing in state after pieces of eight With her bombards all of brass.
_Chorus:_ Culverins, robinets, iron may-be; But her bombards all of brass!
Now, they that go down to the sea in ships, Though piracy be their trade, For all that they pray not much with their lips They know where the storms are made: With the stars above and the sharks below, They need not parson or clerk; But our bo'sun Bill was an atheist still, Except--sometimes--in the dark!
_Chorus:_ Now let Kit Marlowe mark! Our bo'sun Bill was an atheist still, Except--sometimes--in the dark!
All we adventured for, who shall say, Nor yet what our port might be?-- A magical city of old Cathay, Or a castle of Muscovy, With our atheist bo'sun, Bill, Black Bill, Under the swinging Bear, Whistling at night for a seaman to light His little poop-lanthorns there.
_Chorus:_ On the deep, in the night, for a seaman to light His little lost lanthorns there.
But, as over the Ocean-sea we swept, We chanced on a strange new land Where a valley of tall white lilies slept With a forest on either hand; A valley of white in a purple wood And, behind it, faint and far, Breathless and bright o'er the last rich height, Floated the sunset-star.
_Chorus:_ Fair and bright o'er the rose-red height, Venus, the sunset-star.
'Twas a marvel to see, as we beached our boat, Black Bill, in that peach-bloom air, With the great white lilies that reached to his throat Like a stained-glass bo'sun there, And our little ship's chaplain, puffing and red, A-starn as we onward stole, With the disk of a lily behind his head Like a cherubin's aureole.
_Chorus:_ He was round and red and behind his head He'd a cherubin's aureole.
"Hyrcania, land of honey and bees, We have found thee at last," he said, "Where the honey-comb swells in the hollow trees," (O, the lily behind his head!) "The honey-comb swells in the purple wood! 'Tis the swette which the heavens distil, Saith Pliny himself, on my little book-shelf! Is the world not sweet to thee, Bill?"
_Chorus:_ "Saith Pliny himself, on my little book-shelf! Is the world not sweet to thee, Bill?"
Now a man may taste of the devil's hot spice, And yet if his mind run back To the honey of childhood's Paradise His heart is not wholly black; And Bill, Black Bill, from the days of his youth, Tho' his chest was broad as an oak, Had cherished one innocent little sweet tooth, And it itched as our chaplain spoke.
_Chorus:_ He had kept one perilous little tooth, And it itched as our chaplain spoke.
All around was a mutter of bees, And Bill 'gan muttering too,-- "If the honey-comb swells in the hollow trees, (What else can a Didymus do?) I'll steer to the purple woods myself And see if this thing be so, Which the chaplain found on his little book-shelf, For Pliny lived long ago."
_Chorus:_ There's a platter of delf on his little book-shelf, And Pliny lived long ago.
Scarce had he spoken when, out of the wood, And buffeting all around, Rooting our sea-boots where we stood, There rumbled a marvellous sound, As a mountain of honey were crumbling asunder, Or a sunset-avalanche hurled Honey-comb boulders of golden thunder To smother the old black world.
_Chorus:_ Honey-comb boulders of musical thunder To mellow this old black world.
And the chaplain he whispered--"This honey, one saith, On my camphired cabin-shelf, None may harvest on pain of death; For the bee would eat it himself! None walketh those woods but him whose voice In the dingles you then did hear!" "A VOICE?" growls Bill. "Ay, Bill, r-r-rejoice! 'Twas the great Hyrcanian Bear!"
_Chorus:_ Give thanks! _Re_-joice! 'Twas the glor-r-r-ious Voice Of the great Hyrcanian Bear!
But, marking that Bill looked bitter indeed, For his sweet tooth hungered sore, "Consider," he saith, "that the Sweet hath need Of the Sour, as the Sea of the Shore! As the night to the day is our grief to our joy, And each for its brother prepares A banquet, Bill, that would otherwise cloy. Thus is it with honey and bears."
_Chorus:_ Roses and honey and laughter would cloy! Give us thorns, too, and sorrow and bears!
"Consider," he saith, "how by fretting a string The lutanist maketh sweet moan, And a bird ere it fly must have air for its wing To buffet or fall like a stone: Tho' you blacken like Pluto you make but more white These blooms which not Enna could yield! Consider, Black Bill, ere the coming of night, The lilies," he saith, "of the field."
_Chorus:_ "Consider, Black Bill, in this beautiful light, The lilies," he saith, "of the field."
"Consider the claws of a Bear," said Bill, "That can rip off the flesh from your bones, While his belly could cabin the skipper and still Accommodate Timothy Jones! Why, that's where a seaman who cares for his grog Perspires how this world isn't square! If there's _cause_ for a _cow_, if there's _use_ for a _dog_, By Pope John, there's no _Sense_ in a _Bear!_"
_Chorus:_ Cause for a cow, use for a dog, By'r Lakin, no _Sense_ in a _Bear!_
But our little ship's chaplain--"Sense," quoth he, "Hath the Bear tho' his making have none; For, my little book saith, by the sting of this bee Would Ursus be wholly foredone, But, or ever the hive he adventureth nigh And its crisp gold-crusted dome, He lardeth his nose and he greaseth his eye With a piece of an honey-comb."
_Chorus:_ His velvety nose and his sensitive eye With a piece of an honey-comb.
Black Bill at the word of that golden crust --For his ears had forgotten the roar, And his eyes grew soft with their innocent lust-- 'Gan licking his lips once more: "Be it bound like a missal and printed as fair, With capitals blue and red, 'Tis a lie; for what honey could comfort a bear, Till the bear win the honey?" he said.
_Chorus:_ "Ay, _whence_ the first honey wherewith the first bear First larded his nose?" he said.
"Thou first metaphysical bo'sun, Bill," Our chaplain quizzingly cried, "Wilt thou riddle me redes of a dumpling still With thy 'how came the apple inside'?" "Nay," answered Bill, "but I quest for truth, And I find it not on your shelf! I will face your Hyrcanian bear, forsooth, And look at his nose myself."
_Chorus:_ For truth, for truth, or a little sweet tooth-- I will into the woods myself.
Breast-high thro' that foam-white ocean of bloom With its wonderful spokes of gold, Our sun-burnt crew in the rose-red gloom Like buccaneer galleons rolled: Breast-high, breast-high in the lilies we stood, And before we could say "good-night," Out of the valley and into the wood He plunged thro' the last rich light.
_Chorus:_ Out of the lilies and into the wood, Where the Great Bear walks all night!
And our little ship's chaplain he piped thro' the trees As the moon rose, white and still, "Hylas, return to thy Heracles!" And we helped him with "Come back, Bill!" Thrice he piped it, thrice we halloo'd, And thrice we were dumb to hark; But never an answer came from the wood, So--we turned to our ship in the dark.
_Chorus:_ Good-bye, Bill! you're a Didymus still; But--you're all alone in the dark.
"This honey now"--as the first canto ceased, The great young Bacon pompously began-- "Which Pliny calleth, as it were, the swette Of heaven, or spettle of the stars, is found In Muscovy. Now ..." "Bring the muscadel," Ben Jonson roared--"'Tis a more purple drink, And suits with the next canto!" At one draught John Davis drained the cup, and with one hand Beating the measure, rapidly trolled again.
CANTO THE SECOND
Now, Rabelais, art thou quite foredone, Dan Chaucer, Drayton, Every One! Leave we aboard our _Cloud i' the Sun_ This crew of pirates dreaming-- Of Angels, minted in the blue Like golden moons, Rose-nobles, too, As under the silver-sliding dew Our emerald creek lay gleaming!
_Chorus:_ Under the stars lay gleaming!
And mailed with scales of gold and green The high star-lilied banks between, Nosing our old black hulk unseen, Great alligators shimmered: Blood-red jaws i' the blue-black ooze, Where all the long warm day they snooze, Chewing old cuds of pirate-crews, Around us grimly glimmered.
_Chorus:_ Their eyes like rubies glimmered.
Let us now sing of Bill, good sirs! Follow him, all green forestéres, Fearless of Hyrcanian bears As of these ghostly lilies! For O, not Drayton there could sing Of wild Pigwiggen and his King So merry a jest, so jolly a thing As this my tale of Bill is.
_Chorus:_ Into the woods where Bill is!
Now starts he as a white owl hoots, And now he stumbles over roots, And now beneath his big sea-boots In yon deep glade he crunches Black cakes of honey-comb that were So elfin-sweet, perchance, last year; But neither Bo'sun, now, nor Bear At that dark banquet munches.
_Chorus:_ Onward still he crunches!
Black cakes of honey-comb he sees Above him in the forks of trees, Filled by stars instead of bees, With brimming silver glisten: But ah, such food of gnome and fay Could neither Bear nor Bill delay Till where yon ferns and moonbeams play He starts and stands to listen!
_Chorus:_ What melody doth he listen?
Is it the Night-Wind as it comes Through the wood and softly thrums Silvery tabors, purple drums, To speed some wild-wood revel? Nay, Didymus, what faint sweet din Of viol and flute and violin Makes all the forest round thee spin, The Night-Wind or the Devil?
_Chorus:_ No doubt at all--the Devil!
He stares, with naked knife in hand, This buccaneer in fairyland! Dancing in a saraband The red ferns reel about him! Dancing in a morrice-ring The green ferns curtsey, kiss and cling! Their Marians flirt, their Robins fling Their feathery heels to flout him!
_Chorus:_ The whole wood reels about him.
Dance, ye shadows! O'er the glade, Bill, the Bo'sun, undismayed, Pigeon-toes with glittering blade! Drake was never bolder! Devil or Spaniard, what cares he Whence your eerie music be? Till--lo, against yon old oak-tree He leans his brawny shoulder!
_Chorus:_ He lists and leans his shoulder!
Ah, what melody doth he hear As to that gnarled old tree-trunk there He lays his wind-bit brass-ringed ear, And steals his arm about it? What Dryad could this Bo'sun win To that slow-rippling amorous grin?-- 'Twas full of singing bees within! Not Didymus could doubt it!
_Chorus:_ So loud they buzzed about it!
Straight, o'er a bough one leg he throws, And up that oaken main-mast goes With reckless red unlarded nose And gooseberry eyes of wonder! Till now, as in a galleon's hold, Below, he sees great cells of gold Whence all the hollow trunk up-rolled A low melodious thunder.
_Chorus:_ A sweet and perilous thunder!
Ay, there, within that hollow tree, Will Shakespeare, mightst thou truly see The Imperial City of the Bee, In Chrysomelan splendour! And, in the midst, one eight-foot dome Swells o'er that Titan honey-comb Where the Bee-Empress hath her home, With such as do attend her,
_Chorus:_ Weaponed with stings attend her!
But now her singing sentinels Have turned to sleep in waxen cells, And Bill leans down his face and smells The whole sweet summer's cargo-- In one deep breath, the whole year's bloom, Lily and thyme and rose and broom, One Golden Fleece of flower-perfume In that old oaken Argo.
_Chorus:_ That green and golden Argo!
And now he hangs with dangling feet Over that dark abyss of sweet, Striving to reach such wild gold meat As none could buy for money: His left hand grips a swinging branch When--crack! Our Bo'sun, stout and stanch, Falls like an Alpine avalanche, Feet first into the honey!
_Chorus:_ Up to his ears in honey!
And now his red unlarded nose And bulging eyes are all that shows Above it, as he puffs and blows! And now--to 'scape the scathing Of that black host of furious bees His nose and eyes he fain would grease And bobs below those golden seas Like an old woman bathing.
_Chorus:_ Old Mother Hubbard bathing!
And now he struggles, all in vain, To reach some little bough again; But, though he heaves with might and main, This honey holds his ribs, sirs, So tight, a barque might sooner try To steer a cargo through the sky Than Bill, thus honey-logged, to fly By flopping of his jib, sirs!
_Chorus:_ His tops'l and his jib, sirs!
Like Oberon in the hive his beard With wax and honey all besmeared Would make the crescent moon afeard That now is sailing brightly Right o'er his leafy donjon-keep! But that she knows him sunken deep, And that his tower is straight and steep, She would not smile so lightly.
_Chorus:_ Look down and smile so lightly.
She smiles in that small heavenly space, Ringed with the tree-trunk's leafy grace, While upward grins his ghastly face As if some wild-wood Satyr, Some gnomish Ptolemy should dare Up that dark optic tube to stare, As all unveiled she floated there, Poor maiden moon, straight at her!
_Chorus:_ The buccaneering Satyr!
But there, till some one help him out, Black Bill must stay, without a doubt. "_Help! Help!_" he gives a muffled shout. None but the white owls hear it! _Who? Whoo?_ they cry: Bill answers "ME! _I am stuck fast in this great tree! Bring me a rope, good Timothy! There's honey, lads, we'll share it!_"
_Chorus:_ Ay, now he wants to share it.
Then, thinking help may come with morn, He sinks, half-famished and out-worn, And scarce his nose exalts its horn Above that sea of glory! But, even as he owns defeat, His belly saith, "A man must eat, And since there is none other meat, Come, lap this mess before 'ee!"
_Chorus:_ This glorious mess before 'ee.
Then Dian sees a right strange sight As, bidding him a fond good-night, She flings a silvery kiss to light In that deep oak-tree hollow, And finds that gold and crimson nose A moving, munching, ravenous rose That up and down unceasing goes, Save when he stops to swallow!
_Chorus:_ He finds it hard to swallow!
Ay, now his best becomes his worst, For honey cannot quench his thirst, Though he should eat until he burst; But, ah, the skies are kindly, And from their tender depths of blue They send their silver-sliding dew. So Bill thrusts out his tongue anew And waits to catch it--blindly!
_Chorus:_ For ah, the stars are kindly!
And sometimes, with a shower of rain, They strive to ease their prisoner's pain: Then Bill thrusts out his tongue again With never a grace, the sinner! And day and night and day goes by, And never a comrade comes anigh, And still the honey swells as high For supper, breakfast, dinner!
_Chorus:_ Yet Bill has grown no thinner!
The young moon grows to full and throws Her buxom kiss upon his nose, As nightly over the tree she goes, And peeps and smiles and passes, Then with her fickle silver flecks Our old black galleon's dreaming decks; And then her face, with nods and becks, In midmost ocean glasses.
_Chorus:_ 'Twas ever the way with lasses!
Ah, Didymus, hast thou won indeed That Paradise which is thy meed? (Thy tale not all that run may read!) Thy sweet hath now no leaven! Now, like an onion in a cup Of mead, thou liest for Jove to sup, Could Polyphemus lift thee up With Titan hands to heaven!
_Chorus:_ This great oak-cup to heaven!
The second canto ceased; and, as they raised Their wine-cups with the last triumphant note, Bacon, undaunted, raised his grating voice-- "This honey which, in some sort, may be styled The Spettle of the Stars ..." "Bring the Canary!" Ben Jonson roared. "It is a moral wine And suits the third, last canto!" At one draught John Davis drained it and began anew.
CANTO THE THIRD
A month went by. We were hoisting sail! We had lost all hope of Bill; Though, laugh as you may at a seaman's tale, He was fast in his honey-comb still! And often he thinks of the chaplain's word In the days he shall see no more,-- How the Sweet, indeed, of the Sour hath need; And the Sea, likewise, of the Shore.
_Chorus:_ The chaplain's word of the Air and a Bird; Of the Sea, likewise, and the Shore!
"O, had I the wings of a dove, I would fly To a heaven, of aloes and gall! I have honeyed," he yammers, "my nose and mine eye, And the bees cannot sting me at all! And it's O, for the sting of a little brown bee, Or to blister my hands on a rope, Or to buffet a thundering broad-side sea On a deck like a mountain-slope!"
_Chorus:_ With her mast snapt short, and a list to port And a deck like a mountain-slope.
But alas, and he thinks of the chaplain's voice When that roar from the woods out-break-- _R-r-re-joice! R-r-re-joice!_ "Now, wherefore rejoice In the music a bear could make? 'Tis a judgment, maybe, that I stick in this tree; Yet in this I out-argued him fair! Though I live, though I die, in this honey-comb pie, By Pope Joan, there's no sense in a bear!"
_Chorus:_ Notes in a nightingale, plums in a pie, By'r Lakin, no _Sense_ in a _Bear_!
He knew not our anchor was heaved from the mud: He was growling it over again, When--a strange sound suddenly froze his blood, And curdled his big slow brain!-- A marvellous sound, as of great steel claws Gripping the bark of his tree, Softly ascended! Like lightning ended His honey-comb reverie!
_Chorus:_ The honey-comb quivered! The little leaves shivered! _Something was climbing the tree!_
Something that breathed like a fat sea-cook, Or a pirate of fourteen ton! But it clomb like a cat (tho' the whole tree shook) Stealthily tow'rds the sun, Till, as Black Bill gapes at the little blue ring Overhead, which he calls the sky, It is clean blotted out by a monstrous Thing Which--_hath larded its nose and its eye._
_Chorus:_ O, well for thee, Bill, that this monstrous Thing Hath blinkered its little red eye.
Still as a mouse lies Bill with his face Low down in the dark sweet gold, While this monster turns round in the leaf-fringed space! Then--taking a good firm hold, As the skipper descending the cabin-stair, Tail-first with a vast slow tread, Solemnly, softly, cometh this Bear Straight down o'er the Bo'sun's head.
_Chorus:_ Solemnly--slowly--cometh this Bear, Tail-first o'er the Bo'sun's head.
Nearer--nearer--then all Bill's breath Out-bursts in one leap and yell! And this Bear thinks, "Now am I gripped from beneath By a roaring devil from hell!" And madly Bill clutches his brown bow-legs, And madly this Bear doth hale, With his little red eyes fear-mad for the skies And Bill's teeth fast in his tail!
_Chorus:_ Small wonder a Bear should quail! To have larded his nose, to have greased his eyes, And be stung at the last in his tail.
Pull, Bo'sun! Pull, Bear! In the hot sweet gloom, Pull Bruin, pull Bill, for the skies! Pull--out of their gold with a bombard's boom Come Black Bill's honeyed thighs! Pull! Up! Up! Up! with a scuffle and scramble, To that little blue ring of bliss, This Bear doth go with our Bo'sun in tow Stinging his tail, I wis.
_Chorus:_ And this Bear thinks--"Many great bees I know, But there never was Bee like this!"
All in the gorgeous death of day We had slipped from our emerald creek, And our _Cloud i' the Sun_ was careening away With the old gay flag at the peak, When, suddenly, out of the purple wood, Breast-high thro' the lilies there danced A tall lean figure, black as a nigger, That shouted and waved and pranced!
_Chorus:_ A gold-greased figure, but black as a nigger, Waving his shirt as he pranced!
"'Tis Hylas! 'Tis Hylas!" our chaplain flutes, And our skipper he looses a shout! "'Tis Bill! Black Bill, in his old sea-boots! _Stand by to bring her about! Har-r-rd a-starboard!"_ And round we came, With a lurch and a dip and a roll, And a banging boom thro' the rose-red gloom For our old Black Bo'sun's soul!
_Chorus:_ Alive! Not dead! Tho' behind his head He'd a seraphin's aureole!
And our chaplain he sniffs, as Bill finished his tale, (With the honey still scenting his hair!) O'er a plate of salt beef and a mug of old ale-- "By Pope Joan, there's no sense in a bear!" And we laughed, but our Bo'sun he solemnly growls --"Till the sails of yon heavens be furled, It taketh--now, mark!--all the beasts in the Ark, Teeth and claws, too, to make a good world!"
Chorus: Till the great--blue--sails--be--furled, It taketh--now, mark!--all the beasts in the Ark, Teeth and claws, too, to make a good world!
"Sack! Sack! Canary! Malmsey! Muscadel!"-- As the last canto ceased, the Mermaid Inn Chorussed. I flew from laughing voice to voice; But, over all the hubbub, rose the drone Of Francis Bacon,--"Now, this Muscovy Is a cold clime, not favourable to bees (Or love, which is a weakness of the south) As well might be supposed. Yet, as hot lands Gender hot fruits and odoriferous spice, In this case we may think that honey and flowers Are comparable with the light airs of May And a more temperate region. Also we see, As Pliny saith, this honey being a swette Of heaven, a certain spettle of the stars, Which, gathering unclean vapours as it falls, Hangs as a fat dew on the boughs, the bees Obtain it partly thus, and afterwards Corrupt it in their stomachs, and at last Expel it through their mouths and harvest it In hives; yet, of its heavenly source it keeps A great part. Thus, by various principles Of natural philosophy we observe--" And, as he leaned to Drayton, droning thus, I saw a light gleam of celestial mirth Flit o'er the face of Shakespeare--scarce a smile-- A swift irradiation from within As of a cloud that softly veils the sun.
IV
THE SIGN OF THE GOLDEN SHOE
We had just set our brazier smouldering, To keep the Plague away. Many a house Was marked with the red cross. The bells tolled Incessantly. Nash crept into the room Shivering like a fragment of the night, His face yellow as parchment, and his eyes Burning.
"The Plague! He has taken it!" voices cried. "That's not the Plague! The old carrion-crow is drunk; But stand away. What ails you, Nash my lad?" Then, through the clamour, as through a storm at sea, The master's voice, the voice of Ben, rang out, "Nash!"
Ben leapt to his feet, and like a ship Shouldering the waves, he shouldered the throng aside. "What ails you, man? What's that upon your breast? Blood?"
"Marlowe is dead," said Nash, And stunned the room to silence ...
"Marlowe--dead!" Ben caught him by the shoulders. "Nash! Awake! What do you mean? Marlowe? Kit Marlowe? Dead? I supped with him--why--not three nights ago! You are drunk! You are dazed! There's blood upon your coat!" "That's--where he died," said Nash, and suddenly sank Sidelong across a bench, bowing his head Between his hands ... Wept, I believe. Then, like a whip of steel, His lean black figure sprang erect again. "Marlowe!" he cried, "Kit Marlowe, killed for a punk, A taffeta petticoat! Killed by an apple-squire! Drunk! I was drunk; but I am sober now, Sober enough, by God! Poor Kit is dead."
* * * *
The Mermaid Inn was thronged for many a night With startled faces. Voices rose and fell, As I recall them, in a great vague dream, Curious, pitiful, angry, thrashing out The tragic truth. Then, all along the Cheape, The ballad-mongers waved their sheets of rhyme, Croaking: _Come buy! Come buy! The bloody death Of Wormall, writ by Master Richard Bame! Come buy! Come buy! The Atheist's Tragedy._ And, even in Bread Street, at our very door, The crowder to his cracked old fiddle sang:--
"_He was a poet of proud repute And wrote full many a play, Now strutting in a silken suit, Now begging by the way._"
Then, out of the hubbub and the clash of tongues, The bawdy tales and scraps of balladry, (As out of chaos rose the slow round world) At last, though for the Mermaid Inn alone, Emerged some tragic semblance of a soul, Some semblance of the rounded truth, a world Glimpsed only through great mists of blood and tears, Yet smitten, here and there, with dreadful light, As I believe, from heaven.
Strangely enough, (Though Ben forgot his pipe and Will's deep eyes Deepened and softened, when they spoke of Kit, For many a month thereafter) it was Nash That took the blow like steel into his heart. Nash, our "Piers Penniless," whom Rob Greene had called "Young Juvenal," the first satirist of our age, Nash, of the biting tongue and subtle sneer, Brooded upon it, till his grief became Sharp as a rapier, ready to lunge in hate At all the lies of shallower hearts.
One night, The night he raised the mists from that wild world, He talked with Chapman in the Mermaid Inn Of Marlowe's poem that was left half-sung, His _Hero and Leander_.
"Kit desired, If he died first, that you should finish it," Said Nash.
A loaded silence filled the room As with the imminent spirit of the dead Listening. And long that picture haunted me: Nash, like a lithe young Mephistopheles Leaning between the silver candle-sticks, Across the oak table, with his keen white face, Dark smouldering eyes, and black, dishevelled hair; Chapman, with something of the steady strength That helms our ships, and something of the Greek, The cool clear passion of Platonic thought Behind the fringe of his Olympian beard And broad Homeric brows, confronting him Gravely.
There was a burden of mystery Brooding on all that night; and, when at last Chapman replied, I knew he felt it, too. The curious pedantry of his wonted speech Was charged with living undertones, like truths Too strange and too tremendous to be breathed Save thro' a mask. And though, in lines that flamed Once with strange rivalry, Shakespeare himself defied Chapman, that spirit "by spirits taught to write Above a mortal pitch," Will's nimbler sense Was quick to breathings from beyond our world And could not hold them lightly.
"Ah, then Kit," Said Chapman, "had some prescience of his end, Like many another dreamer. What strange hints Of things past, present, and to come, there lie Sealed in the magic pages of that music Which, laying strong hold on universal laws, Ranges beyond these mud-walls of the flesh, Though dull wits fail to follow. It was this That made men find an oracle in the books Of Vergil, and an everlasting fount Of science in the prophets."
Once again That haunted silence filled the shadowy room; And, far away up Bread Street, we could hear The crowder, piping of black Wormall still:--
"_He had a friend, once gay and green, Who died of want alone, In whose black fate he might have seen The warning of his own._"
"Strange he should ask a hod-man like myself To crown that miracle of his April age," Said Chapman, murmuring softly under breath, "_Amorous Leander, beautiful and young_ ... Why, Nash, had I been only charged to raise Out of its grave in the green Hellespont The body of that boy, To make him sparkle and leap thro' the cold waves And fold young Hero to his heart again, The task were scarce as hard. But ... stranger still,"-- And his next words, although I hardly knew All that he meant, went tingling through my flesh-- "Before you spoke, before I knew his wish, I had begun to write! I knew and loved His work. Himself I hardly knew at all; And yet--I know him now! I have heard him now And, since he pledged me in so rare a cup, I'll lift and drink to him, though lightnings fall From envious gods to scourge me. I will lift This cup in darkness to the soul that reigns In light on Helicon. Who knows how near? For I have thought, sometimes, when I have tried To work his will, the hand that moved my pen Was mine, and yet--not mine. The bodily mask Is mine, and sometimes, dull as clay, it sleeps With old Musæus. Then strange flashes come, Oracular glories, visionary gleams, And the mask moves, not of itself, and sings."
"I know that thought," said Nash. "A mighty ship, A lightning-shattered wreck, out in that night, Unseen, has foundered thundering. We sit here Snug on the shore, and feel the wash of it, The widening circles running to our feet. Can such a soul go down to glut the sharks Without one ripple? Here comes one sprinkle of spray. Listen!" And through that night, quick and intense, And hushed for thunder, tingled once again, Like a thin wire, the crowder's distant tune:--
"_Had he been prenticed to the trade His father followed still, This exit he had never made, Nor played a part so ill._"
"Here is another," said Nash, "I know not why; But like a weed in the long wash, I too Was moved, not of myself, to a tune like this. O, I can play the crowder, fiddle a song On a dead friend, with any the best of you. Lie and kick heels in the sun on a dead man's grave And yet--God knows--it is the best we can; And better than the world's way, to forget." So saying, like one that murmurs happy words To torture his own grief, half in self-scorn, He breathed a scrap of balladry that raised The mists a moment from that Paradise, That primal world of innocence, where Kit In childhood played, outside his father's shop, Under the sign of the _Golden Shoe_, as thus:--
A cobbler lived in Canterbury --He is dead now, poor soul!-- He sat at his door and stitched in the sun, Nodding and smiling at everyone; For St. Hugh makes all good cobblers merry, And often he sang as the pilgrims passed, "I can hammer a soldier's boot, And daintily glove a dainty foot. Many a sandal from my hand Has walked the road to Holy Land. Knights may fight for me, priests may pray for me, Pilgrims walk the pilgrim's way for me, I have a work in the world to do! --_Trowl the bowl, the nut-brown bowl, To good St. Hugh!_-- The cobbler must stick to his last."
And anon he would cry "Kit! Kit! Kit!" to his little son, "Look at the pilgrims riding by! Dance down, hop down, after them, run!" Then, like an unfledged linnet, out Would tumble the brave little lad, With a piping shout,-- "O, look at them, look at them, look at them, Dad! Priest and prioress, abbot and friar, Soldier and seaman, knight and squire! How many countries have they seen? Is there a king there, is there a queen Dad, one day, Thou and I must ride like this, All along the Pilgrim's Way, By Glastonbury and Samarcand, El Dorado and Cathay, London and Persepolis, All the way to Holy Land!"
Then, shaking his head as if he knew, Under the sign of the _Golden Shoe_, Touched by the glow of the setting sun, While the pilgrims passed, The little cobbler would laugh and say: "When you are old you will understand 'Tis a very long way To Samarcand! Why, largely to exaggerate Befits not men of small estate, But--I should say, yes, I should say, 'Tis a hundred miles from where you stand; And a hundred more, my little son, A hundred more, to Holy Land!... I have a work in the world to do --_Trowl the bowl, the nut-brown bowl, To good St. Hugh!_-- The cobbler must stick to his last."
"Which last," said Nash, breaking his rhyme off short, "The crowder, after his kind, would seem to approve. Well--all the waves from that great wreck out there Break, and are lost in one withdrawing sigh:
The little lad that used to play Around the cobbler's door, Kit Marlowe, Kit Marlowe, We shall not see him more.
But--could I tell you how that galleon sank, Could I but bring you to that hollow whirl, The black gulf in mid-ocean, where that wreck Went thundering down, and round it hell still roars, That were a tale to snap all fiddle-strings." "Tell me," said Chapman.
"Ah, you wondered why," Said Nash, "you wondered why he asked your help To crown that work of his. Why, Chapman, think, Think of the cobbler's awl--there's a stout lance To couch at London, there's a conquering point To carry in triumph through Persepolis! I tell you Kit was nothing but a child, When some rich patron of the _Golden Shoe_ Beheld him riding into Samarcand Upon a broken chair, the which he said Was a white steed, splashed with the blood of kings. When, on that patron's bounty, he did ride So far as Cambridge, he was a brave lad, Untamed, adventurous, but still innocent, O, innocent as the cobbler's little self! He brought to London just a bundle and stick, A slender purse, an Ovid, a few scraps Of song, and all unshielded, all unarmed A child's heart, packed with splendid hopes and dreams. I say a child's heart, Chapman, and that phrase Crowns, not dis-crowns, his manhood. Well--he turned An honest penny, taking some small part In plays at the _Red Bull_. And, all the while, Beyond the paint and tinsel of the stage, Beyond the greasy cock-pit with its reek Of orange-peel and civet, as all of these Were but the clay churned by the glorious rush Of his white chariots and his burning steeds, Nay, as the clay were a shadow, his great dreams, Like bannered legions on some proud crusade, Empurpling all the deserts of the world, Swept on in triumph to the glittering towers Of his abiding City. Then--he met That damned blood-sucking cockatrice, the pug Of some fine strutting mummer, one of those plagues Bred by our stage, a puff-ball on the hill Of Helicon. As for his wench--she too Had played so many parts that she forgot The cue for truth. King Puff had taught her well. He was the vainer and more foolish thing, She the more poisonous. One dark day, to spite Archer, her latest paramour, a friend And apple-squire to Puff, she set her eyes On Marlowe ... feigned a joy in his young art, Murmured his songs, used all her London tricks To coney-catch the country greenhorn. Man, Kit never even _saw_ her painted face! He pored on books by candle-light and saw Everything thro' a mist. O, I could laugh To think of it, only--his up-turned skull There, in the dark, now that the flesh drops off, Has laughed enough, a horrible silent laugh, To think his Angel of Light was, after all, Only the red-lipped Angel of the Plague. He was no better than the rest of us, No worse. He felt the heat. He felt the cold. He took her down to Deptford to escape Contagion, and the crashing of sextons' spades On dead men's bones in every churchyard round; The jangling bell and the cry, _Bring out your dead_. And there she told him of her luckless life, Wedded, deserted, both against her will, A luckless Eve that never knew the snake. True and half-true she mixed in one wild lie, And then--she caught him by the hand and wept. No death-cart passed to warn him with its bell. Her eyes, her perfumed hair, and her red mouth, Her warm white breast, her civet-scented skin, Swimming before him, in a piteous mist, Made the lad drunk, and--she was in his arms; And all that God had meant to wake one day Under the Sun of Love, suddenly woke By candle-light and cried, 'The Sun; The Sun!' And he believed it, Chapman, he believed it! He was a cobbler's son, and he believed In Love! Blind, through that mist, he caught at Love, The everlasting King of all this world.
Kit was not clever. Clever men--like Pomp-- Might jest. And fools might laugh. But when a man, Simple as all great elemental things, Makes his whole heart a sacrificial fire To one whose love is in her supple skin, There comes a laughter in which jests break up Like icebergs in a sea of burning marl. Then dreamers turn to murderers in an hour. Then topless towers are burnt, and the Ocean-sea Tramples the proud fleet, down, into the dark, And sweeps over it, laughing. Come and see, The heart now of this darkness--no more waves, But the black central hollow where that wreck Went down for ever. How should Piers Penniless Brand that wild picture on the world's black heart?-- Last night I tried the way of the Florentine, And bruised myself; but we are friends together Mourning a dead friend, none will ever know!-- Kit, do you smile at poor Piers Penniless, Measuring it out? Ah, boy, it is my best! Since hearts must beat, let it be _terza rima_, A ladder of rhyme that two sad friends alone May let down, thus, to the last circle of hell."
So saying, and motionless as a man in trance, Nash breathed the words that raised the veil anew, Strange intervolving words which, as he spake them, Moved like the huge slow whirlpool of that pit Where the wreck sank, the serpentine slow folds Of the lewd Kraken that sucked it, shuddering, down:--
This is the Deptford Inn. Climb the dark stair. Come, come and see Kit Marlowe lying dead! See, on the table, by that broken chair,
The little phials of paint--the white and red. A cut-lawn kerchief hangs behind the door, Left by his punk, even as the tapster said.
There is the gold-fringed taffeta gown she wore, And, on that wine-stained bed, as is most meet, He lies alone, never to waken more.
O, still as chiselled marble, the frayed sheet Folds the still form on that sepulchral bed, Hides the dead face, and peaks the rigid feet.
Come, come and see Kit Marlowe lying dead! Draw back the sheet, ah, tenderly lay bare The splendour of that Apollonian head;
The gloriole of his flame-coloured hair; The lean athletic body, deftly planned To carry that swift soul of fire and air;
The long thin flanks, the broad breast, and the grand Heroic shoulders! Look, what lost dreams lie Cold in the fingers of that delicate hand;
And, shut within those lyric lips, what cry Of unborn beauty, sunk in utter night, Lost worlds of song, sealed in an unknown sky,
Never to be brought forth, clothed on with light. Was this, then, this the secret of his song?-- _Who ever loved that loved not at first?_
It was not Love, not Love, that wrought this wrong; And yet--what evil shadow of this dark town Could quench a soul so flame-like clean and strong,
Strike the young glory of his manhood down, Dead, like a dog, dead in a drunken brawl, Dead for a phial of paint, a taffeta gown?
What if his blood were hot? High over all He heard, as in his song the world still hears, Those angels on the burning heavenly wall
Who chant the thunder-music of the spheres. Yet--through the glory of his own young dream Here did he meet that face, wet with strange tears,
Andromeda, with piteous face astream, Hailing him, Perseus. In her treacherous eyes As in dark pools the mirrored stars will gleam,
Here did he see his own eternal skies; And here--she laughed, nor found the dream amiss; But bade him pluck and eat--in Paradise.
Here did she hold him, broken up with bliss, Here, like a supple snake, around him coiled, Here did she pluck his heart out with a kiss,
Here were the wings clipped and the glory soiled, Here adders coupled in the pure white shrine, Here was the Wine spilt, and the Shew-bread spoiled.
Black was that feast, though he who poured the Wine Dreamed that he poured it in high sacrament. Deep in her eyes he saw his own eyes shine,
Beheld Love's god-head and was well content. Subtly her hand struck the pure silver note, The throbbing chord of passion that God meant
To swell the bliss of heaven. Round his young throat She wound her swarthy tresses; then, with eyes Half mad to see their power, half mad to gloat,
Half mad to batten on their own devilries, And mark what heaven-born splendours they could quell, She held him quivering in a mesh of lies,
And in soft broken speech began to tell-- There as, against her heart, throbbing he lay-- The truth that hurled his soul from heaven to hell.
Quivering, she watched the subtle whip-lash flay The white flesh of the dreams of his pure youth; Then sucked the blood and left them cold as clay.
Luxuriously she lashed him with the truth. Against his mouth her subtle mouth she set To show, as through a mask, O, without ruth,
As through a cold clay mask (brackish and wet With what strange tears!) it was not his, not his, The kiss that through his quivering lips she met.
Kissing him, "_Thus_," she whispered, "_did he kiss. Ah, is the sweetness like a sword, then, sweet? Last night--ah, kiss again--aching with bliss,_
_Thus was I made his own, from head to feet._" --A sudden agony thro' his body swept Tempestuously.--"_Our wedded pulses beat_
_Like this and this; and then, at dawn, he slept._" She laughed, pouting her lips against his cheek To drink; and, as in answer, Marlowe wept.
As a dead man in dreams, he heard her speak. Clasped in the bitter grave of that sweet clay, Wedded and one with it, he moaned. Too weak
Even to lift his head, sobbing, he lay, Then, slowly, as their breathings rose and fell, He felt the storm of passion, far away,
Gather. The shuddering waves began to swell. And, through the menace of the thunder-roll, The thin quick lightnings, thrilling through his hell,
Lightnings that hell itself could not control (Even while she strove to bow his neck anew) Woke the great slumbering legions of his soul.
Sharp was that severance of the false and true, Sharp as a sword drawn from a shuddering wound. But they, that were one flesh, were cloven in two.
Flesh leapt from clasping flesh, without a sound. He plucked his body from her white embrace, And cast him down, and grovelled on the ground.
Yet, ere he went, he strove once more to trace, Deep in her eyes, the loveliness he knew; Then--spat his hatred into her smiling face.
She clung to him. He flung her off. He drew His dagger, thumbed the blade, and laughed--"Poor punk! What? Would you make me your own murderer, too?"
* * * *
"That was the day of our great feast," said Nash, "Aboard the _Golden Hynde_. The grand old hulk Was drawn up for the citizens' wonderment At Deptford. Ay, Piers Penniless was there! Soaked and besotted as I was, I saw Everything. On her poop the minstrels played, And round her sea-worn keel, like meadow-sweet Curtseying round a lightning-blackened oak, Prentices and their sweethearts, heel and toe, Danced the brave English dances, clean and fresh As May. But in her broad gun-guarded waist Once red with British blood, long tables groaned For revellers not so worthy. Where her guns Had raked the seas, barrels of ale were sprung, Bestrid by roaring tipplers. Where at night The storm-beat crew silently bowed their heads With Drake before the King of Life and Death, A strumpet wrestled with a mountebank For pence, a loose-limbed Lais with a clown Of Cherry Hilton. Leering at their lewd twists, Cross-legged upon the deck, sluggish with sack, Like a squat toad sat Puff ... Propped up against the bulwarks, at his side, Archer, his apple-squire, hiccoughed a bawdy song. Suddenly, through that orgy, with wild eyes, Yet with her customary smile, O, there I saw in daylight what Kit Marlowe saw Through blinding mists, the face of his first love. She stood before her paramour on the deck, Cocking her painted head to right and left, Her white teeth smiling, but her voice a hiss: 'Quickly,' she said to Archer, 'come away, Or there'll be blood spilt!' 'Better blood than wine,' Said Archer, struggling to his feet, 'but who, Who would spill blood?' 'Marlowe!' she said. Then Puff Reeled to his feet. 'What, Kit, the cobbler's son? The lad that broke his leg at the _Red Bull_, Tamburlaine-Marlowe, he that would chain kings To's chariot-wheel? What, is he rushing hither? He would spill blood for Gloriana, hey? O, my Belphoebe, you will crack my sides! Was this the wench that shipped a thousand squires? O, ho! But here he comes. Now, solemnly, lads,-- _Now walk the angels on the walls of heaven To entertain divine Zenocrate!_' And there stood Kit, high on the storm-scarred poop, Against the sky, bare-headed. I saw his face, Pale, innocent, just the dear face of that boy Who walked to Cambridge with a bundle and stick,-- The little cobbler's son. Yet--there I caught My only glimpse of how the sun-god looked, And only for one moment. When he saw His mistress, his face whitened, and he shook. Down to the deck he came, a poor weak man; And yet--by God--the only man that day In all our drunken crew. 'Come along, Kit,' Cried Puff, 'we'll all be friends now, all take hands, And dance--ha! ha!--the shaking of the sheets!' Then Archer, shuffling a step, raised his cracked voice In Kit's own song to a falsetto tune, Snapping one hand, thus, over his head as he danced:--
'_Come, live with me, and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove!_' ...
Puff reeled between, laughing. 'Damn you,' cried Kit, And, catching the fat swine by his round soft throat, Hurled him headlong, crashing across the tables, To lie and groan in the red bilge of wine That washed the scuppers. Kit gave him not one glance. 'Archer,' he said in a whisper. Instantly A long thin rapier flashed in Archer's hand. The ship was one wild uproar. Women screamed And huddled together. A drunken clamorous ring Seethed around Marlowe and his enemy. Kit drew his dagger, slowly, and I knew Blood would be spilt. 'Here, take my rapier, Kit!' I cried across the crowd, seeing the lad Was armed so slightly. But he did not hear. I could not reach him. All at once he leapt Like a wounded tiger, past the rapier point Straight at his enemy's throat. I saw his hand Up-raised to strike! I heard a harlot's scream, And, in mid-air, the hand stayed, quivering, white, A frozen menace. I saw a yellow claw Twisting the dagger out of that frozen hand; I saw his own steel in that yellow grip, His own lost lightning raised to strike at him! I saw it flash! I heard the driving grunt Of him that struck! Then, with a shout, the crowd Sundered, and through the gap, a blank red thing Streaming with blood came the blind face of Kit, Reeling, to me! And I, poor drunken I, Held my arms wide for him. Here, on my breast, With one great sob, he burst his heart and died."
* * * *
Nash ceased. And, far away down Friday Street, The crowder with his fiddler wailed again:
"_Blaspheming Tambolin must die And Faustus meet his end. Repent, repent, or presentlie To hell ye must descend._"
And, as in answer, Chapman slowly breathed Those mightiest lines of Marlowe's own despair:
"_Think'st thou that I who saw the face of God, And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, Am not tormented with ten thousand hells?_"
"Ah, you have said it," said Nash, "and there you know Why Kit desired your hand to crown his work. He reverenced you as one whose temperate eyes Austere and grave, could look him through and through; One whose firm hand could grasp the reins of law And guide those furious horses of the sun, As Ben and Will can guide them, where you will. His were, perchance, the noblest steeds of all, And from their nostrils blew a fierier dawn Above the world. That glory is his own; But where he fell, he fell. Before his hand Had learned to quell them, he was dashed to the earth. 'Tis yours to show that good men honoured him. For, mark this, Chapman, since Kit Marlowe fell. There will be fools that, in the name of Art, Will wallow in the mire, crying 'I fall, I fall from heaven!'--fools that have only heard From earth, the rumour of those golden hooves Far, far above them. Yes, you know the kind, The fools that scorn Will for his lack of fire Because he quells the storms they never knew, And rides above the thunder; fools of Art That skip and vex, like little vicious fleas, Their only Helicon, some green madam's breast. Art! Art! O, God, that I could send my soul, In one last wave, from that night-hidden wreck, Across the shores of all the years to be; O, God, that like a crowder I might shake Their blind dark casements with the pity of it, Piers Penniless his ballad, a poor scrap, That but for lack of time, and hope and pence, He might have bettered! For a dead man's sake, Thus would the wave break, thus the crowder cry:--
Dead, like a dog upon the road; Dead, for a harlot's kiss; The Apollonian throat and brow, The lyric lips, so silent now, The flaming wings that heaven bestowed For loftier airs than this!
The sun-like eyes whose light and life Had gazed an angel's down, That burning heart of honey and fire, Quenched and dead for an apple-squire, Quenched at the thrust of a mummer's knife, Dead--for a taffeta gown!
The wine that God had set apart, The noblest wine of all, Wine of the grapes that angels trod, The vintage of the glory of God, The crimson wine of that rich heart, Spilt in a drunken brawl,
Poured out to make a steaming bath That night in the Devil's Inn, A steaming bath of living wine Poured out for Circe and her swine, A bath of blood for a harlot To supple and sleek her skin.
And many a fool that finds it sweet Through all the years to be, Crowning a lie with Marlowe's fame, Will ape the sin, will ape the shame, Will ape our captain in defeat; But--not in victory;
Till Art become a leaping-house, And Death be crowned as Life, And one wild jest outshine the soul Of Truth ... O, fool, is this your goal? You are not our Kit Marlowe, But the drunkard with the knife;
Not Marlowe, but the Jack-o'-Lent That lured him o'er the fen! O, ay, the tavern is in its place, And the punk's painted smiling face, But where is our Kit Marlowe The man, the king of men?
Passion? You kiss the painted mouth, The hand that clipped his wings, The hand that into his heart she thrust And tuned him to her whimpering lust, And played upon his quivering youth As a crowder plucks the strings.
But he who dared the thunder-roll, Whose eagle-wings could soar, Buffeting down the clouds of night, To beat against the Light of Light, That great God-blinded eagle-soul, We shall not see him, more."
V
THE COMPANION OF A MILE
THWACK! _Thwack_! One early dawn upon our door I heard the bladder of some motley fool Bouncing, and all the dusk of London shook With bells! I leapt from bed,--had I forgotten?--I flung my casement wide and craned my neck Over the painted Mermaid. There he stood, His right leg yellow and his left leg blue, With jingling cap, a sheep-bell at his tail, Wielding his eel-skin bladder,--_bang! thwack! bang!_--Catching a comrade's head with the recoil And skipping away! All Bread Street dimly burned Like a reflected sky, green, red and white With littered branches, ferns and hawthorn-clouds; For, round Sir Fool, a frolic morrice-troop Of players, poets, prentices, mad-cap queans, Robins and Marians, coloured like the dawn, And sparkling like the greenwood whence they came With their fresh boughs all dewy from the dark, Clamoured, _Come down! Come down, and let us in!_ High over these, I suddenly saw Sir Fool Leap to a sign-board, swing to a conduit-head, And perch there, gorgeous on the morning sky, Tossing his crimson cockscomb to the blue And crowing like Chanticleer, _Give them a rouse! Tickle it, tabourer! Nimbly, lasses, nimbly! Tuck up your russet petticoats and dance! Let the Cheape know it is the first of May!_
And as I seized shirt, doublet and trunk-hose, I saw the hobby-horse come cantering down, A pasteboard steed, dappled a rosy white Like peach-bloom, bridled with purple, bitted with gold, A crimson foot-cloth on his royal flanks, And, riding him, His Majesty of the May! Round him the whole crowd frolicked with a shout, And as I stumbled down the crooked stair I heard them break into a dance and sing:--
SONG
I
Into the woods we'll trip and go, Up and down and to and fro, Under the moon to fetch in May, And two by two till break of day, A-maying, A-playing, For Love knows no gain-saying! Wisdom trips not? Even so-- Come, young lovers, trip and go, Trip and go.
II
Out of the woods we'll dance and sing Under the morning-star of Spring, Into the town with our fresh boughs And knock at every sleeping house, Not sighing, Or crying, Though Love knows no denying! Then, round your summer queen and king, Come, young lovers, dance and sing, Dance and sing!
"_Chorus_," the great Fool tossed his gorgeous crest, And lustily crew against the deepening dawn, "_Chorus_," till all the Cheape caught the refrain, And, with a double thunder of frolic feet, Its ancient nut-brown tabors woke the Strand:--
A-maying, A-playing, For Love knows no gain-saying! Wisdom trips not? Even so,-- Come, young lovers, trip and go, Trip and go.
Into the Mermaid with a shout they rushed As I shot back the bolts, and _bang, thwack, bang,_ The bladder bounced about me. What cared I? This was all England's holy-day! "Come in, My yellow-hammers," roared the Friar Tuck Of this mad morrice, "come you into church, My nightingales, my scraps of Lincoln green, And hear my sermon!" On a window-seat He stood, against the diamonded rich panes In the old oak parlour and, throwing back his hood, Who should it be but Ben, rare Ben himself? The wild troup laughed around him, some a-sprawl On tables, kicking parti-coloured heels, Some with their Marians jigging on their knees, And, in the front of all, the motley fool Cross-legged upon the rushes. O, I knew him,-- Will Kemp, the player, who danced from London town To Norwich in nine days and was proclaimed Freeman of Marchaunt Venturers and hedge-king Of English morrice-dancery for ever! His nine-days' wonder, through the countryside Was hawked by every ballad-monger. Kemp Raged at their shake-rag Muses. None but I Guessed ever for what reason, since he chose His anticks for himself and, in his games, Was more than most May-fools fantastical. I watched his thin face, as he rocked and crooned, Shaking the squirrels' tails around his ears; And, out of all the players I had seen, His face was quickest through its clay to flash The passing mood. Though not a muscle stirred, The very skin of it seemed to flicker and gleam With little summer lightnings of the soul At every fleeting fancy. For a man So quick to bleed at a pin-prick or to leap Laughing through hell to save a butterfly, This world was difficult; and perchance he found In his fantastic games that open road Which even Will Shakespeare only found at last In motley and with some wild straws in his hair. But "Drawer! drawer!" bellowed Friar Ben, "Make ready a righteous breakfast while I preach;-- Tankards of nut-brown ale, and cold roast beef, Cracknels, old cheese, flaunes, tarts and clotted cream. Hath any a wish not circumscribed by these?"
"A white-pot custard, for my white-pot queen," Cried Kemp, waving his bauble, "mark this, boy, A white-pot custard for my queen of May,-- She is not here, but that concerns not thee!-- A white-pot Mermaid custard, with a crust, Lashings of cream, eggs, apple-pulse and spice, A little sugar and manchet bread. Away! Be swift!" And as I bustled to and fro, The Friar raised his big brown fists again And preached in mockery of the Puritans Who thought to strip the moonshine wings from Mab, Tear down the May-poles, rout our English games, And drive all beauty back into the sea.
Then laughter and chatter and clashing tankards drowned All but their May-day jollity a-while. But, as their breakfast ended, and I sank Gasping upon a bench, there came still more Poets and players crowding into the room; And one--I only knew him as Sir John-- Waved a great ballad at Will Kemp and laughed, "Atonement, Will, atonement!" "What," groaned Kemp, "Another penny poet? How many lies Does _this_ rogue tell? Sir, I have suffered much From these Melpomenes and strawberry quills, And think them better at their bloody lines On _The Blue Lady_. Sir, they set to work At seven o'clock in the morning, the same hour That I, myself, that's _Cavaliero_ Kemp, With heels of feather and heart of cork, began Frolickly footing, from the great Lord Mayor Of London, tow'rds the worshipful Master Mayor Of Norwich." "Nay, Kemp, this is a May-day tune, A morrice of country rhymes, made by a poet Who thought it shame so worthy an act as thine Should wither in oblivion if the Muse With her Castalian showers could keep it green. And while the fool nid-nodded all in time, Sir John, in swinging measure, trolled this tale:--
I
With Georgie Sprat, my overseer, and Thomas Slye, my tabourer, And William Bee, my courier, when dawn emblazed the skies, I met a tall young butcher as I danced by little Sudbury, Head-master o' morrice-dancers all, high headborough of hyes.
By Sudbury, by Sudbury, by little red-roofed Sudbury, He wished to dance a mile with me! I made a courtly bow: I fitted him with morrice-bells, with treble, bass and tenor bells, And "_Tickle your tabor, Tom_," I cried, "_we're going to market now_."
And rollicking down the lanes we dashed, and frolicking up the hills we clashed, And like a sail behind me flapped his great white frock a-while, Till, with a gasp, he sank and swore that he could dance with me no more; And--over the hedge a milk-maid laughed, _Not dance with him a mile_?
"You lout!" she laughed, "I'll leave my pail, and dance with him for cakes and ale! I'll dance a mile for love," she laughed, "and win my wager, too. Your feet are shod and mine are bare; but when could leather dance on air? A milk-maid's feet can fall as fair and light as falling dew."
I fitted her with morrice-bells, with treble, bass and tenor bells: The fore-bells, as I linked them at her throat, how soft they sang! Green linnets in a golden nest, they chirped and trembled on her breast, And, faint as elfin blue-bells, at her nut-brown ankles rang.
I fitted her with morrice-bells that sweetened into woodbine bells, And trembled as I hung them there and crowned her sunny brow: "Strike up," she laughed, "my summer king!" And all her bells began to ring, And "_Tickle your tabor, Tom_," I cried, "_we're going to Sherwood now_!"
When cocks were crowing, and light was growing, and horns were blowing, and milk-pails flowing, We swam thro' waves of emerald gloom along a chestnut aisle, Then, up a shining hawthorn-lane, we sailed into the sun again, Will Kemp and his companion, his companion of a mile.
"Truer than most," snarled Kemp, "but mostly lies! And why does he forget the miry lanes By Brainford with thick woods on either side, And the deep holes, where I could find no ease But skipped up to my waist?" A crackling laugh Broke from his lips which, if he had not worn The cap and bells, would scarce have roused the mirth Of good Sir John, who roundly echoed it, Then waved his hand and said, "Nay, but he treats Your morrice in the spirit of Lucian, Will, Who thought that dancing was no mushroom growth, But sprung from the beginning of the world When Love persuaded earth, air, water, fire, And all the jarring elements to move In measure. Right to the heart of it, my lad, The song goes, though the skin mislike you so." "Nay, an there's more of it, I'll sing it, too! 'Tis a fine tale, Sir John, I have it by heart, Although 'tis lies throughout." Up leapt Will Kemp, And crouched and swayed, and swung his bauble round, Making the measure as they trolled the tale, Chanting alternately, each answering each.
II
_The Fool_
The tabor fainted far behind us, but her feet that day They beat a rosier morrice o'er the fairy-circled green.
_Sir John_
And o'er a field of buttercups, a field of lambs and buttercups, We danced along a cloth of gold, a summer king and queen!
_The Fool_
And straying we went, and swaying we went, with lambkins round us playing we went; Her face uplift to drink the sun, and not for me her smile, We danced, a king and queen of May, upon a fleeting holy-day, But O, she'd won her wager, my companion of a mile!
_Sir John_
Her rosy lips they never spoke, though every rosy foot-fall broke The dust, the dust to Eden-bloom; and, past the throbbing blue, All ordered to her rhythmic feet, the stars were dancing with my sweet, And all the world a morrice-dance!
_The Fool_
She knew not; but I knew! Love like Amphion with his lyre, made all the elements conspire To build His world of music. All in rhythmic rank and file, I saw them in their cosmic dance, catch hands across, retire, advance, For me and my companion, my companion of a mile!
_Sir John_
The little leaves on every tree, the rivers winding to the sea, The swinging tides, the wheeling winds, the rolling heavens above, Around the May-pole Igdrasil, they worked the Morrice-master's will, Persuaded into measure by the all-creative Love.
That hour I saw, from depth to height, this wildering universe unite! The lambs of God around us and His passion in every flower!
_The Fool_
His grandeur in the dust, His dust a blaze of blinding majesty, And all His immortality in one poor mortal hour.
And Death was but a change of key in Life the golden melody, And Time became Eternity, and Heaven a fleeting smile; For all was each and each was all, and all a wedded unity, Her heart in mine, and mine in my companion of a mile.
_Thwack_! _Thwack_! He whirled his bauble round about, "This fellow beats them all," he cried, "the worst Those others wrote was that I hopped from York To Paris with a mortar on my head. This fellow sends me leaping through the clouds To buss the moon! The best is yet to come; Strike up, Sir John! Ha! ha! You know no more?" Kemp leapt upon a table. "Clear the way", He cried, and with a great stamp of his foot And a wild crackling laugh, drew all to hark, "With hey and ho, through thick and thin, The hobby-horse is forgotten, But I must finish what I begin, Tho' all the roads be rotten.
"By all those twenty thousand chariots, Ben, Hear this true tale they shall! Now, let me see, Where was Will Kemp? Bussing the moon's pale mouth? Ah, yes!" He crouched above the listening throng,-- "_Good as a play_," I heard one whispering quean,-- And, waving his bauble, shuffling with his feet In a dance that marked the time, he sank his voice As if to breathe great secrets, and so sang:--
III
At Melford town, at Melford town, at little grey-roofed Melford town, A long mile from Sudbury, upon the village green, We danced into a merry rout of country-folk that skipt about A hobby-horse, a May-pole, and a laughing white-pot queen.
They thronged about us as we stayed, and there I gave my sunshine maid An English crown for cakes and ale--her dancing was so true! And "Nay," she said, "I danced my mile for love!" I answered with a smile, "'Tis but a silver token, lass, 'thou'st won that wager, too."
I took my leash of morrice-bells, my treble, bass and tenor bells, They pealed like distant marriage-bells! And up came William Bee With Georgie Sprat, my overseer, and Thomas Slye, my tabourer, "Farewell," she laughed, and vanished with a Suffolk courtesie. I leapt away to Rockland, and from Rockland on to Hingham, From Hingham on to Norwich, sirs! I hardly heard a-while The throngs that followed after, with their shouting and their laughter, For a shadow danced beside me, my companion of a mile!
At Norwich, by St. Giles his gate, I entered, and the Mayor in state, With all the rosy knights and squires for twenty miles about, With trumpets and with minstrelsy, was waiting there to welcome me; And, as I skipt into the street, the City raised a shout.
They gave me what I did not seek. I fed on roasted swans a week! They pledged me in their malmsey, and they lined me warm with ale! They sleeked my skin with red-deer pies, and all that runs and swims and flies; But, through the clashing wine-cups, O, I heard her clanking pail.
And, rising from his crimson chair, the worshipful and portly Mayor Bequeathed me forty shillings every year that I should live, With five good angels in my hand that I might drink while I could stand! They gave me golden angels! What I lacked they could not give.
They made Will Kemp, thenceforward, sirs, Freeman of Marchaunt Venturers! They hoped that I would dance again from Norwich up to York; Then they asked me, all together, had I met with right May weather, And they praised my heels of feather, and my heart, my heart of cork.
* * * *
As I came home by Sudbury, by little red-roofed Sudbury, I waited for my bare-foot maid, among her satin kine! I heard a peal of wedding-bells, of treble, bass and tenor bells: "Ring well," I cried, "this bridal morn! You soon shall ring for mine!"
I found her foot-prints in the grass, just where she stood and saw me pass. I stood within her own sweet field and waited for my may. I laughed. The dance has turned about! I stand within: she'll pass without, And--_down the road the wedding came, the road I danced that day_!
_I saw the wedding-folk go by, with laughter and with minstrelsy, I gazed across her own sweet hedge, I caught her happy smile, I saw the tall young butcher pass to little red-roofed Sudbury, His bride upon his arm, my lost companion of a mile._
Down from his table leapt the motley Fool. His bladder bounced from head to ducking head, His crackling laugh rang high,--"Sir John, I danced In February, and the song says May! A fig for all your poets, liars all! Away to Fenchurch Street, lasses and lads, They hold high revel there this May-day morn. Away!" The mad-cap throng echoed the cry. He drove them with his bauble through the door; Then, as the last gay kerchief fluttered out He gave one little sharp sad lingering cry As of a lute-string breaking. He turned back
And threw himself along a low dark bench; His jingling cap was crumpled in his fist, And, as he lay there, all along Cheapside The happy voices of his comrades rang:--
Out of the woods we'll dance and sing Under the morning-star of Spring, Into the town with our fresh boughs And knock at every sleeping house, Not sighing, Or crying, Though Love knows no denying! Then, round your summer queen and king, Come, young lovers, dance and sing, Dance and sing!
His motley shoulders heaved. I touched his arm, "What ails you, sir?" He raised his thin white face, Wet with the May-dew still. A few stray petals Clung in his tangled hair. He leapt to his feet, "'Twas February, but I danced, boy, danced In May! Can you do this?" Forward he bent Over his feet, and shuffled it, heel and toe, Out of the Mermaid, singing his old song--
A-maying, A-playing, For Love knows no gain-saying! Wisdom trips not? Even so,-- Come, young lovers, trip and go, Trip and go.
Five minutes later, over the roaring Strand, "_Chorus!_" I heard him crow, and half the town Reeled into music under his crimson comb.
VI
BIG BEN
Gods, what a hubbub shook our cobwebs out The day that Chapman, Marston and our Ben Waited in Newgate for the hangman's hands.
Chapman and Marston had been flung there first For some imagined insult to the Scots In _Eastward Ho_, the play they wrote with Ben. But Ben was famous now, and our brave law Would fain have winked and passed the big man by. The lesser men had straightway been condemned To have their ears cut off, their noses slit. With other tortures.
Ben had risen at that! He gripped his cudgel, called for a quart of ale, Then like Helvellyn with his rocky face And mountain-belly, he surged along Cheapside, Snorting with wrath, and rolled into the gaol, To share the punishment.
"There is my mark! 'Tis not the first time you have branded me," Said our big Ben, and thrust his broad left thumb Branded with T for Tyburn, into the face Of every protest. "That's the mark you gave me Because I killed my man in Spitalfields, A duel honest as any your courtiers fight. But I was no Fitzdotterel, bore no gules And azure, robbed no silk-worms for my hose, I was Ben Jonson, out of Annandale, Bricklayer in common to the good Lord God. You branded me. I am Ben Jonson still. You cannot rub it out."
The Mermaid Inn Buzzed like a hornet's nest, upon the day Fixed for their mutilation. And the stings Were ready, too; for rapiers flashed and clashed Among the tankards. Dekker was there, and Nash, Brome (Jonson's body-servant, whom he taught His art of verse and, more than that, to love him,) And half a dozen more. They planned to meet The prisoners going to Tyburn, and attempt A desperate rescue.
All at once we heard A great gay song come marching down the street, A single voice, and twenty marching men, Then the full chorus, twenty voices strong:--
The prentice whistles at break of day All under fair roofs and towers, When the old Cheape openeth every way Her little sweet inns like flowers; And he sings like a lark, both early and late, To think, if his house take fire, At the good _Green Dragon_ in Bishopsgate He may drink to his heart's desire.
_Chorus:_ Or sit at his ease in the old _Cross Keys_ And drink to his heart's desire.
But I, as I walk by _Red Rose Lane_, Tho' it warmeth my heart to see _The Swan_, _The Golden Hynde_, and _The Crane_, With the door set wide for me; Tho' Signs like daffodils paint the strand When the thirsty bees begin, Of all the good taverns in Engeland My choice is--_The Mermaid Inn_.
_Chorus:_ There is much to be said for _The Saracen's Head_, But my choice is _The Mermaid Inn_.
Into the tavern they rushed, these roaring boys. "Now broach your ripest and your best," they cried. "All's well! They are all released! They are on the way! Old Camden and young Selden worked the trick. Where is Dame Dimpling? Where's our jolly hostess? Tell her the Mermaid Tavern will have guests: We are sent to warn her. She must raid Cook's Row, And make their ovens roar. Nobody dines This day with old Duke Humphrey. Red-deer pies, Castles of almond crust, a shield of brawn Big as the nether millstone, barrels of wine, Three roasted peacocks! Ben is on the way!" Then all the rafters rang with song again:--
There was a Prince--long since, long since!-- To East Cheape did resort, For that he loved _The Blue Boar's Head_ Far better than Crown or Court;
But old King Harry in Westminster Hung up, for all to see, Three bells of power in St. Stephen's Tower, Yea, bells of a thousand and three,
_Chorus:_ Three bells of power in a timber tower, Thirty thousand and three,
For Harry the Fourth was a godly king And loved great godly bells! He bade them ring and he bade them swing Till a man might hear nought else. In every tavern it soured the sack With discord and with din; But they drowned it all in a madrigal Like this, at _The Mermaid Inn_.
_Chorus:_ They drowned it all in a madrigal Like this, at _The Mermaid Inn._
"But how did Selden work it?"--"Nobody knows. They will be here anon. Better ask Will. He's the magician!"--"Ah, here comes Dame Dimpling!" And, into the rollicking chaos our good Dame --A Dame of only two and thirty springs-- All lavender and roses and white kerchief, Bustled, to lay the tables.
Fletcher flung His arm around her waist and kissed her cheek. But all she said was, "_One--two--three--four--five-- Six at a pinch, in yonder window-seat._" "A health to our Dame Dimpling," Beaumont cried, And Dekker, leaping on the old black settle, Led all their tumult into a song again:--
What is the Mermaid's merriest toast? Our hostess--good Dame Dimpling! Who is it rules the Mermaid roast? Who is it bangs the Mermaid host, Tho' her hands be soft as her heart almost? Dame Dimpling!
She stands at the board in her fresh blue gown With the sleeves tucked up--Dame Dimpling! She rolls the white dough up and down And her pies are crisp, and her eyes are brown. So--she is the Queen of all this town,-- Dame Dimpling!
Her sheets are white as black-thorn bloom, White as her neck, Dame Dimpling! Her lavender sprigs in the London gloom Make every little bridal-room A country nook of fresh perfume,-- Dame Dimpling!
She wears white lace on her dark brown hair: And a rose on her breast, Dame Dimpling! And who can show you a foot as fair Or an ankle as neat when she climbs the stair, Taper in hand, and head in the air, And a rose in her cheek?--O, past compare, Dame Dimpling!
"But don't forget those oyster-pies," cried Lyly. "Nor the roast beef," roared Dekker. "Prove yourself The Muse of meat and drink."
There was a shout In Bread Street, and our windows all swung wide, Six heads at each.
Nat Field bestrode our sign And kissed the painted Mermaid on her lips, Then waved his tankard.
"Here they come," he cried. "Camden and Selden, Chapman and Marston, too, And half Will's company with our big Ben Riding upon their shoulders."
"Look!" cried Dekker, "But where is Atlas now? O, let them have it! A thumping chorus, lads! Let the roof crack!" And all the Mermaid clashed and banged again In thunderous measure to the marching tune That rolled down Bread Street, forty voices strong:--
At _Ypres Inn_, by _Wring-wren Lane_, Old John of Gaunt would dine: He scarce had opened an oyster or twain, Or drunk one flagon of wine, When, all along the Vintry Ward, He heard the trumpets blow, And a voice that roared--"If thou love thy lord, Tell John of Gaunt to go!"
_Chorus:_ A great voice roared--"If thou love thy lord, Tell John of Gaunt to go!"
Then into the room rushed Haviland That fair fat Flemish host, "They are marching hither with sword and brand, Ten thousand men--almost! It is these oysters or thy sweet life, Thy blood or the best of the bin!"-- "Proud Pump, avaunt!" quoth John of Gaunt, "I will dine at _The Mermaid Inn!_"
_Chorus:_ "Proud Pump, avaunt!" quoth John of Gaunt, "There is wine at _The Mermaid Inn!_"
And in came Ben like a great galleon poised High on the white crest of a shouting wave, And then the feast began. The fragrant steam As from the kitchens of Olympus drew A throng of ragged urchins to our doors. Ben ordered them a castellated pie That rolled a cloud around them where they sat Munching upon the cobblestones. Our casements Dripped with the golden dews of Helicon; And, under the warm feast our cellarage Gurgled and foamed in the delicious cool With crimson freshets-- "Tell us," cried Nat Field, When pipes began to puff. "How did you work it?" Camden chuckled and tugged his long white beard. "Out of the mouth of babes," he said and shook His head at Selden! "O, young man, young man, There's a career before you! Selden did it. Take my advice, my children. Make young Selden Solicitor-general to the Mermaid Inn. That rosy silken smile of his conceals A scholar! Yes, that suckling lawyer there Puts my grey beard to shame. His courteous airs And silken manners hide the nimblest wit That ever trimmed a sail to catch the wind Of courtly favour. Mark my words now, Ben, That youth will sail right up against the wind By skilful tacking. But you run it fine, Selden, you run it fine. Take my advice And don't be too ironical, my boy, Or even the King will see it." He chuckled again. "But tell them of your tractate!" "Here it is," Quoth Selden, twisting a lighted paper spill, Then, with his round cherubic face aglow Lit his long silver pipe, "Why, first," he said, "Camden being Clarencieux King-at-arms, He read the King this little tract I wrote Against tobacco." And the Mermaid roared With laughter. "Well, you went the way to hang All three of them," cried Lyly, "and, as for Ben, His Trinidado goes to bed with him." "Green gosling, quack no more," Selden replied, Smiling that rosy silken smile anew. "The King's a _critic_! When have critics known The poet from his creatures, God from me? How many cite Polonius to their sons And call it Shakespeare? Well, I took my text From sundry creatures of our great big Ben, And called it 'Jonson.' Camden read it out Without the flicker of an eye. His beard Saved us, I think. The King admired his text. '_There is a man_,' he read, '_lies at death's door Thro' taking of tobacco. Yesterday He voided a bushel of soot_.' 'God bless my soul, A bushel of soot! Think of it!' said the King. 'The man who wrote those great and splendid words,' Camden replied,--I had prepared his case Carefully--'lies in Newgate prison, sire. His nose and ears await the hangman's knife.'
'Ah,' said the shrewd King, goggling his great eyes Cannily. 'Did he not defame the Scots?' 'That's true,' said Camden, like a man that hears Truth for the first time. 'O ay, he defamed 'em,' The King said, very wisely, once again. 'Ah, but,' says Camden, like a man that strives With more than mortal wit, 'only such Scots As flout your majesty, and take tobacco. He is a Scot, himself, and hath the gift Of preaching.' Then we gave him Jonson's lines Against Virginia. '_Neither do thou lust After that tawny weed; for who can tell, Before the gathering and the making up, What alligarta may have spawned thereon_,' Or words to that effect. 'Magneeficent!' Spluttered the King--'who knows? Who knows, indeed? That's a grand touch, that Alligarta, Camden!' 'The Scot who wrote those great and splendid words,' Said Camden, 'languishes in Newgate, sire. His ears and nose--' And there, as we arranged With Inigo Jones, the ladies of the court Assailed the King in tears. Their masque and ball Would all be ruined. All their Grecian robes, Procured at vast expense, were wasted now. The masque was not half-written. Master Jones Had lost his poets. They were all in gaol. Their noses and their ears ... 'God bless my soul,' Spluttered the King, goggling his eyes again, 'What d'you make of it, Camden?'-- 'I should say A Puritan plot, sire; for these justices-- Who love tobacco--use their law, it seems, To flout your Majesty at every turn. If this continue, sire, there'll not be left A loyal ear or nose in all your realm.' At that, our noble monarch well-nigh swooned. He hunched his body, padded as it was Against the assassin's knife, six inches deep With great green quilts, wagged his enormous head, Then, in a dozen words, he wooed destruction: 'It is presumption and a high contempt In subjects to dispute what kings can do,' He whimpered. 'Even as it is blasphemy To thwart the will of God.' He waved his hand, And rose. 'These men must be released, at once!' Then, as I think, to seek a safer place, He waddled from the room, his rickety legs Doubling beneath that great green feather-bed He calls his 'person.'--I shall dream to-night Of spiders, Camden.--But in half an hour, Inigo Jones was armed with Right Divine To save such ears and noses as the ball Required for its perfection. Think of that! And let this earthly ball remember, too, That Chapman, Marston, and our great big Ben Owe their poor adjuncts to--ten Grecian robes And 'Jonson' on tobacco! England loves Her poets, O, supremely, when they're dead." "But Ben has narrowly escaped her love," Said Chapman gravely. "What do you mean?" said Lodge. And, as he spoke, there was a sudden hush. A tall gaunt woman with great burning eyes, And white hair blown back softly from a face Ethereally fierce, as might have looked Cassandra in old age, stood at the door. "Where is my Ben?" she said. "Mother!" cried Ben. He rose and caught her in his mighty arms. Her labour-reddened, long-boned hands entwined Behind his neck. "She brought this to the gaol," Said Chapman quietly, tossing a phial across To Camden. "And he meant to take it, too, Before the hangman touched him. Half an hour And you'd have been too late to save big Ben. He has lived too much in ancient Rome to love A slit nose and the pillory. He'd have wrapped His purple round him like an emperor. I think she had another for herself." "There's Roman blood in both of them," said Dekker, "Don't look. She is weeping now," And, while Ben held That gaunt old body sobbing against his heart, Dekker, to make her think they paid no heed, Began to sing; and very softly now. Full forty voices echoed the refrain:--
_The Cardinal's Hat_ is a very good inn, And so is _The Puritan's Head_; But I know a sign of a Wine, a Wine That is better when all is said. It is whiter than Venus, redder than Mars, It was old when the world begun; For all good inns are moons or stars But _The Mermaid_ is their Sun.
_Chorus:_ They are all alight like moons in the night, But _The Mermaid_ is their Sun.
Therefore, when priest or parson cries That inns like flowers increase, I say that mine inn is a church likewise, And I say to them "Be at peace!" An host may gather in dark St. Paul's To salve their souls from sin; But the Light may be where "two or three" Drink Wine in _The Mermaid Inn_.
_Chorus:_ The Light may be where "two or three" Drink Wine in _The Mermaid Inn_.
VII
THE BURIAL OF A QUEEN
'Twas on an All Souls' Eve that our good Inn --Whereof, for ten years now, myself was host-- Heard and took part in its most eerie tale. It was a bitter night, and master Ben, --His hair now flecked with grey, though youth still fired His deep and ageless eyes,--in the old oak-chair, Over the roaring hearth, puffed at his pipe; A little sad, as often I found him now Remembering vanished faces. Yet the years Brought others round him. Wreaths of Heliochrise Gleamed still in that great tribe of Benjamin, Burned still across the malmsey and muscadel. Chapman and Browne, Herrick,--a name like thyme Crushed into sweetness by a bare-foot maid Milking, at dewy dawn, in Elfin-land,-- These three came late, and sat in a little room Aside, supping together, on one great pie, Whereof both crust and coffin were prepared By master Herrick's receipt, and all washed down With mighty cups of sack. This left with Ben, John Ford, wrapped in his cloak, brooding aloof, Drayton and Lodge and Drummond of Hawthornden. Suddenly, in the porch, I heard a sound Of iron that grated on the flags. A spade And pick came edging through the door.
"O, room! Room for the master-craftsman," muttered Ford, And grey old sexton Scarlet hobbled in. He shuffled off the snow that clogged his boots, --On my clean rushes!--brushed it from his cloak Of Northern Russet, wiped his rheumatic knees, Blew out his lanthorn, hung it on a nail, Leaned his rude pick and spade against the wall, Flung back his rough frieze hood, flapped his gaunt arms, And called for ale.
"Come to the fire," said Lodge. "Room for the wisest counsellor of kings, The kindly sage that puts us all to bed, And tucks us up beneath the grass-green quilt." "Plenty of work, eh Timothy?" said Ben. "Work? Where's my liquor? O, ay, there's work to spare," Old Scarlet croaked, then quaffed his creaming stoup, While Ben said softly--"Pity you could not spare, You and your Scythe-man, some of the golden lads That I have seen here in the Mermaid Inn!" Then, with a quiet smile he shook his head And turned to master Drummond of Hawthornden. "Well, songs are good; but flesh and blood are better. The grey old tomb of Horace glows for me Across the centuries, with one little fire Lit by a girl's light hand." Then, under breath, Yet with some passion, he murmured this brief rhyme:--
I
_Dulce ridentem_, laughing through the ages, _Dulce loquentem_, O, fairer far to me, Rarer than the wisdom of all his golden pages Floats the happy laughter of his vanished Lalage.
II
_Dulce loquentem_,--we hear it and we know it. _Dulce ridentem_,--so musical and low. "Mightier than marble is my song!" Ah, did the poet Know why little Lalage was mightier even so?
III
_Dulce ridentem_,--through all the years that sever, Clear as o'er yon hawthorn hedge we heard her passing by,-- _Lalagen amabo_,--a song may live for ever _Dulce loquentem_,--but Lalage must die.
"I'd like to learn that rhyme," the sexton said. "I've a fine memory too. You start me now, I'd keep it up all night with ancient ballads." And then--a strange thing happened. I saw John Ford "With folded arms and melancholy hat" (As in our Mermaid jest he still would sit) Watching old Scarlet like a man in trance. The sexton gulped his ale and smacked his lips, Then croaked again--"O, ay, there's work to spare, We fills 'em faster than the spades can dig," And, all at once, the lights burned low and blue. Ford leaned right forward, with his grim black eyes Widening.
"Why, that's a marvellous ring!" he said, And pointed to the sexton's gnarled old hand Spread on the black oak-table like the claw Of some great bird of prey. "A ruby worth The ransom of a queen!" The fire leapt up! The sexton stared at him; Then stretched his hand out, with its blue-black nails, Full in the light, a grim earth-coloured hand, But bare as it was born.
"There was a ring! I could have sworn it! Red as blood!" cried Ford. And Ben and Lodge and Drummond of Hawthornden All stared at him. For such a silent soul Was master Ford that, when he suddenly spake, It struck the rest as dumb as if the Sphinx Had opened its cold stone lips. He would sit mute Brooding, aloof, for hours, his cloak around him, A staff between his knees, as if prepared For a long journey, a lonely pilgrimage To some dark tomb; a strange and sorrowful soul, Yet not--as many thought him--harsh or hard, But of a most kind patience. Though he wrote In blood, they say, the blood came from his heart; And all the sufferings of this world he took To his own soul, and bade them pasture there: Till out of his compassion, he became A monument of bitterness. He rebelled; And so fell short of that celestial height Whereto the greatest only climb, who stand By Shakespeare, and accept the Eternal Law. These find, in law, firm footing for the soul, The strength that binds the stars, and reins the sea, The base of being, the pillars of the world, The pledge of honour, the pure cord of love, The form of truth, the golden floors of heaven. These men discern a height beyond all heights, A depth below all depths, and never an end Without a pang beyond it, and a hope; Without a heaven beyond it, and a hell. For these, despair is like a bubble pricked, An old romance to make young lovers weep. For these, the law becomes a fiery road, A Jacob's ladder through that vast abyss Lacking no rung from realm to loftier realm, Nor wanting one degree from dust to wings. These, at the last, radiant with victory, Lay their strong hands upon the wingèd steeds And fiery chariots, and exult to hold, Themselves, the throbbing reins, whereby they steer The stormy splendours. He, being less, rebelled, Cried out for unreined steeds, and unruled stars, An unprohibited ocean and a truth Untrue; and the equal thunder of the law Hurled him to night and chaos, who was born To shine upon the forehead of the day. And yet--the voice of darkness and despair May speak for heaven where heaven would not be heard, May fight for heaven where heaven would not prevail, And the consummate splendour of that strife, Swallowing up all discords, all defeat, In one huge victory, harmonising all, Make Lucifer, at last, at one with God.
There,--on that All Souls' Eve, you might have thought A dead man spoke, to see how Drayton stared, And Drummond started. "You saw no ruby ring," The old sexton muttered sullenly. "If you did, The worse for me, by all accounts. The lights Burned low. You caught the firelight on my fist. What was it like, this ring?" "A band of gold, And a great ruby, heart-shaped, fit to burn Between the breasts of Laïs. Am I awake Or dreaming?" "Well,--that makes the second time! There's many have said they saw it, out of jest, To scare me. For the astrologer did say The third time I should die. Now, did you see it? Most likely someone's told you that old tale! You hadn't heard it, now?" Ford shook his head. "What tale?" said Ben. "O, you could make a book About my life. I've talked with quick and dead, And neither ghost nor flesh can fright me now! I wish it was a ring, so's I could catch him, And sell him; but I've never seen him yet. A white witch told me, if I did, I'd go Clink, just like that, to heaven or t'other place, Whirled in a fiery chariot with ten steeds The way Elijah went. For I have seen So many mighty things that I must die Mightily. Well,--I came, sirs, to my craft The day mine uncle Robert dug the grave For good Queen Katharine, she whose heart was broke By old King Harry, a very great while ago. Maybe you've heard about my uncle, sirs? He was far-famous for his grave-digging. In depth, in speed, in neatness, he'd no match! They've put a fine slab to his memory In Peterborough Cathedral--_Robert Scarlet, Sexton for half a century_, it says, _In Peterborough Cathedral, where he built The last sad habitation for two queens, And many hundreds of the common sort. And now himself, who for so many built Eternal habitations, others have buried._ _Obiit anno ætatis, ninety-eight, July the second, fifteen ninety-four._ We should do well, sir, with a slab like that, Shouldn't we?" And the sexton leered at Lodge. "Not many boasts a finer slab than that. There's many a king done worse. Ah, well, you see, He'd a fine record. Living to ninety-eight, He buried generations of the poor, A countless host, and thought no more of it Than digging potatoes. He'd a lofty mind That found no satisfaction in small deeds. But from his burying of two queens he drew A lively pleasure. Could he have buried a third, It would indeed have crowned his old white hairs. But he was famous, and he thought, perchance, A third were mere vain-glory. So he died. I helped him with the second." The old man leered To see the shaft go home. Ben filled the stoup With ale. "So that," quoth he, "began the tale About this ruby ring?" "But who," said Lodge, "Who was the second queen?" "A famous queen, And a great lover! When you hear her name, Your hearts will leap. Her beauty passed the bounds Of modesty, men say, yet--she died young! We buried her at midnight. There were few That knew it; for the high State Funeral Was held upon the morrow, Lammas morn. Anon you shall hear why. A strange thing that,-- To see the mourners weeping round a hearse That held a dummy coffin. Stranger still To see us lowering the true coffin down By torchlight, with some few of her true friends, In Peterborough Cathedral, all alone." "Old as the world," said Ford. "It is the way Of princes. Their true tears and smiles are seen At dead of night, like ghosts raised from the grave! And all the luxury of their brief, bright noon, Cloaks but a dummy throne, a mask of life; And, at the last, drapes a false catafalque, Holding a vacant urn, a mask of death. But tell, tell on!" The sexton took a draught Of ale and smacked his lips. "Mine uncle lived A mile or more from Peterborough, then. And, past his cottage, in the dead of night, Her royal coach came creeping through the lanes, With scutcheons round it and no crowd to see, And heralds carrying torches in their hands, And none to admire, but him and me, and one, A pedlar-poet, who lodged with us that week And paid his lodging with a bunch of rhymes. By these, he said, my uncle Robert's fame Should live, as in a picture, till the crack Of doom. My uncle thought that he should pay Four-pence beside; but, when the man declared The thought unworthy of these august events, My uncle was abashed. And, truth to tell, The rhymes were mellow, though here and there he swerved From truth to make them so. Nor would he change 'June' to 'July' for all that we could say. 'I never said the month was June,' he cried, 'And if I did, Shakespeare hath jumped an age! Gods, will you hedge me round with thirty nights? "June" rhymes with "moon"!' With that, he flung them down And strode away like Lucifer, and was gone, Before old Scarlet could approach again The matter of that four-pence. Yet his rhymes Have caught the very colours of that night! I can see through them, Ay, just as through our cottage window-panes, Can see the great black coach, Carrying the dead queen past our garden-gate. The roses bobbing and fluttering to and fro, Hide, and yet show the more by hiding, half. And, like smoked glass through which you see the sun, The song shows truest when it blurs the truth. This is the way it goes." He rose to his feet, Picked up his spade, and struck an attitude, Leaning upon it. "I've got to feel my spade, Or I'll forget it. This is the way I speak it. Always." And, with a schoolboy's rigid face, And eyes fixed on the rafters, he began, Sing-song, the pedlar-poet's bunch of rhymes:--
As I went by the cattle-shed The grey dew dimmed the grass, And, under a twisted apple-tree, Old Robin Scarlet stood by me. "Keep watch! Keep watch to-night," he said, "There's things 'ull come to pass.
"Keep watch until the moon has cleared The thatch of yonder rick; Then I'll come out of my cottage-door To wait for the coach of a queen once more; And--you'll say nothing of what you've heard, But rise and follow me quick."
"And what 'ull I see if I keep your trust, And wait and watch so late?" "Pride," he said, "and Pomp," he said, "Beauty to haunt you till you're dead, And Glorious Dust that goes to dust, Passing the white farm-gate.
"You are young and all for adventure, lad, And the great tales to be told: This night, before the clock strike one, Your lordliest hour will all be done; But you'll remember it and be glad, In the days when you are old!"
All in the middle of the night, My face was at the pane; When, creeping out of his cottage-door, To wait for the coach of a queen once more, Old Scarlet, in the moon-light, Beckoned to me again.
He stood beneath a lilac-spray, Like Father Time for dole, In Reading Tawny cloak and hood, With mattock and with spade he stood, And, far away to southward, A bell began to toll.
He stood beneath a lilac-spray, And never a word he said; But, as I stole out of the house, He pointed over the orchard boughs, Where, not with dawn or sunset, The Northern sky grew red.
I followed him, and half in fear, To the old farm-gate again; And, round the curve of the long white road, I saw that the dew-dashed hedges glowed Red with the grandeur drawing near, And the torches of her train.
They carried her down with singing, With singing sweet and low, Slowly round the curve they came, Twenty torches dropping flame, The heralds that were bringing her The way we all must go.
'Twas master William Dethick, The Garter King of Arms, Before her royal coach did ride, With none to see his Coat of Pride, For peace was on the countryside, And sleep upon the farms;
Peace upon the red farm, Peace upon the grey, Peace on the heavy orchard trees, And little white-walled cottages, Peace upon the wayside, And sleep upon the way.
So master William Dethick, With forty horse and men, Like any common man and mean Rode on before the Queen, the Queen, And--only a wandering pedlar Could tell the tale again.
How, like a cloud of darkness, Between the torches moved Four black steeds and a velvet pall Crowned with the Crown Imperiall And--on her shield--the lilies, The lilies that she loved.
Ah, stained and ever stainless Ah, white as her own hand, White as the wonder of that brow, Crowned with colder lilies now, White on the velvet darkness, The lilies of her land!
The witch from over the water, The fay from over the foam, The bride that rode thro' Edinbro' town With satin shoes and a silken gown, A queen, and a great king's daughter,-- Thus they carried her home,
With torches and with scutcheons, Unhonoured and unseen, With the lilies of France in the wind a-stir, And the Lion of Scotland over her, Darkly, in the dead of night, They carried the Queen, the Queen.
The sexton paused and took a draught of ale. "'Twas there," he said, "I joined 'em at the gate, My uncle and the pedlar. What they sang, The little shadowy throng of men that walked Behind the scutcheoned coach with bare bent heads I know not; but 'twas very soft and low. They walked behind the rest, like shadows flung Behind the torch-light, from that strange dark hearse. And, some said, afterwards, they were the ghosts Of lovers that this queen had brought to death. A foolish thought it seemed to me, and yet Like the night-wind they sang. And there was one An olive-coloured man,--the pedlar said Was like a certain foreigner that she loved, One Chastelard, a wild French poet of hers. Also the pedlar thought they sang 'farewell' In words like this, and that the words in French Were written by the hapless Queen herself, When as a girl she left the vines of France For Scotland and the halls of Holyrood:--
I
Though thy hands have plied their trade Eighty years without a rest, Robin Scarlet, never thy spade Built a house for such a guest! Carry her where, in earliest June, All the whitest hawthorns blow; Carry her under the midnight moon, Singing very soft and low. Slow between the low green larches, carry the lovely lady sleeping, Past the low white moon-lit farms, along the lilac-shadowed way! Carry her through the summer darkness, weeping, weeping, weeping, weeping! Answering only, to any that ask you, whence ye carry her,--_Fotheringhay!_
II
She was gayer than a child! --_Let your torches droop for sorrow._-- Laughter in her eyes ran wild! --_Carry her down to Peterboro'._-- Words were kisses in her mouth! --_Let no word of blame be spoken._-- She was Queen of all the South! --_In the North, her heart was broken._-- They should have left her in her vineyards, left her heart to her land's own keeping, Left her white breast room to breathe, and left her light foot free to dance. Out of the cold grey Northern mists, we carry her weeping, weeping, weeping,-- _O, ma patrie, La plus chérie, Adieu, plaisant pays de France!_
III
Many a red heart died to beat --_Music swelled in Holyrood!_-- Once, beneath her fair white feet. --_Now the floors may rot with blood_-- She was young and her deep hair-- --_Wind and rain were all her fate!_-- Trapped young Love as in a snare, --_And the wind's a sword in the Canongate! Edinboro'! Edinboro'! Music built the towers of Troy, but thy grey walls are built of sorrow!_ Wind-swept hills, and sorrowful glens, of thrifty sowing and iron reaping, What if her foot were fair as a sunbeam, how should it touch or melt your snows? What if her hair were a silken mesh? Hands of steel can deal hard blows, Iron breast-plates bruise fair flesh! Carry her southward, palled in purple, Weeping, weeping, weeping, weeping, What had their rocks to do with roses? Body and soul she was all one rose.
Thus, through the summer night, slowly they went, We three behind,--the pedlar-poet and I, And Robin Scarlet. The moving flare that ringed The escutcheoned hearse, lit every leaf distinct Along the hedges and woke the sleeping birds, But drew no watchers from the drowsier farms. Thus, through a world of innocence and sleep, We brought her to the doors of her last home, In Peterborough Cathedral. Round her tomb They stood, in the huge gloom of those old aisles, The heralds with their torches, but their light Struggled in vain with that tremendous dark. Their ring of smoky red could only show A few sad faces round the purple pall, The wings of a stone angel overhead, The base of three great pillars, and, fitfully, Faint as the phosphorus glowing in some old vault, One little slab of marble, far away. Yet, or the darkness, or the pedlar's words Had made me fanciful, I thought I saw Bowed shadows praying in those unplumbed aisles, Nay, dimly heard them weeping, in a grief That still was built of silence, like the drip Of water from a frozen fountain-head. We laid her in her grave. We closed the tomb. With echoing footsteps all the funeral went; And I went last to close and lock the doors; Last, and half frightened of the enormous gloom That rolled along behind me as one by one The torches vanished. O, I was glad to see The moonlight on the kind turf-mounds again. But, as I turned the key, a quivering hand Was laid upon my arm. I turned and saw That foreigner with the olive-coloured face. From head to foot he shivered, as with cold. He drew me into the shadows of the porch. 'Come back with me,' he whispered, and slid his hand --Like ice it was!--along my wrist, and slipped A ring upon my finger, muttering quick, As in a burning fever, 'All the wealth Of Eldorado for one hour! Come back! I must go back and see her face again! I was not there, not there, the day she--died. You'll help me with the coffin. Not a soul Will know. Come back! One moment, only one!' I thought the man was mad, and plucked my hand Away from him. He caught me by the sleeve, And sank upon his knees, lifting his face Most piteously to mine. 'One moment! See! I loved her!' I saw the moonlight glisten on his tears, Great, long, slow tears they were; and then--my God-- As his face lifted and his head sank back Beseeching me--I saw a crimson thread Circling his throat, as though the headsman's axe Had cloven it with one blow, so shrewd, so keen, The head had slipped not from the trunk. I gasped; And, as he pleaded, stretching his head back, The wound, O like a second awful mouth, The wound began to gape. I tore my cloak Out of his clutch. My keys fell with a clash. I left them where they lay, and with a shout I dashed into the broad white empty road. There was no soul in sight. Sweating with fear I hastened home, not daring to look back; But as I turned the corner, I heard the clang Of those great doors, and knew he had entered in.
Not till I saw before me in the lane The pedlar and my uncle did I halt And look at that which clasped my finger still As with a band of ice. My hand was bare! I stared at it and rubbed it. Then I thought I had been dreaming. There had been no ring! The poor man I had left there in the porch, Being a Frenchman, talked a little wild; But only wished to look upon her grave. And I--I was the madman! So I said Nothing. But all the same, for all my thoughts, I'd not go back that night to find the keys, No, not for all the rubies in the crown Of Prester John.
* * * *
The high State Funeral Was held on Lammas Day. A wondrous sight For Peterborough! For myself, I found Small satisfaction in a catafalque That carried a dummy coffin. None the less, The pedlar thought that as a Solemn Masque, Or Piece of Purple Pomp, the thing was good, And worthy of a picture in his rhymes; The more because he said it shadowed forth The ironic face of Death. The Masque, indeed Began before we buried her. For a host Of Mourners--Lords and Ladies--on Lammas eve Panting with eagerness of pride and place, Arrived in readiness for the morrow's pomp, And at the Bishop's Palace they found prepared A mighty supper for them, where they sat All at one table. In a Chamber hung With 'scutcheons and black cloth, they drank red wine And feasted, while the torches and the Queen Crept through the darkness of Northampton lanes.
At seven o'clock on Lammas Morn they woke, After the Queen was buried; and at eight The Masque set forth, thus pictured in the rhymes With tolling bells, which on the pedlar's lips Had more than paid his lodging: Thus he spake it, Slowly, sounding the rhymes like solemn bells, And tolling, in between, with lingering tongue:--
_Toll!_--From the Palace the Releevants creep,-- A hundred poor old women, nigh their end, Wearing their black cloth gowns, and on each head An ell of snow-white holland which, some said, Afterwards they might keep, --_Ah, Toll!_--with nine new shillings each to spend, For all the trouble that they had, and all The sorrow of walking to this funeral.
_Toll!_--And the Mourning Cloaks in purple streamed Following, a long procession, two by two, Her Household first. With these, Monsieur du Preau Her French Confessor, unafraid to show The golden Cross that gleamed About his neck, warned what the crowd might do Said _I will wear it, though I die for it!_ So subtle in malice was that Jesuit.
_Toll!_--Sir George Savile in his Mourner's Gown Carried the solemn Cross upon a Field Azure, and under it by a streamer borne Upon a field of Gules, an Unicorn Argent and, lower down, A scrolled device upon a blazoned shield, Which seemed to say--I AM SILENT TILL THE END!-- _Toll! Toll!_--IN MY DEFENCE, GOD ME DEFEND!
_Toll!_--and a hundred poor old men went by, Followed by two great Bishops.--_Toll, ah toll!_-- Then, with White Staves and Gowns, four noble lords; Then sixteen Scots and Frenchmen with drawn swords; Then, with a Bannerol, Sir Andrew Noel, lifting to the sky The Great Red Lion. Then the Crown and Crest Borne by a Herald on his glittering breast.
And now--ah now, indeed, the deep bell tolls-- That empty Coffin, with its velvet pall, Borne by six Gentlemen, under a canopy Of purple, lifted by four knights, goes by.
The Crown Imperial Burns on the Coffin-head. Four Bannerols On either side, uplifted by four squires, Roll on the wind their rich heraldic fires. _Toll!_ The Chief Mourner--the fair Russell!--_toll!_-- Countess of Bedford--_toll!_--they bring her now, Weeping under a purple Cloth of State, Till, halting there before the Minister Gate, Having in her control The fair White Staves of office, with a bow She gives them to her two great Earls again, Then sweeps them onward in her mournful train.
_Toll!_ At the high Cathedral door the Quires Meet them and lead them, singing all the while A mighty _Miserere_ for her soul! Then, as the rolling organ--_toll, ah toll!_-- Floods every glimmering aisle With ocean-thunders, all those knights and squires Bring the false Coffin to the central nave And set it in the Catafalque o'er her grave.
The Catafalque was made in Field-bed wise Valanced with midnight purple, fringed with gold: All the Chief Mourners on dark thrones were set Within it, as jewels in some huge carcanet: Above was this device IN MY DEFENCE, GOD ME DEFEND, inscrolled Round the rich Arms of Scotland, as to say "Man judged me. I abide the Judgment Day."
The sexton paused anew. All looked at him, And at his wrinkled, grim, earth-coloured hand, As if, in that dim light, beclouded now With blue tobacco-smoke, they thought to see The smouldering ruby again. "Ye know," he said, "How master William Wickham preached that day?" Ford nodded. "I have heard of it. He showed Subtly, O very subtly, after his kind, That the white Body of Beauty such as hers Was in itself Papistical, a feast, A fast, an incense, a burnt-offering, And an Abomination in the sight Of all true Protestants. Why, her very name Was Mary!" "Ay, that's true, that's very true!" The sexton mused. "Now that's a strange deep thought! The Bishop missed a text in missing that. Her name, indeed, was Mary!" "Did you find Your keys again?" "Ay, Sir, I found them!" "Where?" "Strange you should ask me that! After the throng Departed, and the Nobles were at feast, All in the Bishop's Palace--a great feast And worthy of their sorrow--I came back Carrying my uncle's second bunch of keys To lock the doors and search, too, for mine own. 'Twas growing dusk already, and as I thrust The key into the lock, the great grey porch Grew cold upon me, like a tomb. I pushed Hard at the key--then stopped--with all my flesh Freezing, and half in mind to fly; for, sirs, The door was locked already, and--_from within_! I drew the key forth quietly and stepped back Into the Churchyard, where the graves were warm With sunset still, and the blunt carven stones Lengthened their homely shadows, out and out, To Everlasting. Then I plucked up heart, Seeing the footprints of that mighty Masque Along the pebbled path. A queer thought came Into my head that all the world without Was but a Masque, and I was creeping back, Back from the Mourner's Feast to Truth again. Yet--I grew bold, and tried the Southern door. 'Twas locked, but held no key on the inner side To foil my own, and softly, softly, click, I turned it, and with heart, sirs, in my mouth, Pushed back the studded door and entered in ... Stepped straight out of the world, I might have said, Out of the dusk into a night so deep, So dark, I trembled like a child.... And then I was aware, sirs, of a great sweet wave Of incense. All the gloom was heavy with it, As if her Papist Household had returned To pray for her poor soul; and, my fear went. But either that strange incense weighed me down, Or else from being sorely over-tasked, A languor came upon me, and sitting there To breathe a moment, in a velvet stall, I closed mine eyes. A moment, and no more, For then I heard a rustling in the nave, And opened them; and, very far away, As if across the world, in Rome herself, I saw twelve tapers in the solemn East, And saw, or thought I saw, cowled figures kneel Before them, in an incense-cloud. And then, Maybe the sunset deepened in the world Of masques without--clear proof that I had closed Mine eyes but for a moment, sirs, I saw As if across a world-without-end tomb, A tiny jewelled glow of crimson panes Darkening and brightening with the West. And then, Then I saw something more--Queen Mary's vault, And--it was open!... Then, I heard a voice, A strange deep broken voice, whispering love In soft French words, that clasped and clung like hands; And then--two shadows passed against the West, Two blurs of black against that crimson stain, Slowly, O very slowly, with bowed heads, Leaning together, and vanished into the dark Beyond the Catafalque. Then--I heard him pray,-- And knew him for the man that prayed to me,-- Pray as a man prays for his love's last breath! And then, O sirs, it caught me by the throat, And I, too, dropped upon my knees and prayed; For, as in answer to his prayer, there came A moan of music, a mighty shuddering sound From the great organ, a sound that rose and fell Like seas in anger, very far away; And then a peal of thunder, and then it seemed, As if the graves were giving up their dead, A great cowled host of shadows rose and sang;--
_Dies iræ, dies illâ Solvet sæclum in favilla, Teste David cum Sibylla._
I heard her sad, sad, little, broken voice, Out in the darkness. 'Ay, and David, too, His blood is on the floors of Holyrood, To speak for me.' Then that great ocean-sound Swelled to a thunder again, and heaven and earth Shrivelled away; and in that huge slow hymn Chariots were driven forth in flaming rows, And terrible trumpets blown from deep to deep.
And then, ah then, the heart of heaven was hushed, And--in the hush--it seemed an angel wept, Another Mary wept, and gathering up All our poor wounded, weary, way-worn world, Even as a Mother gathers up her babe, Soothed it against her breast, and rained her tears On the pierced feet of God, and melted Him To pity, and over His feet poured her deep hair. The music died away. The shadows knelt. And then--I heard a rustling nigh the tomb, And heard--and heard--or dreamed I heard--farewells, Farewells for everlasting, deep farewells, Bitter as blood, darker than any death. And, at the last, as in a kiss, one breath, One agony of sweetness, like a sword For sharpness, drawn along a soft white throat; And, for its terrible sweetness, like a sigh Across great waters, very far away,-- _Sweetheart!_
And then, like doors, like world-without-end doors That shut for Everlasting, came a clang, And ringing, echoing, through the echo of it, One terrible cry that plucked my heart-strings out, _Mary!_ And on the closed and silent tomb, Where there were two, one shuddering shadow lay, And then--I, too,--reeled, swooned and knew no more.
Sirs, when I woke, there was a broad bright shaft Of moonlight, slanting through an Eastern pane Full on her tomb and that black Catafalque. And on the tomb there lay--my bunch of keys! I struggled to my feet, Ashamed of my wild fancies, like a man Awakening from a drunken dream. And yet, When I picked up the keys, although that storm Of terror had all blown by and left me calm, I lifted up mine eyes to see the scroll Round the rich crest of that dark canopy, IN MY DEFENCE, GOD ME DEFEND. The moon Struck full upon it; and, as I turned and went, God help me, sirs, though I were loyal enough To good Queen Bess, I could not help but say, _Amen!_ And yet, methought it was not I that spake, But some deep soul that used me for a mask, A soul that rose up in this hollow shell Like dark sea-tides flooding an empty cave. I could not help but say with my poor lips, _Amen! Amen!_ Sirs, 'tis a terrible thing To move in great events. Since that strange night I have not been as other men. The tides Would rise in this dark cave"--he tapped his skull-- "Deep tides, I know not whence; and when they rose My friends looked strangely upon me and stood aloof. And once, my uncle said to me--indeed, It troubled me strangely,--'Timothy,' he said, 'Thou art translated! I could well believe Thou art two men, whereof the one's a fool, The other a prophet. Or else, beneath thy skin There lurks a changeling! What hath come to thee?' And then, sirs, then--well I remember it! 'Twas on a summer eve, and we walked home Between high ghostly hedges white with may-- And uncle Robin, in his holy-day suit Of Reading Tawny, felt his old heart swell With pride in his great memories. He began Chanting the pedlar's tune, keeping the time Thus, jingle, jingle, slowly, with his keys:--
I
Douglas, in the moonless night --_Muffled oars on blue Loch Leven!_-- Took her hand, a flake of white --_Beauty slides the bolts of heaven._-- Little white hand, like a flake of snow, When they saw it, his Highland crew Swung together and murmured low, "Douglas, wilt _thou_ die then, too?" And the pine trees whispered, weeping, "_Douglas, Douglas, tender and true!_ Little white hand like a tender moonbeam, soon shall you set the broadswords leaping, It is the Queen, the Queen!" they whispered, watching her soar to the saddle anew. "There will be trumpets blown in the mountains, a mist of blood on the heather, and weeping, Weeping, weeping, and _thou_, too, dead for her, Douglas, Douglas, tender and true."
II
Carry the queenly lass along! --_Cold she lies, cold and dead,_-- She whose laughter was a song, --_Lapped around with sheets of lead!_-- She whose blood was wine of the South, --_Light her down to a couch of clay!_-- And a royal rose her mouth, And her body made of may! --Lift your torches, weeping, weeping, Light her down to a couch of clay. They should have left her in her vineyards, left her heart to her land's own keeping, Left her white breast room to breathe, and left her light foot free to dance!
Hush! Between the solemn pinewoods, carry the lovely lady sleeping, Out of the cold grey Northern mists, with banner and scutcheon, plume, and lance, Carry her southward, palled in purple, weeping, weeping, weeping, weeping,-- _O, ma patrie, La plus chérie, Adieu, plaisant pays de France!_
Well, sirs, that dark tide rose within my brain! I snatched his keys and flung them over the hedge, Then flung myself down on a bank of ferns And wept and wept and wept. It puzzled him. Perchance he feared my mind was going and yet, O, sirs, if you consider it rightly now, With all those ages knocking at his doors, With all that custom clamouring for his care, Is it so strange a grave-digger should weep? Well--he was kind enough and heaped my plate That night at supper. But I could never dig my graves at ease In Peterborough Churchyard. So I came To London--to St. Mary Magdalen's. And thus, I chanced to drink my ale one night Here in the Mermaid Inn. 'Twas All Souls' Eve, And, on that bench, where master Ford now sits Was master Shakespeare-- Well, the lights burned low, And just like master Ford to-night he leaned Suddenly forward. 'Timothy,' he said, 'That's a most marvellous ruby!' My blood froze! I stretched my hand out bare as it was born; And he said nothing, only looked at me. Then, seeing my pipe was empty, he bade me fill And lit it for me. Peach, the astrologer, Was living then; and that same night I went And told him all my trouble about this ring. He took my hand in his, and held it--thus-- Then looked into my face and said this rhyme:--
_The ruby ring, that only three While Time and Tide go by, shall see, Weds your hand to history._
_Honour and pride the first shall lend; The second shall give you gold to spend; The third--shall warn you of your end._
Peach was a rogue, some say, and yet he spake Most truly about the first," the sexton mused, "For master Shakespeare, though they say in youth Outside the theatres, he would hold your horse For pence, prospered at last, bought a fine house In Stratford, lived there like a squire, they say. And here, here he would sit, for all the world As he were but a poet! God bless us all, And then--to think!--he rose to be a squire! A deep one, masters! Well, he lit my pipe!" "Why did they bury such a queen by night?" Said Ford. "Kings might have wept for her. Did Death Play epicure and glutton that so few Were bidden to such a feast. Once on a time, I could have wept, myself, to hear a tale Of beauty buried in the dark. And hers Was loveliness, far, far beyond the common! Such beauty should be marble to the touch Of time, and clad in purple to amaze The moth. But she was kind and soft and fair, A woman, and so she died. But, why the dark?"
"Sir, they gave out the coffin was too heavy For gentlemen to bear!"--"For kings to bear?" Ford flashed at him. The sexton shook his head,-- "Nay! Gentlemen to bear! But--the true cause-- Ah, sir, 'tis unbelievable, even to me, A sexton, for a queen so fair of face! And all her beds, even as the pedlar said, Breathing Arabia, sirs, her walls all hung With woven purple wonders and great tales Of amorous gods, and mighty mirrors, too, Imaging her own softness, night and dawn, When through her sumptuous hair she drew the combs; And like one great white rose-leaf half her breast Shone through it, firm as ivory." "Ay," said Lodge, Murmuring his own rich music under breath, "_About her neck did all the graces throng, And lay such baits as did entangle death._" "Well, sir, the weather being hot, they feared She would not hold the burying!"... "In some sort," Ford answered slowly, "if your tale be true, She did not hold it. Many a knightly crest Will bend yet o'er the ghost of that small hand."
There was a hush, broken by Ben at last, Who turned to Ford--"How now, my golden lad? The astrologer's dead hand is on thy purse!"
Ford laughed, grimly, and flung an angel down. "Well, cause or consequence, rhyme or no rhyme, There is thy gold. I will not break the spell, Or thou mayst live to bury us one and all!" "And, if I live so long," the old man replied, Lighting his lanthorn, "you may trust me, sirs, Mine Inn is quiet, and I can find you beds Where Queens might sleep all night and never move. Good-night, sirs, and God bless you, one and all." He shouldered pick and spade. I opened the door. The snow blew in, and, as he shuffled out, There, in the strait dark passage, I could swear I saw a spark of red upon his hand, Like a great smouldering ruby. I gasped. He stopped. He peered at me. "Twice in a night," he said. "Nothing," I answered, "only the lanthorn-light." He shook his head. "I'll tell you something more! There's nothing, nothing now in life or death That frightens me. Ah, things used to frighten me. But never now. I thought I had ten years; But if the warning comes and says '_Thou fool, This night!_' Why, then, I'm ready." I watched him go, With glimmering lanthorn up the narrow street, Like one that walked upon the clouds, through snow That seemed to mix the City with the skies.
On Christmas Eve we heard that he was dead.
VIII
FLOS MERCATORUM
FLOS MERCATORUM! On that night of nights We drew from out our Mermaid cellarage All the old glory of London in one cask Of magic vintage. Never a city on earth-- Rome, Paris, Florence, Bagdad--held for Ben The colours of old London; and, that night, We staved them like a wine, and drank, drank deep!
'Twas Master Heywood, whom the Mermaid Inn Had dubbed our London laureate, hauled the cask Out of its ancient harbourage. "Ben," he cried, Bustling into the room with Dekker and Brome, "The prentices are up!" Ben raised his head Out of the chimney-corner where he drowsed, And listened, reaching slowly for his pipe.
"_Clerk of the Bow Bell_," all along the Cheape There came a shout that swelled into a roar. "What! Will they storm the Mermaid?" Heywood laughed, "They are turning into Bread Street!" Down they came! We heard them hooting round the poor old Clerk-- "Clubs! Clubs! The rogue would have us work all night! He rang ten minutes late! Fifteen, by Paul's!" And over the hubbub rose, like a thin bell, The Clerk's entreaty--"Now, good boys, good boys, Children of Cheape, be still, I do beseech you! I took some forty winks, but then...." A roar Of wrathful laughter drowned him--"Forty winks! Remember Black May-day! We'll make you wink!" There was a scuffle, and into the tavern rushed Gregory Clopton, Clerk of the Bow Bell,-- A tall thin man, with yellow hair a-stream, And blazing eyes. "Hide me," he clamoured, "quick! These picaroons will murder me!" I closed The thick oak doors against the coloured storm Of prentices in red and green and ray, Saffron and Reading tawny. Twenty clubs Drubbed on the panels as I barred them out; And even our walls and shutters could not drown Their song that, like a mocking peal of bells, Under our windows, made all Bread Street ring:--
"_Clerk of the Bow Bell, With the yellow locks, For thy late ringing Thy head shall have knocks!_"
Then Heywood, seeing the Clerk was all a-quake, Went to an upper casement that o'er-looked The whole of Bread Street. Heywood knew their ways, And parleyed with them till their anger turned To shouts of merriment. Then, like one deep bell His voice rang out, in answer to their peal:--
"_Children of Cheape, Hold you all still! You shall have Bow Bell Rung at your will!_"
Loudly they cheered him. Courteously he bowed, Then firmly shut the window; and, ere I filled His cup with sack again, the crowd had gone.
"My clochard, sirs, is warm," quavered the Clerk. "I do confess I took some forty winks! They are good lads, our prentices of Cheape, But hasty!" "Wine!" said Ben. He filled a cup And thrust it into Gregory's trembling hands. "Yours is a task," said Dekker, "a great task! You sit among the gods, a lord of time, Measuring out the pulse of London's heart." "Yea, sir, above the hours and days and years, I sometimes think. 'Tis a great Bell--the Bow! And hath been, since the days of Whittington." "The good old days," growled Ben. "Both good and bad Were measured by my Bell," the Clerk replied. And, while he spoke, warmed by the wine, his voice Mellowed and floated up and down the scale As if the music of the London bells Lingered upon his tongue. "I know them all, And love them, all the voices of the bells.
FLOS MERCATORUM! That's the Bell of Bow Remembering Richard Whittington. You should hear The bells of London when they tell his tale. Once, after hearing them, I wrote it down. I know the tale by heart now, every turn." "Then ring it out," said Heywood. Gregory smiled And cleared his throat. "You must imagine, sirs, The Clerk, sitting on high, among the clouds, With London spread beneath him like a map. Under his tower, a flock of prentices Calling like bells, of little size or weight, But bells no less, ask that the Bell of Bow Shall tell the tale of Richard Whittington, As thus." Then Gregory Clopton, mellowing all The chiming vowels, and dwelling on every tone In rhythm or rhyme that helped to swell the peal Or keep the ringing measure, beat for beat, Chanted this legend of the London bells:--
Clerk of the Bow Bell, four and twenty prentices, All upon a Hallowe'en, we prithee, for our joy, Ring a little turn again for sweet Dick Whittington, _Flos Mercatorum_, and a barefoot boy!--
"Children of Cheape," did that old Clerk answer, "You will have a peal, then, for well may you know, All the bells of London remember Richard Whittington When they hear the voice of the big Bell of Bow!"--
Clerk with the yellow locks, mellow be thy malmsey! He was once a prentice, and carolled in the Strand! Ay, and we are all, too, Marchaunt Adventurers, Prentices of London, and lords of Engeland.
"Children of Cheape," did that old Clerk answer, "Hold you, ah hold you, ah hold you all still! Souling if you come to the glory of a Prentice, You shall have the Bow Bell rung at your will!"
"Whittington! Whittington! O, turn again, Whittington, Lord Mayor of London," the big Bell began: "Where was he born? O, at Pauntley in Gloucestershire Hard by Cold Ashton, Cold Ashton," it ran.
"_Flos Mercatorum_," moaned the bell of All Hallowes, "There was he an orphan, O, a little lad alone!" "Then we all sang," echoed happy St. Saviour's, "Called him, and lured him, and made him our own.
Told him a tale as he lay upon the hillside, Looking on his home in the meadow-lands below!" "Told him a tale," clanged the bell of Cold Abbey; "Told him the truth," boomed the big Bell of Bow!
Sang of a City that was like a blazoned missal-book, Black with oaken gables, carven and inscrolled; Every street a coloured page, and every sign a hieroglyph, Dusky with enchantments, a City paved with gold;
"Younger son, younger son, up with stick and bundle!"-- Even so we rung for him--"But--kneel before you go; Watch by your shield, lad, in little Pauntley Chancel, Look upon the painted panes that hold your Arms a-glow,--
Coat of Gules and Azure; but the proud will not remember it! And the Crest a Lion's Head, until the new be won! Far away, remember it! And O, remember this, too,-- Every barefoot boy on earth is but a younger son."
Proudly he answered us, beneath the painted window,-- "Though I be a younger son, the glory falls to me: While my brother bideth by a little land in Gloucestershire, All the open Earth is mine, and all the Ocean-sea.
Yet will I remember, yet will I remember, By the chivalry of God, until my day be done, When I meet a gentle heart, lonely and unshielded, Every barefoot boy on earth is but a younger son!"
Then he looked to Northward for the tall ships of Bristol; Far away, and cold as death, he saw the Severn shine: Then he looked to Eastward, and he saw a string of colours Trickling through the grey hills, like elfin drops of wine;
Down along the Mendip dale, the chapmen and their horses, Far away, and carrying each its little coloured load, Winding like a fairy-tale, with pack and corded bundle, Trickled like a crimson thread along the silver road.
Quick he ran to meet them, stick and bundle on his shoulder! Over by Cold Ashton, he met them trampling down,-- White shaggy horses with their packs of purple spicery, Crimson kegs of malmsey, and the silks of London town.
When the chapmen asked of him the bridle-path to Dorset, Blithely he showed them, and he led them on their way, Led them through the fern with their bales of breathing Araby, Led them to a bridle-path that saved them half a day.
Merrily shook the silver bells that hung the broidered bridle-rein, Chiming to his hand, as he led them through the fern, Down to deep Dorset, and the wooded Isle of Purbeck, Then--by little Kimmeridge--they led him turn for turn.
Down by little Kimmeridge, and up by Hampshire forest-roads, Round by Sussex violets, and apple-bloom of Kent, Singing songs of London, telling tales of London, All the way to London, with packs of wool they went.
"London was London, then! A clean, clear moat Girdled her walls that measured, round about, Three miles or less. She is big and dirty now," Said Dekker. "Call it a silver moat," growled Ben, "That's the new poetry! Call it crystal, lad! But, till you kiss the Beast, you'll never find Your Fairy Prince. Why, all those crowded streets, Flung all their filth, their refuse, rags and bones, Dead cats and dogs, into your clean clear moat, And made it sluggish as old Acheron. Fevers and plagues, death in a thousand shapes Crawled out of it. London was dirty, lad; And till you kiss that fact, you'll never see The glory of this old Jerusalem!" "Ay, 'tis the fogs that make the sunset red," Answered Tom Heywood. "London is earthy, coarse, Grimy and grand. You must make dirt the ground, Or lose the colours of friend Clopton's tale. Ring on!" And, nothing loth, the Clerk resumed:--
Bravely swelled his heart to see the moat of London glittering Round her mighty wall--they told him--two miles long! Then--he gasped as, echoing in by grim black Aldgate, Suddenly their shaggy nags were nodding through a throng:
Prentices in red and ray, marchaunts in their saffron, Aldermen in violets, and minstrels in white, Clerks in homely hoods of budge, and wives with crimson wimples, Thronging as to welcome him that happy summer night.
"Back," they cried, and "Clear the way," and caught the ringing bridle-reins: "Wait! the Watch is going by, this vigil of St. John!" Merrily laughed the chapmen then, reining their great white horses back, "When the pageant passes, lad, we'll up and follow on!"
There, as thick the crowd surged, beneath the blossomed ale-poles, Lifting up to Whittington a fair face afraid, Swept against his horse by a billow of madcap prentices, Hard against the stirrup breathed a green-gowned maid.
Swift he drew her up and up, and throned her there before him, High above the throng with her laughing April eyes, Like a Queen of Faërie on the great pack-saddle. "Hey!" laughed the chapmen, "the prentice wins the prize!"
"Whittington! Whittington! the world is all before you!" Blithely rang the bells and the steeples rocked and reeled! Then--he saw her eyes grow wide, and, all along by Leaden Hall, Drums rolled, earth shook, and shattering trumpets pealed.
Like a marching sunset, there, from Leaden Hall to Aldgate, Flared the crimson cressets--O, her brows were haloed then!-- Then the stirring steeds went by with all their mounted trumpeters, Then, in ringing harness, a thousand marching men.
Marching--marching--his heart and all the halberdiers, And his pulses throbbing with the throbbing of the drums; Marching--marching--his blood and all the burganets! "Look," she cried, "O, look," she cried, "and now the morrice comes!"
Dancing--dancing--her eyes and all the Lincoln Green, Robin Hood and Friar Tuck, dancing through the town! "Where is Marian?" Laughingly she turned to Richard Whittington. "Here," he said, and pointed to her own green gown.
Dancing--dancing--her heart and all the morrice-bells! Then there burst a mighty shout from thrice a thousand throats! Then, with all their bows bent, and sheaves of peacock arrows, Marched the tall archers in their white silk coats,
White silk coats, with the crest of London City Crimson on the shoulder, a sign for all to read,-- Marching--marching--and then the sworded henchmen, Then, William Walworth, on his great stirring steed.
_Flos Mercatorum_, ay, the fish-monger, Walworth,-- He whose nets of silk drew the silver from the tide, He who saved the king when the king was but a prentice,-- Lord Mayor of London, with his sword at his side!
Burned with magic changes, his blood and all the pageantry; Burned with deep sea-changes, the wonder in her eyes; _Flos Mercatorum!_ 'Twas the rose-mary of Paphos, Reddening all the City for the prentice and his prize!
All the book of London, the pages of adventure, Passed before the prentice on that vigil of St. John: Then the chapmen shook their reins,--"We'll ride behind the revelry, Round again to Cornhill! Up, and follow on!"
Riding on his pack-horse, above the shouting multitude, There she turned and smiled at him, and thanked him for his grace: "Let me down by _Red Rose Lane_," and, like a wave of twilight While she spoke, her shadowy hair--touched his tingling face.
When they came to _Red Rose Lane_, beneath the blossomed ale-poles, Light along his arm she lay, a moment, leaping down: Then she waved "farewell" to him, and down the Lane he watched her Flitting through the darkness in her gay green gown.
All along the Cheape, as he rode among the chapmen, Round by _Black Friars_, to the _Two-Necked Swan_ Coloured like the sunset, prentices and maidens Danced for red roses on the vigil of St. John.
Over them were jewelled lamps in great black galleries, Garlanded with beauty, and burning all the night; All the doors were shadowy with orpin and St. John's wort, Long fennel, green birch, and lilies of delight.
"He should have slept here at the Mermaid Inn," Said Heywood as the chanter paused for breath. "What? Has our Mermaid sung so long?" cried Ben. "Her beams are black enough. There was an Inn," Said Tom, "that bore the name; and through its heart There flowed the right old purple. I like to think It was the same, where Lydgate took his ease After his hood was stolen; and Gower, perchance; And, though he loved the _Tabard_ for a-while, I like to think the Father of us all, The old Adam of English minstrelsy caroused Here in the Mermaid Tavern. I like to think Jolly Dan Chaucer, with his kind shrewd face Fresh as an apple above his fur-fringed gown, One plump hand sporting with his golden chain, Looked out from that old casement over the sign, And saw the pageant, and the shaggy nags, With Whittington, and his green-gowned maid, go by. "O, very like," said Clopton, "for the bells Left not a head indoors that night." He drank A draught of malmsey--and thus renewed his tale:--
"_Flos Mercatorum_," mourned the bell of All Hallowes, "There was he an orphan, O, a little lad alone, Rubbing down the great white horses for a supper!" "True," boomed the Bow Bell, "his hands were his own!"
Where did he sleep? On a plump white wool-pack, Open to the moon on that vigil of St. John, Sheltered from the dew, where the black-timbered gallery Frowned above the yard of the _Two-Necked Swan_.
Early in the morning, clanged the bell of St. Martin's, Early in the morning, with a groat in his hand, Mournfully he parted with the jolly-hearted chapmen, Shouldered his bundle and walked into the _Strand_;
Walked into the _Strand_, and back again to _West Cheape_, Staring at the wizardry of every painted sign, Dazed with the steeples and the rich heraldic cornices Drinking in the colours of the Cheape like wine.
All about the booths now, the parti-coloured prentices Fluted like a flock of birds along a summer lane, Green linnets, red caps, and gay gold finches,-- _What d'ye lack, and what d'ye lack, and what d'ye lack again?_
"Buy my dainty doublets, cut on double taffetas, Buy my Paris thread," they cried, and caught him by the hand, "Laces for your Heart's-Delight, and lawns to make her love you, Cambric for her wimple, O, the finest in the land."
Ah, but he was hungry, foot-sore, weary, Knocking at the doors of the armourers that day! _What d'ye lack?_ they asked of him; but no man lacked a prentice: When he told them what he lacked, they frowned and turned away.
Hard was his bed that night, beneath a cruel archway, Down among the hulks, with his heart growing cold! London is a rare town, but O, the streets of London, Red though their flints be, they are not red with gold.
Pale in the dawn, ere he marched on his adventure, Starving for a crust, did he kneel a-while again, Then, upon the fourth night, he cried, O, like a wounded bird "Let me die, if die I must, in _Red Rose Lane_."
Like a little wounded bird he trailed through the darkness, Laid him on a door-step, and then--O, like a breath Pitifully blowing out his life's little rushlight, Came a gush of blackness, a swoon deep as death.
Then he heard a rough voice! Then he saw a lanthorn! Then he saw a bearded face, and blindly wondered whose: Then--a marchaunt's portly legs, with great Rose-Windows, Bigger than St. Paul's, he thought, embroidered on his shoes.
"Alice!" roared the voice, and then, O like a lilied angel, Leaning from the lighted door a fair face afraid, Leaning over _Red Rose Lane_, O, leaning out of Paradise, Drooped the sudden glory of his green-gowned maid!
* * * *
"O, mellow be thy malmsey," grunted Ben, Filling the Clerk another cup. "The peal," Quoth Clopton, "is not ended; but the pause In ringing, chimes to a deep inward ear And tells its own deep tale. Silence and sound, Darkness and light, mourning and mirth,--no tale, No painting, and no music, nay, no world, If God should cut their fruitful marriage-knot. A shallow sort to-day would fain deny A hell, sirs, to this boundless universe. To such I say 'no hell, no Paradise!' Others would fain deny the topless towers Of heaven, and make this earth a hell indeed. To such I say, 'the unplumbed gulfs of grief Are only theirs for whom the blissful chimes Ring from those unseen heights.' This earth, mid-way, Hangs like a belfry where the ringers grasp Their ropes in darkness, each in his own place, Each knowing, by the tune in his own heart, Never by sight, when he must toss through heaven The tone of his own bell. Those bounded souls Have never heard our chimes! Why, sirs, myself Simply by running up and down the scale Descend to hell or soar to heaven. My bells Height above height, deep below deep, respond! Their scale is infinite. Dare I, for one breath, Dream that one note hath crowned and ended all, Sudden I hear, far, far above those clouds, Like laughing angels, peal on golden peal, Innumerable as drops of April rain, Yet every note distinct, round as a pearl, And perfect in its place, a chime of law, Whose pure and boundless mere arithmetic Climbs with my soul to God." Ben looked at him, Gently. "Resume, old moralist," he said. "On to thy marriage-bells!" "The fairy-tales Are wiser than they know, sirs. All our woes Lead on to those celestial marriage-bells. The world's a-wooing; and the pure City of God Peals for the wedding of our joy and pain! This was well seen of Richard Whittington; For only he that finds the London streets Paved with red flints, at last shall find them paved Like to the Perfect City, with pure gold. Ye know the world! what was a London waif To Hugh Fitzwarren's daughter? He was fed And harboured; and the cook declared she lacked A scullion. So, in Hugh Fitzwarren's house, He turned the jack, and scoured the dripping-pan. How could he hope for more? This marchaunt's house Was builded like a great high-gabled inn, Square, with a galleried courtyard, such as now The players use. Its rooms were rich and dim With deep-set coloured panes and massy beams. Its ancient eaves jutted o'er _Red Rose Lane_ Darkly, like eyebrows of a mage asleep. Its oaken stair coiled upward through a dusk Heavy with fume of scented woods that burned To keep the Plague away,--a gloom to embalm A Pharaoh, but to dull the cheek and eye Of country lads like Whittington. He pined For wind and sunlight. Yet he plied his task Patient as in old tales of Elfin-land, The young knight would unhelm his golden locks And play the scullion, so that he might watch His lady's eyes unknown, and oftener hear Her brook-like laughter rippling overhead; Her green gown, like the breath of Eden boughs, Rustling nigh him. And all day long he found Sunshine enough in this. But when at night He crept into the low dark vaulted den, The cobwebbed cellar, where the cook had strewn The scullion's bed of straw (and none too thick Lest he should sleep too long), he choked for breath; And, like an old man hoarding up his life, Fostered his glimmering rushlight as he sate Bolt upright, while a horrible scurry heaved His rustling bed, and bright black-beaded eyes Peered at him from the crannies of the wall. Then darkness whelmed him, and perchance he slept,-- Only to fight with nightmares and to fly Down endless tunnels in a ghastly dream, Hunted by horrible human souls that took The shape of monstrous rats, great chattering snouts, Vile shapes of shadowy cunning and grey greed, That gnaw through beams, and undermine tall towns, And carry the seeds of plague and ruin and death Under the careless homes of sleeping men. Thus, in the darkness, did he wage a war With all the powers of darkness. 'If the light Do break upon me, by the grace of God,' So did he vow, 'O, then will I remember, Then, then, will I remember, ay, and help To build that lovelier City which is paved For rich and poor alike, with purest gold.'
Ah, sirs, he kept his vow. Ye will not smile If, at the first, the best that he could do Was with his first poor penny-piece to buy A cat, and bring her home, under his coat By stealth (or else that termagant, the cook, Had drowned it in the water-butt, nor deemed The water worse to drink). So did he quell First his own plague, but bettered others, too. Now, in those days, Marchaunt Adventurers Shared with their prentices the happy chance Of each new venture. Each might have his stake, Little or great, upon the glowing tides Of high romance that washed the wharfs of Thames; And every lad in London had his groat Or splendid shilling on some fair ship at sea.
So, on an April eve, Fitzwarren called His prentices together; for, ere long, The _Unicorn_, his tall new ship, must sail Beyond the world to gather gorgeous webs From Eastern looms, great miracles of silk Dipt in the dawn by wizard hands of Ind; Or, if they chanced upon that fabled coast Where Sydon, river of jewels, like a snake Slides down the gorge its coils of crimson fire, Perchance a richer cargo,--rubies, pearls, Or gold bars from the Gates of Paradise. And many a moon, at least, a faërie foam Would lap Blackfriars wharf, where London lads Gazed in the sunset down that misty reach For old black battered hulks and tattered sails Bringing their dreams home from the uncharted sea.
And one flung down a groat--he had no more. One staked a shilling, one a good French crown; And one an angel, O, light-winged enough To reach Cathay; and not a lad but bought His pennyworth of wonder, So they thought, Till all at once Fitzwarren's daughter cried 'Father, you have forgot poor Whittington!' "Snails,' laughed the rosy marchaunt, 'but that's true! Fetch Whittington! The lad must stake his groat! 'Twill bring us luck!' 'Whittington! Whittington!' Down the dark stair, like a gold-headed bird, Fluttered sweet Alice. 'Whittington! Richard! Quick! Quick with your groat now for the _Unicorn_!'
'A groat!' cried Whittington, standing there aghast, With brown bare arms, still coloured by the sun, Among his pots and pans. 'Where should I find A groat? I staked my last groat in a cat!' --'What! Have you nothing? Nothing but a cat? Then stake the cat,' she said; and the quick fire That in a woman's mind out-runs the thought Of man, lit her grey eyes. Whittington laughed And opened the cellar-door. Out sailed his wealth, Waving its tail, purring, and rubbing its head Now on his boots, now on the dainty shoe Of Alice, who straightway, deaf to his laughing prayers, Caught up the cat, whispered it, hugged it close, Against its grey fur leaned her glowing cheek, And carried it off in triumph.
_Red Rose Lane_ Echoed with laughter as, with amber eyes Blinking, the grey cat in a seaman's arms Went to the wharf. 'Ay, but we need a cat,' The captain said. So, when the painted ship Sailed through a golden sunrise down the Thames, A grey tail waved upon the misty poop, And Whittington had his venture on the seas.
It was a nine days' jest, and soon forgot. But, all that year,--ah, sirs, ye know the world, For all the foolish boasting of the proud, Looks not beneath the coat of Taunton serge For Gules and Azure. A prince that comes in rags To clean your shoes and, out of his own pride, Waits for the world to paint his shield again Must wait for ever and a day. The world Is a great hypocrite, hypocrite most of all When thus it boasts its purple pride of race, Then with eyes blind to all but pride of place Tramples the scullion's heraldry underfoot, Nay, never sees it, never dreams of it, Content to know that, here and now, his coat Is greasy.... So did Whittington find at last Such nearness was most distant; that to see her, Talk with her, serve her thus, was but to lose True sight, true hearing. He must save his life By losing it; forsake, to win, his love; Go out into the world to bring her home. It was but labour lost to clean the shoes, And turn the jack, and scour the dripping-pan. For every scolding blown about her ears The cook's great ladle fell upon the head Of Whittington; who, beneath her rule, became The scullery's general scapegoat. It was he That burned the pie-crust, drank the hippocras, Dinted the silver beaker.... Many a month He chafed, till his resolve took sudden shape And, out of the dark house at the peep of day, Shouldering bundle and stick again, he stole To seek his freedom, and to shake the dust Of London from his shoes.... You know the stone On Highgate, where he sate awhile to rest, With aching heart, and thought 'I shall not see Her face again.' There, as the coloured dawn Over the sleeping City slowly bloomed, A small black battered ship with tattered sails Blurring the burnished glamour of the Thames Crept, side-long to a wharf. Then, all at once, The London bells rang out a welcome home; And, over them all, tossing the tenor on high, The Bell of Bow, a sun among the stars, Flooded the morning air with this refrain:--
'Turn again, Whittington! Turn again, Whittington! _Flos Mercatorum_, thy ship hath come home! Trailing from her cross-trees the crimson of the sunrise, Dragging all the glory of the sunset thro' the foam. Turn again, Whittington, Turn again, Whittington, Lord Mayor of London!
Turn again, Whittington! When thy hope was darkest, Far beyond the sky-line a ship sailed for thee. _Flos Mercatorum_, O, when thy faith was blindest, Even then thy sails were set beyond the Ocean-sea.'
So he heard and heeded us, and turned again to London, Stick and bundle on his back, he turned to _Red Rose Lane_, Hardly hearing as he went the chatter of the prentices,-- _What d'ye lack, and what d'ye lack, and what d'ye lack again?_
Back into the scullery, before the cook had missed him, Early in the morning his labours he began: Once again to clean the shoes and clatter with the water-pail, Once again to scrub the jack and scour the dripping-pan.
All the bells of London were pealing as he laboured. Wildly beat his heart, and his blood began to race. Then--there came a light step and, suddenly, beside him Stood his lady Alice, with a light upon her face.
'Quick,' she said, 'O, quick,' she said, 'they want you, Richard Whittington!' 'Quick,' she said; and, while she spoke, her lighted eyes betrayed All that she had hidden long, and all she still would hide from him. So--he turned and followed her, his green-gowned maid.
* * * *
There, in a broad dark oaken-panelled room Rich with black carvings and great gleaming cups Of silver, sirs, and massy halpace built Half over _Red Rose Lane_, Fitzwarren sat; And, at his side, O, like an old romance That suddenly comes true and fills the world With April colours, two bronzed seamen stood, Tattered and scarred, and stained with sun and brine. '_Flos Mercatorum_,' Hugh Fitzwarren cried, Holding both hands out to the pale-faced boy, 'The prentice wins the prize! Why, Whittington, Thy cat hath caught the biggest mouse of all!' And, on to the table, tilting a heavy sack, One of the seamen poured a glittering stream Of rubies, emeralds, opals, amethysts, That turned the room to an Aladdin's cave, Or magic goblet brimmed with dusky wine Where clustering rainbow-coloured bubbles clung And sparkled, in the halls of Prester John.
'And that,' said Hugh Fitzwarren, 'is the price Paid for your cat in Barbary, by a King Whose house was rich in gems, but sorely plagued With rats and mice. Gather it up, my lad, And praise your master for his honesty; For, though my cargo prospered, yours outshines The best of it. Take it, my lad, and go; You're a rich man; and, if you use it well, Riches will make you richer, and the world Will prosper in your own prosperity. The miser, like the cold and barren moon, Shines with a fruitless light. The spendthrift fool Flits like a Jack-o-Lent over quags and fens; But he that's wisely rich gathers his gold Into a fruitful and unwasting sun That spends its glory on a thousand fields And blesses all the world. Take it and go.'
Blankly, as in a dream, Whittington stared. 'How should I take it, sir? The ship was yours, And ...' 'Ay, the ship was mine; but in that ship Your stake was richer than we knew. 'Tis yours.' 'Then,' answered Whittington, 'if this wealth be mine, Who but an hour ago was all so poor, I know one way to make me richer still.' He gathered up the glittering sack of gems, Turned to the halpace, where his green-gowned maid Stood in the glory of the coloured panes. He thrust the splendid load into her arms, Muttering--'Take it, lady! Let me be poor! But rich, at least, in that you not despise The waif you saved.' --'Despise you, Whittington?'-- 'O, no, not in the sight of God! But I Grow tired of waiting for the Judgment Day! I am but a man. I am a scullion now; But I would like, only for half an hour, To stand upright and say "I am a king!" Take it!' And, as they stood, a little apart, Their eyes were married in one swift level look, Silent, but all that souls could say was said.
* * * *
And 'I know a way,' said the Bell of St. Martin's. 'Tell it, and be quick,' laughed the prentices below! 'Whittington shall marry her, marry her, marry her! Peal for a wedding,' said the big Bell of Bow.
He shall take a kingdom up, and cast it on the sea again; He shall have his caravels to traffic for him now; He shall see his royal sails rolling up from Araby, And the crest--a honey-bee--golden at the prow.
Whittington! Whittington! The world is all a fairy tale!-- Even so we sang for him.--But O, the tale is true! Whittington he married her, and on his merry marriage-day, O, we sang, we sang for him, like lavrocks in the blue.
Far away from London, these happy prentice lovers Wandered through the fern to his western home again, Down by deep Dorset to the wooded isle of Purbeck, Round to little Kimmeridge, by many a lover's lane.
There did they abide as in a dove-cote hidden Deep in happy woods until the bells of duty rang; Then they rode the way he went, a barefoot boy to London, Round by Hampshire forest-roads, but as they rode he sang:--
_Kimmeridge in Dorset is the happiest of places! All the little homesteads are thatched with beauty there! All the old ploughmen, there, have happy smiling faces, Christmas roses in their cheeks, and crowns of silver hair.
Blue as are the eggs in the nest of the hedge-sparrow, Gleam the little rooms in the homestead that I know: Death, I think, has lost the way to Kimmeridge in Dorset; Sorrow never knew it, or forgot it, long ago!
Kimmeridge in Dorset, Kimmeridge in Dorset, Though I may not see you more thro' all the years to be, Yet will I remember the little happy homestead Hidden in that Paradise where God was good to me._
* * * *
So they turned to London, and with mind and soul he laboured, _Flos Mercatorum_, for the mighty years to be, Fashioning, for profit--to the years that should forget him!-- This, our sacred City that must shine upon the sea.
London was a City when the Poulters ruled the Poultry! Rosaries of prayer were hung in Paternoster Row, Gutter Lane was Guthrun's, then; and, bright with painted missal-books, _Ave Mary Corner_, sirs, was fairer than ye know.
London was mighty when her marchaunts loved their merchandise, Bales of Eastern magic that empurpled wharf and quay: London was mighty when her booths were a dream-market, Loaded with the colours of the sunset and the sea.
There, in all their glory, with the Virgin on their bannerols, Glory out of Genoa, the Mercers might be seen, Walking to their Company of Marchaunt Adventurers;-- Gallantly they jetted it in scarlet and in green.
There, in all the glory of the lordly Linen Armourers, Walked the Marchaunt Taylors with the Pilgrim of their trade, Fresh from adventuring in Italy and Flanders, _Flos Mercatorum_, for a green-gowned maid.
_Flos Mercatorum!_ Can a good thing come of Nazareth? High above the darkness, where our duller senses drown, Lifts the splendid Vision of a City, built on merchandise, Fairer than that City of Light that wore the violet crown,
Lifts the sacred vision of a far-resplendent City, Flashing, like the heart of heaven, its messages afar, Trafficking, as God Himself through all His interchanging worlds, Holding up the scales of law, weighing star by star,
Stern as Justice, in one hand the sword of Truth and Righteousness; Blind as Justice, in one hand the everlasting scales, Lifts the sacred Vision of that City from the darkness, Whence the thoughts of men break out, like blossoms, or like sails!
Ordered and harmonious, a City built to music, Lifting, out of chaos, the shining towers of law,-- Ay, a sacred City, and a City built of merchandise, _Flos Mercatorum_, was the City that he saw.
And by that light," quoth Clopton, "did he keep His promise. He was rich; but in his will He wrote those words which should be blazed with gold In London's _Liber Albus_:--
_The desire And busy intention of a man, devout And wise, should be to fore-cast and secure The state and end of this short life with deeds Of mercy and pity, especially to provide For those whom poverty insulteth, those To whom the power of labouring for the needs Of life, is interdicted._ He became The Father of the City. Felons died Of fever in old Newgate. He rebuilt The prison. London sickened, from the lack Of water, and he made fresh fountains flow. He heard the cry of suffering and disease, And built the stately hospital that still Shines like an angel's lanthorn through the night, The stately halls of St. Bartholomew. He saw men wrapt in ignorance, and he raised Schools, colleges, and libraries. He heard The cry of the old and weary, and he built Houses of refuge. Even so he kept His prentice vows of Duty, Industry, Obedience, words contemned of every fool Who shrinks from law; yet were those ancient vows The adamantine pillars of the State. Let all who play their Samson be well warned That Samsons perish, too! His monument Is London!"
"True," quoth Dekker, "and he deserves Well of the Mermaid Inn for one good law, Rightly enforced. He pilloried that rogue Will Horold, who in Whittington's third year Of office, as Lord Mayor, placed certain gums And spices in great casks, and filled them up With feeble Spanish wine, to have the taste And smell of Romeney,--Malmsey!" "Honest wine, Indeed," replied the Clerk, "concerns the State, That solemn structure touched with light from heaven, Which he, our merchant, helped to build on earth. And, while he laboured for it, all things else Were added unto him, until the bells More than fulfilled their prophecy. One great eve, Fair Alice, leaning from her casement, saw Another Watch, and mightier than the first, Billowing past the newly painted doors Of Whittington Palace--so men called his house In Hart Street, fifteen yards from old Mark Lane,-- thousand burganets and halberdiers; A thousand archers in their white silk coats, A thousand mounted men in ringing mail, A thousand sworded henchmen; then, his Guild, Advancing, on their splendid bannerols The Virgin, glorious in gold; and then, _Flos Mercatorum_, on his great stirring steed Whittington! On that night he made a feast For London and the King. His feasting hall Gleamed like the magic cave that Prester John Wrought out of one huge opal. East and West Lavished their wealth on that great Citizen Who, when the King from Agincourt returned Victorious, but with empty coffers, lent Three times the ransom of an Emperor To fill them--on the royal bond, and said When the King questioned him of how and whence, 'I am the steward of your City, sire! There is a sea, and who shall drain it dry?'
Over the roasted swans and peacock pies, The minstrels in the great black gallery tuned All hearts to mirth, until it seemed their cups Were brimmed with dawn and sunset, and they drank The wine of gods. Lord of a hundred ships, Under the feet of England, Whittington flung The purple of the seas. And when the Queen, Catharine, wondered at the costly woods That burned upon his hearth, the Marchaunt rose, He drew the great sealed parchments from his breast, The bonds the King had given him on his loans, Loans that might drain the Mediterranean dry. 'They call us hucksters, madam, we that love Our City,' and, into the red-hot heart of the fire, He tossed the bonds of sixty thousand pounds. 'The fire burns low,' said Richard Whittington. Then, overhead, the minstrels plucked their strings; And, over the clash of wine-cups, rose a song That made the old timbers of their feasting-hall Shake, as a galleon shakes in a gale of wind, When she rolls glorying through the Ocean-sea:--
Marchaunt Adventurers, O, what shall it profit you Thus to seek your kingdom in the dream-destroying sun? Ask us why the hawthorn brightens on the sky-line: Even so our sails break out when Spring is well begun! _Flos Mercatorum!_ Blossom wide, ye sail of Englande, Hasten ye the kingdom, now the bitter days are done! Ay, for we be members, one of another, 'Each for all and all for each,' quoth Richard Whittington!
_Chorus:_--Marchaunt Adventurers, Marchaunt Adventurers, Marchaunt Adventurers, the Spring is well begun! Break, break out on every sea, O, fair white sails of Englande! 'Each for all, and all for each,' quoth Richard Whittington.
Marchaunt Adventurers, O what 'ull ye bring home again? Woonders and works and the thunder of the sea! Whom will ye traffic with? The King of the sunset!-- What shall be your pilot, then?--A wind from Galilee!
--Nay, but ye be marchaunts, will ye come back empty-handed?-- Ay, we be marchaunts, though our gain we ne'er shall see! Cast we now our bread upon the waste wild waters; After many days it shall return with usury.
_Chorus:_--Marchaunt Adventurers, Marchaunt Adventurers, What shall be your profit in the mighty days to be? Englande! Englande! Englande! Englande! Glory everlasting and the lordship of the sea.
What need to tell you, sirs, how Whittington Remembered? Night and morning, as he knelt In those old days, O, like two children still, Whittington and his Alice bowed their heads Together, praying. From such simple hearts, O never doubt it, though the whole world doubt The God that made it, came the steadfast strength Of England, all that once was her strong soul, The soul that laughed and shook away defeat As her strong cliffs hurl back the streaming seas. Sirs, in his old age Whittington returned, And stood with Alice, by the silent tomb In little Pauntley church. There, to his Arms, The Gules and Azure, and the Lion's Head So proudly blazoned on the painted panes; (O, sirs, the simple wistfulness of it Might move hard hearts to laughter, but I think Tears tremble through it, for the Mermaid Inn) He added his new crest, the hard-won sign And lowly prize of his own industry, _The Honey-bee_. And, far away, the bells Peal softly from the pure white City of God:-- _Ut fragrans nardus Fama fuit iste Ricardus._ With folded hands he waits the Judgment now. Slowly our dark bells toll across the world, For him who waits the reckoning, his accompt Secure, his conscience clear, his ledger spread A _Liber Albus_ flooded with pure light.
_Flos Mercatorum, Fundator presbyterorum_,...
Slowly the dark bells toll for him who asks No more of men, but that they may sometimes Pray for the souls of Richard Whittington, Alice, his wife, and (as themselves of old Had prayed) the father and mother of each of them. Slowly the great notes fall and float away:--
_Omnibus exemplum Barathrum vincendo morosum Condidit hoc templum ... Pauperibus pater ... Finiit ipse dies Sis sibi Christe quies. Amen._"
IX
RALEIGH
Ben was our only guest that day. His tribe Had flown to their new shrine--the Apollo Room, To which, though they enscrolled his golden verse Above their doors like some great-fruited vine, Ben still preferred our _Mermaid_, and to smoke Alone in his old nook; perhaps to hear The voices of the dead, The voices of his old companions. Hovering near him,--Will and Kit and Rob.
"Our Ocean-shepherd from the Main-deep sea, Raleigh," he muttered, as I brimmed his cup, "Last of the men that broke the fleets of Spain, 'Twas not enough to cage him, sixteen years, Rotting his heart out in the Bloody Tower, But they must fling him forth in his old age To hunt for El Dorado. Then, mine host, Because his poor old ship _The Destiny_ Smashes the Spaniard, but comes tottering home Without the Spanish gold, our gracious king, To please a catamite, Sends the old lion back to the Tower again. The friends of Spain will send him to the block This time. That male Salome, Buckingham, Is dancing for his head. Raleigh is doomed." A shadow stood in the doorway. We looked up; And there, but O, how changed, how worn and grey, Sir Walter Raleigh, like a hunted thing, Stared at us.
"Ben," he said, and glanced behind him. Ben took a step towards him. "O, my God, Ben," whispered the old man in a husky voice, Half timorous and half cunning, so unlike His old heroic self that one might weep To hear it, "Ben, I have given them all the slip! I may be followed. Can you hide me here Till it grows dark?" Ben drew him quickly in, and motioned me To lock the door. "Till it grows dark," he cried, "My God, that you should ask it!" "Do not think, Do not believe that I am quite disgraced," The old man faltered, "for they'll say it, Ben; And when my boy grows up, they'll tell him, too, His father was a coward. I do cling To life for many reasons, not from fear Of death. No, Ben, I can disdain that still; But--there's my boy!" Then all his face went blind. He dropt upon Ben's shoulder and sobbed outright, "They are trying to break my pride, to break my pride!" The window darkened, and I saw a face Blurring the panes. Ben gripped the old man's arm, And led him gently to a room within, Out of the way of guests. "Your pride," he said, "That is the pride of England!" At that name-- _England!_-- As at a signal-gun, heard in the night Far out at sea, the weather and world-worn man, That once was Raleigh, lifted up his head. Old age and weakness, weariness and fear Fell from him like a cloak. He stood erect. His eager eyes, full of great sea-washed dawns, Burned for a moment with immortal youth, While tears blurred mine to see him. "You do think That England will remember? You do think it?" He asked with a great light upon his face. Ben bowed his head in silence.
* * * *
"I have wronged My cause by this," said Raleigh. "Well they know it Who left this way for me. I have flung myself Like a blind moth into this deadly light Of freedom. Now, at the eleventh hour, Is it too late? I might return and--" "No! Not now!" Ben interrupted. "I'd have said Laugh at the headsman sixteen years ago, When England was awake. She will awake Again. But now, while our most gracious king, Who hates tobacco, dedicates his prayers To Buckingham-- This is no land for men that, under God, Shattered the Fleet Invincible." A knock Startled us, at the outer door. "My friend Stukeley," said Raleigh, "if I know his hand. He has a ketch will carry me to France, Waiting at Tilbury." I let him in,-- A lean and stealthy fellow, Sir Lewis Stukeley,-- liked him little. He thought much of his health, More of his money bags, and most of all On how to run with all men all at once For his own profit. At the _Mermaid Inn_ Men disagreed in friendship and in truth; But he agreed with all men, and his life Was one soft quag of falsehood. Fugitives Must use false keys, I thought; and there was hope For Raleigh if such a man would walk one mile To serve him now. Yet my throat moved to see him Usurping, with one hand on Raleigh's arm, A kind of ownership. "_Lend me ten pounds_," Were the first words he breathed in the old man's ear, And Raleigh slipped his purse into his hand.
* * * *
Just over Bread Street hung the bruised white moon When they crept out. Sir Lewis Stukeley's watch-dog, A derelict bo'sun, with a mulberry face, Met them outside. "The coast quite clear, eh, Hart?" Said Stukeley. "Ah, that's good. Lead on, then, quick." And there, framed in the cruddle of moonlit clouds That ended the steep street, dark on its light, And standing on those glistening cobblestones Just where they turned to silver, Raleigh looked back Before he turned the corner. He stood there. A figure like foot-feathered Mercury, Tall, straight and splendid, waving his plumed hat To Ben, and taking his last look, I felt, Upon our _Mermaid Tavern_. As he paused, His long fantastic shadow swayed and swept Against our feet. Then, like a shadow, he passed.
"It is not right," said Ben, "it is not right. Why did they give the old man so much grace? Witness and evidence are what they lack. Would you trust Stukeley--not to draw him out? Raleigh was always rash. A phrase or two Will turn their murderous axe into a sword Of righteousness--
Why, come to think of it, Blackfriar's Wharf, last night, I landed there, And--no, by God!--Raleigh is not himself, The tide will never serve beyond Gravesend. It is a trap! Come on! We'll follow them! Quick! To the river side!"-- We reached the wharf Only to see their wherry, a small black cloud Dwindling far down that running silver road. Ben touched my arm. "Look there," he said, pointing up-stream. The moon Glanced on a cluster of pikes, like silver thorns, Three hundred yards away, a little troop Of weaponed men, embarking hurriedly. Their great black wherry clumsily swung about, Then, with twelve oars for legs, came striding down, An armoured beetle on the glittering trail Of some small victim. Just below our wharf A little dinghy waddled. Ben cut the painter, and without one word Drew her up crackling thro' the lapping water, Motioned me to the tiller, thrust her off, And, pulling with one oar, backing with the other, Swirled her round and down, hard on the track Of Raleigh. Ben was an old man now but tough, O tough as a buccaneer. We distanced them. His oar blades drove the silver boiling back. By Broken Wharf the beetle was a speck. It dwindled by Queen Hythe and the Three Cranes. By Bellyn's Gate we had left it, out of sight. By Custom House and Galley Keye we shot Thro' silver all the way, without one glimpse Of Raleigh. Then a dreadful shadow fell And over us the Tower of London rose Like ebony; and, on the glittering reach Beyond it, I could see the small black cloud That carried the great old seaman slowly down Between the dark shores whence in happier years The throng had cheered his golden galleons out, And watched his proud sails filling for Cathay. There, as through lead, we dragged by Traitor's Gate, There, in the darkness, under the Bloody Tower, There, on the very verge of victory, Ben gasped and dropped his oars. "Take one and row," he said, "my arms are numbed. We'll overtake him yet!" I clambered past him, And took the bow oar.
Once, as the pace flagged, Over his shoulder he turned his great scarred face And snarled, with a trickle of blood on his coarse lips, "Hard!"-- And blood and fire ran through my veins again, For half a minute more.
Yet we fell back. Our course was crooked now. And suddenly A grim black speck began to grow behind us, Grow like the threat of death upon old age. Then, thickening, blackening, sharpening, foaming, swept Up the bright line of bubbles in our wake, That armoured wherry, with its long twelve oars All well together now.
"Too late," gasped Ben, His ash-grey face uplifted to the moon, One quivering hand upon the thwart behind him, A moment. Then he bowed over his knees Coughing. "But we'll delay them. We'll be drunk, And hold the catch-polls up!"
We drifted down Before them, broadside on. They sheered aside. Then, feigning a clumsy stroke, Ben drove our craft As they drew level, right in among their blades. There was a shout, an oath. They thrust us off; And then we swung our nose against their bows And pulled them round with every well-meant stroke. A full half minute, ere they won quite free, Cursing us for a pair of drunken fools.
We drifted down behind them.
"There's no doubt," Said Ben, "the headsman waits behind all this For Raleigh. This is a play to cheat the soul Of England, teach the people to applaud The red fifth act." Without another word we drifted down For centuries it seemed, until we came To Greenwich. Then up the long white burnished reach there crept Like little sooty clouds the two black boats To meet us.
"He is in the trap," said Ben, "And does not know it yet. See, where he sits By Stukeley as by a friend."
Long after this, We heard how Raleigh, simply as a child, Seeing the tide would never serve him now, And they must turn, had taken from his neck Some trinkets that he wore. "Keep them," he said To Stukeley, "in remembrance of this night."
He had no doubts of Stukeley when he saw The wherry close beside them. He but wrapped His cloak a little closer round his face. Our boat rocked in their wash when Stukeley dropped The mask. We saw him give the sign, and heard His high-pitched quavering voice--"IN THE KING'S NAME!" Raleigh rose to his feet. "I am under arrest?" He said, like a dazed man.
And Stukeley laughed. Then, as he bore himself to the grim end, All doubt being over, the old sea-king stood Among those glittering points, a king indeed. The black boats rocked. We heard his level voice, "_Sir Lewis, these actions never will turn out To your good credit._" Across the moonlit Thames It rang contemptuously, cold as cold steel, And passionless as the judgment that ends all.
* * * *
Some three months later, Raleigh's widow came To lodge a se'nnight at the Mermaid Inn. His house in Bread Street was no more her own, But in the hands of Stukeley, who had reaped A pretty harvest ... She kept close to her room, and that same night, Being ill and with some fever, sent her maid To fetch the apothecary from Friday Street, Old "Galen" as the Mermaid christened him. At that same moment, as the maid went out, Stukeley came in. He met her at the door; And, chucking her under the chin, gave her a letter. "Take this up to your mistress. It concerns Her property," he said. "Say that I wait, And would be glad to speak with her." The wench Looked pertly in his face, and tripped upstairs. I scarce could trust my hands. "Sir Lewis," I said, "This is no time to trouble her. She is ill." "Let her decide," he answered, with a sneer. Before I found another word to say The maid tripped down again. I scarce believed My senses, when she beckoned him up the stair. Shaking from head to foot, I blocked the way. "Property!" Could the crux of mine and thine Bring widow and murderer into one small room? "Sir Lewis," I said, "she is ill. It is not right! She never would consent." He sneered again, "You are her doctor? Out of the way, old fool! She has decided!" "Go," I said to the maid, "Fetch the apothecary. Let it rest With him!" She tossed her head. Her quick eyes glanced, Showing the white, like the eyes of a vicious mare. She laughed at Stukeley, loitered, then obeyed.
And so we waited, till the wench returned, With Galen at her heels. His wholesome face, Russet and wrinkled like an apple, peered Shrewdly at Stukeley, twinkled once at me, And passed in silence, leaving a whiff of herbs Behind him on the stair. Five minutes later, To my amazement, that same wholesome face Leaned from the lighted door above, and called "Sir Lewis Stukeley!" Sir Judas hastened up. The apothecary followed him within. The door shut. I was left there in the dark Bewildered; for my heart was hot with thoughts Of those last months. Our Summer's Nightingale, Our Ocean-Shepherd from the Main-deep Sea, The Founder of our Mermaid Fellowship, Was this his guerdon--at the Mermaid Inn? Was this that maid-of-honour whose romance With Raleigh, once, had been a kingdom's talk? Could Bess Throckmorton slight his memory thus? "It is not right," I said, "it is not right. She wrongs him deeply." I leaned against the porch Staring into the night. A ghostly ray Above me, from her window, bridged the street, And rested on the goldsmith's painted sign Opposite. I could hear the muffled voice Of Stukeley overhead, persuasive, bland; And then, her own, cooing, soft as a dove Calling her mate from Eden cedar-boughs, Flowed on and on; and then--all my flesh crept At something worse than either, a long space Of silence that stretched threatening and cold, Cold as a dagger-point pricking the skin Over my heart. Then came a stifled cry, A crashing door, a footstep on the stair Blundering like a drunkard's, heavily down; And with his gasping face one tragic mask Of horror,--may God help me to forget Some day the frozen awful eyes of one Who, fearing neither hell nor heaven, has met That ultimate weapon of the gods, the face And serpent-tresses that turn flesh to stone-- Stukeley stumbled, groping his way out, Blindly, past me, into the sheltering night.
* * * *
It was the last night of another year Before I understood what punishment Had overtaken Stukeley. Ben, and Brome-- Ben's ancient servant, but turned poet now-- Sat by the fire with the old apothecary To see the New Year in. The starry night Had drawn me to the door. Could it be true That our poor earth no longer was the hub Of those white wheeling orbs? I scarce believed The strange new dreams; but I had seen the veils Rent from vast oceans and huge continents, Till what was once our comfortable fire, Our cosy tavern, and our earthly home With heaven beyond the next turn in the road, All the resplendent fabric of our world Shrank to a glow-worm, lighting up one leaf In one small forest, in one little land, Among those wild infinitudes of God. A tattered wastrel wandered down the street, Clad in a seaman's jersey, staring hard At every sign. Beneath our own, the light Fell on his red carbuncled face. I knew him-- The bo'sun, Hart. He pointed to our sign And leered at me. "That's her," he said, "no doubt, The sea-witch with the shiny mackerel tail Swishing in wine. That's what Sir Lewis meant. He called it blood. Blood is his craze, you see. This is the Mermaid Tavern, sir, no doubt?" I nodded. "Ah, I thought as much," he said. "Well--happen this is worth a cup of ale." He thrust his hand under his jersey and lugged A greasy letter out. It was inscribed THE APOTHECARY AT THE MERMAID TAVERN.
I led him in. "I knew it, sir," he said, While Galen broke the seal. "Soon as I saw That sweet young naked wench curling her tail In those red waves.--The old man called it blood. Blood is his craze, you see.--But you can tell 'Tis wine, sir, by the foam. Malmsey, no doubt. And that sweet wench to make you smack your lips Like oysters, with her slippery tail and all! Why, sir, no doubt, this was the Mermaid Inn."
"But this," said Galen, lifting his grave face To Ben, "this letter is from all that's left Of Stukeley. The good host, there, thinks I wronged Your Ocean-shepherd's memory. From this letter, I think I helped to avenge him. Do not wrong His widow, even in thought. She loved him dearly. You know she keeps his poor grey severed head Embalmed; and so will keep it till she dies; Weeps over it alone. I have heard such things In wild Italian tales. But _this_ was true. Had I refused to let her speak with Stukeley I feared she would go mad. This letter proves That I--and she perhaps--were instruments, Of some more terrible chirurgery Than either knew."
"Ah, when I saw your sign," The bo'sun interjected, "I'd no doubt That letter was well worth a cup of ale."
"Go--paint your bows with hell-fire somewhere else, Not at this inn," said Ben, tossing the rogue A good French crown. "Pickle yourself in hell." And Hart lurched out into the night again, Muttering "Thank you, sirs. 'Twas worth all that. No doubt at all."
"There are some men," said Galen, Spreading the letter out on his plump knees, "Will heap up wrong on wrong; and, at the last, Wonder because the world will not forget Just when it suits them, cancel all they owe, And, like a mother, hold its arms out wide At their first cry. And, sirs, I do believe That Stukeley, on that night, had some such wish To reconcile himself. What else had passed Between the widow and himself I know not; But she had lured him on until he thought That words and smiles, perhaps a tear or two, Might make the widow take the murderer's hand In friendship, since it might advantage both. Indeed, he came prepared for even more. Villains are always fools. A wicked act, What is it but a false move in the game, A blind man's blunder, a deaf man's reply, The wrong drug taken in the dead of night? I always pity villains. I mistook The avenger for the victim. There she lay Panting, that night, her eyes like summer stars Her pale gold hair upon the pillows tossed Dishevelled, while the fever in her face Brought back the lost wild roses of her youth For half an hour. Against a breast as pure And smooth as any maid's, her soft arms pressed A bundle wrapped in a white embroidered cloth. She crooned over it as a mother croons Over her suckling child. I stood beside her. --That was her wish, and mine, while Stukeley stayed.-- And, over against me, on the other side, Stood Stukeley, gnawing his nether lip to find She could not, or she would not, speak one word In answer to his letter.
'Lady Raleigh, You wrong me, and you wrong yourself,' he cried, 'To play like a green girl when great affairs Are laid before you. Let me speak with you Alone.'
'But I am all alone,' she said, 'Far more alone than I have ever been In all my life before. This is my doctor. He must not leave me.'
Then she lured him on, Played on his brain as a musician plays Upon the lute. 'Forgive me, dear Sir Lewis, If I am grown too gay for widowhood. But I have pondered for a long, long time On all these matters. I know the world was right; And Spain was right, Sir Lewis. Yes, and you, You too, were right; and my poor husband wrong. You see I knew his mind so very well. I knew his every gesture, every smile. I lived with him. I think I died with him. It is a strange thing, marriage. For my soul (As if myself were present in this flesh) Beside him, slept in his grey prison-cell On that last dreadful dawn. I heard the throng Murmuring round the scaffold far away; And, with the smell of sawdust in my nostrils, I woke, bewildered as himself, to see That tall black-cassocked figure by his bed. I heard the words that made him understand: _The Body of our Lord--take and eat this!_ I rolled the small sour flakes beneath my tongue With him. I caught, with him, the gleam of tears, Far off, on some strange face of sickly dread. _The Blood_--and the cold cup was in my hand, Cold as an axe-heft washed with waterish red. I heard his last poor cry to wife and child.-- Could any that heard forget it?--_My true God, Hold you both in His arms, both in His arms._ And then--that last poor wish, a thing to raise A smile in some. I have smiled at it myself A thousand times. "_Give me my pipe_," he said, "_My old Winchester clay, with the long stem, And half an hour alone. The crowd can wait. They have not waited half so long as I._" And then, O then, I know what soft blue clouds, What wavering rings, fragrant ascending wreaths Melted his prison walls to a summer haze, Through which I think he saw the little port Of Budleigh Salterton, like a sea-bird's nest Among the Devon cliffs--the tarry quay Whence in his boyhood he had flung a line For bass or whiting-pollock. I remembered (Had he not told me, on some summer night, His arm about my neck, kissing my hair) He used to sit there, gazing out to sea; Fish, and for what? Not all for what he caught And handled; but for rainbow-coloured things, The water-drops that jewelled his thin line, Flotsam and jetsam of the sunset-clouds; While the green water, gurgling through the piles, Heaving and sinking, helped him to believe The fast-bound quay a galleon plunging out Superbly for Cathay. There would he sit Listening, a radiant boy, child of the sea, Listening to some old seaman's glowing tales, His grey eyes rich with pictures--
Then he saw, And I with him, that gathering in the West, To break the Fleet Invincible. O, I heard The trumpets and the neighings and the drums. I watched the beacons on a hundred hills. I drank that wine of battle from _his_ cup, And gloried in it, lying against his heart. I sailed with him and saw the unknown worlds! The slender ivory towers of old Cathay Rose for us over lilac-coloured seas That crumbled a sky-blue foam on long shores Of shining sand, shores of so clear a glass They drew the sunset-clouds into their bosom And hung that City of Vision in mid-air Girdling it round, as with a moat of sky, Hopelessly beautiful. O, yet I heard, Heard from his blazoned poops the trumpeters Blowing proud calls, while overhead the flag Of England floated from white towers of sail-- And yet, and yet, I knew that he was wrong, And soon he knew it, too.
I saw the cloud Of doubt assail him, in the Bloody Tower, When, being withheld from sailing the high seas For sixteen years, he spread a prouder sail, Took up his pen, and, walled about with stone, Began to write--his _History of the World_. And emperors came like Lazarus from the grave To wear his purple. And the night disgorged Its empires, till, O, like the swirl of dust Around their marching legions, that dim cloud Of doubt closed round him. Was there any man So sure of heart and brain as to record The simple truth of things himself had seen? Then who could plumb that night? The work broke off! He knew that he was wrong. I knew it, too! Once more that stately structure of his dreams Melted like mist. His eagles perished like clouds. Death wound a thin horn through the centuries. The grave resumed his forlorn emperors. His empires crumbled back to a little ash Knocked from his pipe.-- He dropped his pen in homage to the truth. The truth? _O, eloquent, just and mighty Death!_
Then, when he forged, out of one golden thought, A key to open his prison; when the King Released him for a tale of faërie gold Under the tropic palms; when those grey walls Melted before his passion; do you think The gold that lured the King was quite the same As that which Raleigh saw? You know the song:
"Say to the King," quoth Raleigh, "I have a tale to tell him; Wealth beyond derision, Veils to lift from the sky, Seas to sail for England, And a little dream to sell him, Gold, the gold of a vision That angels cannot buy."
Ah, no! For all the beauty and the pride, Raleigh was wrong; but not so wrong, I think, As those for whom his kingdoms oversea Meant only glittering dust. The fight he waged Was not with them. They never worsted him.
It was _The Destiny_ that brought him home Without the Spanish gold.--O, he was wrong, But such a wrong, in Gloriana's day, Was more than right, was immortality. He had just half an hour to put all this Into his pipe and smoke it,--
The red fire, The red heroic fire that filled his veins When the proud flag of England floated out Its challenge to the world--all gone to ash? What! Was the great red wine that Drake had quaffed Vinegar? He must fawn, haul down his flag, And count all nations nobler than his own, Tear out the lions from the painted shields That hung his poop, for fear that he offend The pride of Spain? Treason to sack the ships Of Spain? The wounds of slaughtered Englishmen Cried out--_there is no law beyond the line!_ Treason to sweep the seas with Francis Drake? Treason to fight for England? If it were so, The times had changed and quickly. He had been A schoolboy in the morning of the world Playing with wooden swords and winning crowns Of tinsel; but his comrades had outgrown Their morning-game, and gathered round to mock His battles in the sunset. Yet he knew That all his life had passed in that brief day; And he was old, too old to understand The smile upon the face of Buckingham, The smile on Cobham's face, at that great word _England_! He knew the solid earth was changed To something less than dust among the stars-- And, O, be sure he knew that he was wrong, That gleams would come, Gleams of a happier world for younger men, That Commonwealth, far off. This was a time Of sadder things, destruction of the old Before the new was born. At least he knew It was his own way that had brought the world Thus far, England thus far! How could he change, Who had loved England as a man might love His mistress, change from year to fickle year? For the new years would change, even as the old. No--he was wedded to that old first love, Crude flesh and blood, and coarse as meat and drink, The woman--England; no fine angel-isle, Ruled by that male Salome--Buckingham! Better the axe than to live on and wage These new and silent and more deadly wars That play at friendship with our enemies. Such times are evil. Not of their own desire They lead to good, blind agents of that Hand Which now had hewed him down, down to his knees, But in a prouder battle than men knew.
His pipe was out, the guard was at the door. Raleigh was not a god. But, when he climbed The scaffold, I believe he looked a man. And when the axe fell, I believe that God Set on his shoulders that immortal head Which he desired on earth.
O, he was wrong! But when that axe fell, not one shout was raised. That mighty throng around that crimson block Stood silent--like the hushed black cloud that holds The thunder. You might hear the headsman's breath. Stillness like that is dangerous, being charged, Sometimes, with thought, Sir Lewis! England sleeps! What if, one day, the Stewart should be called To know that England wakes? What if a shout Should thunder-strike Whitehall, and the dogs lift Their heads along the fringes of the crowd To catch a certain savour that I know, The smell of blood and sawdust?--
Ah, Sir Lewis, 'Tis hard to find one little seed of right Among so many wrongs. Raleigh was wrong, And yet--it was because he loved his country Next to himself, Sir Lewis, by your leave, His country butchered him. You did not know That I was only third in his affections? The night I told him--we were parting then-- I had begged the last disposal of his body, Did he not say, with O, so gentle a smile, "_Thou hadst not always the disposal of it In life, dear Bess. 'Tis well it should be thine In death!_"'
'The jest was bitter at such an hour, And somewhat coarse in grain,' Stukeley replied. 'Indeed I thought him kinder.'
'Kinder,' she said, Laughing bitterly.
Stukeley looked at her. She whispered something, and his lewd old eyes Fastened upon her own. He knelt by her. 'Perhaps,' he said, 'your woman's wit has found A better way to solve this bitter business.' Her head moved on the pillow with little tossings. He touched her hand. It leapt quickly away. She hugged that strange white bundle to her breast, And writhed back, smiling at him, across the bed.
'Ah, Bess,' he whispered huskily, pressing his lips To that warm hollow where her head had lain, 'There is one way to close the long dispute, Keep the estates unbroken in your hands And stop all slanderous tongues, one happy way. We have some years to live; and why alone?' 'Alone?' she sighed. 'My husband thought of that. He wrote a letter to me long ago, When he was first condemned. He said--he said-- Now let me think--what was it that he said?-- I had it all by heart. "_Beseech you, Bess, Hide not yourself for many days_", he said.' 'True wisdom that,' quoth Stukeley, 'for the love That seeks to chain the living to the dead Is but self-love at best!'
'And yet,' she said, 'How his poor heart was torn between two cares, Love of himself and care for me, as thus:
_Love God! Begin to repose yourself on Him! Therein you shall find true and lasting riches; But all the rest is nothing. When you have tired Your thoughts on earthly things, when you have travelled Through all the glittering pomps of this proud world You shall sit down by Sorrow in the end. Begin betimes, and teach your little son To serve and fear God also. Then God will be a husband unto you, And unto him a father; nor can Death Bereave you any more. When I am gone, No doubt you shall be sought unto by many For the world thinks that I was very rich. No greater misery can befall you, Bess, Than to become a prey, and, afterwards, To be despised.'_
'Human enough,' said Stukeley, 'And yet--self-love, self-love!'
'Ah no,' quoth she, 'You have not heard the end: _God knows, I speak it Not to dissuade you_--not to dissuade you, mark-- _From marriage. That will be the best for you, Both in respect of God and of the world._ Was _that_ self-love, Sir Lewis? Ah, not all. And thus he ended: _For his father's sake That chose and loved you in his happiest times, Remember your poor child! The Everlasting, Infinite, powerful, and inscrutable God, Keep you and yours, have mercy upon me, And teach me to forgive my false accusers_-- Wrong, even in death, you see. Then--_My true wife, Farewell! Bless my poor boy! Pray for me! My true God, Hold you both in His arms, both in His arms!_ I know that he was wrong. You did not know, Sir Lewis, that he had left me a little child. Come closer. You shall see its orphaned face, The sad, sad relict of a man that loved His country--all that's left to me. Come, look!' She beckoned Stukeley nearer. He bent down Curiously. Her feverish fingers drew
The white wrap from the bundle in her arms, And, with a smile that would make angels weep, She showed him, pressed against her naked breast, Terrible as Medusa, the grey flesh And shrivelled face, embalmed, the thing that dropped Into the headsman's basket, months agone,-- The head of Raleigh. Half her body lay Bare, while she held that grey babe to her heart; But Judas hid his face.... 'Living,' she said, 'he was not always mine; But--dead--I shall not wean him'-- Then, I too Covered my face--I cannot tell you more. There was a dreadful silence in that room, Silence that, as I know, shattered the brain Of Stukeley.--When I dared to raise my head Beneath that silent thunder of our God, The man had gone-- This is his letter, sirs, Written from Lundy Island: "_For God's love, Tell them it is a cruel thing to say That I drink blood. I have no secret sin. A thousand pound is not so great a sum; And that is all they paid me, every penny. Salt water, that is all the drink I taste On this rough island. Somebody has taught The sea-gulls how to wail around my hut All night, like lost souls. And there is a face, A dead man's face that laughs in every storm, And sleeps in every pool along the coast. I thought it was my own, once. But I know These actions never, never, on God's earth, Will turn out to their credit, who believe That I drink blood._" He crumpled up the letter And tossed it into the fire. "Galen," said Ben, "I think you are right--that one should pity villains."
* * * *
The clock struck twelve. The bells began to peal. We drank a cup of sack to the New Year. "New songs, new voices, all as fresh as may," Said Ben to Brome, "but I shall never live To hear them."
All was not so well, indeed, With Ben, as hitherto. Age had come upon him. He dragged one foot as in paralysis. The critics bayed against the old lion, now, And called him arrogant. "My brain," he said, "Is yet unhurt although, set round with pain, It cannot long hold out." He never stooped, Never once pandered to that brainless hour. His coat was thread-bare. Weeks had passed of late Without his voice resounding in our inn.
"The statues are defiled, the gods dethroned, The Ionian movement reigns, not the free soul. And, as for me, I have lived too long," he said. "Well--I can weave the old threnodies anew." And, filling his cup, he murmured, soft and low, A new song, breaking on an ancient shore:
I
Marlowe is dead, and Greene is in his grave, And sweet Will Shakespeare long ago is gone! Our Ocean-shepherd sleeps beneath the wave; Robin is dead, and Marlowe in his grave. Why should I stay to chant an idle stave, And in my Mermaid Tavern drink alone? For Kit is dead and Greene is in his grave, And sweet Will Shakespeare long ago is gone.
II
Where is the singer of the Faërie Queen? Where are the lyric lips of Astrophel? Long, long ago, their quiet graves were green; Ay, and the grave, too, of their Faërie Queen! And yet their faces, hovering here unseen, Call me to taste their new-found oenomel; To sup with him who sang the Faërie Queen; To drink with him whose name was Astrophel.
III
I drink to that great Inn beyond the grave! --If there be none, the gods have done us wrong.-- Ere long I hope to chant a better stave, In some great Mermaid Inn beyond the grave; And quaff the best of earth that heaven can save, Red wine like blood, deep love of friends and song. I drink to that great Inn beyond the grave; And hope to greet my golden lads ere long.
He raised his cup and drank in silence. Brome Drank with him, too. The bells had ceased to peal. Galen shook hands, and bade us all good-night. Then Brome, a little wistfully, I thought, Looked at his old-time master, and prepared To follow. "Good-night--Ben," he said, a pause Before he spoke the name. "Good-night! Good-night! My dear old Brome," said Ben. And, at the door, Brome whispered to me, "He is lonely now. There are not many left of his old friends. We all go out--like this--into the night. But what a fleet of stars!" he said, and shook My hand, and smiled, and pointed to the sky. And, when I looked into the room again, The lights were very dim, and I believed That Ben had fallen asleep. His great grey head Was bowed across the table, on his arms. Then, all at once, I knew that he was weeping; And like a shadow I crept back again, And stole into the night. There as I stood Under the painted sign, I could have vowed That I, too, heard the voices of the dead, The voices of his old companions, Gathering round him in that lonely room, Till all the timbers of the Mermaid Inn Trembled above me with their ghostly song:
I
Say to the King, quoth Raleigh I have a tale to tell him, Wealth beyond derision, Veils to lift from the sky, Seas to sail for England And a little dream to sell him,-- Gold, the gold of a vision, That angels cannot buy.
II
Fair thro' the walls of his dungeon, --What were the stones but a shadow?-- Streamed the light of the rapture, The lure that he followed of old, The dream of his old companions, The vision of El Dorado, The fleet that they never could capture, The City of Sunset-gold.
III
Yet did they sail the seas And, dazed with exceeding wonder, Straight through the sunset-glory Plunge into the dawn: Leaving their home behind them, By a road of splendour and thunder, They came to their home in amazement Simply by sailing on.
NEW POEMS
A WATCHWORD OF THE FLEET
[_For purposes of recognition at night a small squadron of Elizabethan ships, crossing the Atlantic, adopted as a watchword the sentence: Before the world--was God._]
They diced with Death. Their big sea-boots Were greased with blood. They swept the seas For England; and--we reap the fruits Of their heroic deviltries! Our creed is in the cold machine, The inhuman devildoms of brain, The bolt that splits the midnight main, Loosed at a lever's touch; the lean Torpedo; "Twenty Miles of Power"; The steel-clad Dreadnoughts' dark array! Yet ... we that keep the conning tower Are not so strong as they Whose watchword we disdain.
They laughed at odds for England's sake! We count, yet cast our strength away. One Admiral with the soul of Drake Would break the fleets of hell to-day! Give us the splendid heavens of youth, Give us the banners of deathless flame, The ringing watchwords of their fame, The faith, the hope, the simple truth! Then shall the Deep indeed be swayed Through all its boundless breadth and length, Nor this proud England lean dismayed On twenty miles of strength, Or shrink from aught but shame.
Pull out by night, O leave the shore And lighted streets of Plymouth town, Pull out into the Deep once more! There, in the night of their renown, The same great waters roll their gloom Around our midget period; And the huge decks that Raleigh trod Over our petty darkness loom! Along the line the cry is passed From all their heaven-illumined spars, Clear as a bell, from mast to mast, It rings against the stars: _Before the world--was God._
NEW WARS FOR OLD
"_Peace with its luxury is the corrupter of Nations._"
_Any militarist Journal._
I
Peace! When have we prayed for peace? Over us burns a star Bright, beautiful, red for strife! Yours are only the drum and the fife And the golden braid and the surface of life! Ours is the white-hot war!
II
Peace? When have we prayed for peace? Ours are the weapons of men! Time changes the face of the world! Therefore your ancient flags are furled, And ours are the unseen legions hurled Up to the heights again!
III
Peace? When have we prayed for peace? Is there no wrong to right? Wrong crying to God on high Here where the weak and the helpless die, And the homeless hordes of the city go by, The ranks are rallied to-night!
IV
Peace? When have we prayed for peace? Are ye so dazed with words? Earth, heaven, shall pass away Ere for your passionless peace we pray! Are ye deaf to the trumpets that call us to-day, Blind to the blazing swords?
THE PRAYER FOR PEACE
"_Unless public opinion can rise to the height of discussing the substitution of law for force as a great world-movement, the American arbitration proposals cannot be carried out._"
_Sir Edward Grey._
I
Dare we--though our hope deferred Left us faithless long ago-- Dare we let our hearts be stirred, Lift them to the light and _know_, Cast away our cynic shields, Break the sword that Mockery wields, _Know_ that Truth indeed prevails, And that Justice holds the scales? Britain, kneel! Kneel, Imperial Commonweal!
II
Dare we know that this great hour, Dawning on thy long renown, Marks the purpose of thy power, Crowns thee with a mightier crown, Know that to this purpose climb All the blood-red wars of Time? If indeed thou _hast_ a goal Beaconing to thy warrior soul, Britain, kneel! Kneel, Imperial Commonweal!
III
Dare we know what every age Writes with an unerring hand, Read the midnight's moving page, Read the stars and understand,-- Out of Chaos ye shall draw Linked harmonies of Law, Till around the Eternal Sun All your peoples move in one? Britain, kneel! Kneel, Imperial Commonweal!
IV
Dare we know that wearied eyes Dimmed with dust of every day _Can_, once more, desire the skies And the glorious upward way? Dare we, if the Truth should still Vex with doubt our alien will, Take it to our Maker's throne, Let Him speak with us alone? Britain, kneel! Kneel, Imperial Commonweal!
V
_Dare we cast our pride away? Dare we tread where Lincoln trod? All the Future, by this day, Waits to judge us and our God! Set the struggling peoples free! Crown with Law their Liberty! Proud with an immortal pride, Kneel we at our Sister's side! Britain, kneel! Kneel, Imperial Commonweal!_
THE SWORD OF ENGLAND
(_Written during a European war crisis_)
Not as one muttering in a spell-bound sleep Shall England speak the word; Not idly bid the embattled lightnings leap, Nor lightly draw the sword!
Let statesmen grope by night in a blind dream, The cold clear morning star Should like a trophy in her helmet gleam When England sweeps to war!
Not like a derelict, drunk with surf and spray, And drifting down to doom; But like the Sun-god calling up the day Should England rend that gloom.
Not as in trance, at some hypnotic call, Nor with a doubtful cry; But a clear faith, like a banner above us all, Rolling from sky to sky.
She sheds no blood to that vain god of strife Whom striplings call "renown"; She knows that only they who reverence life Can nobly lay it down;
And these will ride from child and home and love, Through death and hell that day; But O, her faith, her flag, must burn above, Her soul must lead the way!
THE DAWN OF PEACE
Yes--"on our brows we feel the breath Of dawn," though in the night we wait! An arrow is in the heart of Death, A God is at the doors of Fate! The spirit that moved upon the Deep Is moving through the minds of men: The nations feel it in their sleep, A change has touched their dreams again.
Voices, confused, and faint, arise, Troubling their hearts from East and West. A doubtful light is in their skies, A gleam that will not let them rest: The dawn, the dawn is on the wing, The stir of change on every side, Unsignalled as the approach of Spring, Invincible as the hawthorn-tide.
Have ye not heard it, far and nigh, The voice of France across the dark, And all the Atlantic with one cry Beating the shores of Europe?--hark! Then--if ye will--uplift your word Of cynic wisdom! Once again Tell us He came to bring a sword, Tell us He lived and died in vain.
Say that we dream! Our dreams have woven Truths that out-face the burning sun: The lightnings, that we dreamed, have cloven Time, space, and linked all lands in one! Dreams! But their swift celestial fingers Have knit the world with threads of steel, Till no remotest island lingers Beyond the world's one Commonweal.
Tell us that custom, sloth, and fear Are strong, then name them "common-sense"! Tell us that greed rules everywhere, Then dub the lie "experience": Year after year, age after age, Has handed down, thro' fool and child, For earth's divinest heritage The dreams whereon old wisdom smiled.
Dreams are they? But ye cannot stay them, Or thrust the dawn back for one hour! Truth, Love, and Justice, if ye slay them, Return with more than earthly power: Strive, if ye will, to seal the fountains That send the Spring thro' leaf and spray: Drive back the sun from the Eastern mountains, Then--bid this mightier movement stay.
It is the Dawn of Peace! The nations From East to West have heard a cry,-- "Through all earth's blood-red generations By hate and slaughter climbed thus high, Here--on this height--still to aspire, One only path remains untrod, One path of love and peace climbs higher! Make straight that highway for our God."
THE BRINGERS OF GOOD NEWS
Like fallen stars the watch-fires gleamed Along our menaced age that night! Our bivouacked century tossed and dreamed Of battle with the approaching light.
Rumors of change, a sea-like roar, Shook the firm earth with doubt and dread: The clouds, in rushing legions bore Their tattered eagles overhead.
I saw the muffled sentries rest On the dark hills of Time. I saw Around them march from East to West The stars of the unresting law.
I knew that in their mighty course They brought the dawn, they brought the day; And that the unconquerable force Of the new years was on the way.
I heard the feet of that great throng! I saw them shine, like hope, afar! Their shout, their shout was like a song, And O, 'twas not a song of war!
Yet, as the whole world with their tramp Quivered, a signal-lightning spoke, A bugle warned our darkling camp, And, like a thunder-cloud, it woke.
Our searchlights raked the world's wide ends. O'er the dark hills a grey light crept. Down, through the light, that host of friends We took for foemen, triumphing swept.
The old century could not hear their cry, How should it hear the song they sang? _We bring good news!_ It pierced the sky! _We bring good news!_ The welkin rang.
One shout of triumph and of faith; And then--our shattering cannon roared! But, over the reeking ranks of death, The song rose like a single sword.
_We bring good news!_ Red flared the guns! _We bring good news!_ The sabres flashed! And the dark age with its own sons In blind and furious battle clashed.
A swift, a terrible bugle pealed. The sulphurous clouds were rolled away. Embraced, embraced, on that red field, The wounded and the dying lay.
_We bring good news!_ Blood choked the word, --_We knew you not; so dark the night!-- O father, was I worth your sword? O son, O herald of the light!_
_We bring good news!_--The darkness fills Mine eyes!--Nay, the night ebbs away! And, over the everlasting hills, The great new dawn led on the day.
THE LONELY SHRINE
(_A few months after the Milton Ter-centenary._)
I
The crowd has passed away, Faded the feast, and most forget! Master, we come with lowly hearts to pay Our deeper debt.
II
High they upheld the wine, And royally, royally drank to thee! Loud were their plaudits. Now the lonely shrine Accepts our knee.
III
All dark and silent now! Master, thy few are faithful still, And nightly hear thy brooks that warbling flow By Siloa's hill.
AT NOON
(AFTER THE FRENCH OF VERLAINE)
The sky is blue above the roof, So calm, so blue; One rustling bough above the roof Rocks, the noon through.
The bell-tower in the sky, aloof, Tenderly rings! A bird upon the bough, aloof, Sorrows and sings.
My God, my God, and life is here So simple and still! Far off, the murmuring town I hear At the wind's will....
_What hast thou done, thou, weeping there? O quick, the truth! What hast thou done, thou, weeping there, With thy lost youth?_
TO A FRIEND OF BOYHOOD LOST AT SEA
O warm blue sky and dazzling sea, Where have you hid my friend from me? The white-chalk coast, the leagues of surf Laugh to the May-light, now as then, And violets in the short sweet turf Make fragmentary heavens again, And sea-born wings of rustling snow Pass and re-pass as long ago.
Old friend, do you remember yet The days when secretly we met In that old harbor years a-back, Where I admired your billowing walk, Or in that perilous fishing smack What tarry oaths perfumed your talk, The sails we set, the ropes we spliced, The raw potato that we sliced,
For mackerel-bait--and how it shines Far down, at end of the taut lines!-- And the great catch we made that day,
Loading our boat with rainbows, quick And quivering, while you smoked your clay And I took home your "Deadwood Dick" In yellow and red, when day was done And you took home my Stevenson?
Not leagues, as when you sailed the deep, But only some frail bars of sleep Sever us now! Methinks you still Recall, as I, in dreams, the quay, The little port below the hill: And all the changes of the sea, Like some great music, can but roll Our lives still nearer to the goal.
OUR LADY OF THE TWILIGHT
Our Lady of the Twilight From out the sunset-lands Comes gently stealing o'er the world And stretches out her hands, Over the blotched and broken wall, The blind and foetid lane, She stretches out her hands and all Is beautiful again.
No factory chimneys can defile The beauty of her dress: She stoops down with her heavenly smile To heal and love and bless: All tortured things, all evil powers, All shapes of dark distress Are turned to fragrance and to flowers Beneath her kind caress.
Our Lady of the Twilight, She melts our prison-bars! She makes the sea forget the shore, She fills the sky with stars, And stooping over wharf and mill, Chimney and shed and dome, Turns them to fairy palaces, Then calls her children home.
She stoops to bless the stunted tree, And from the furrowed plain, And from the wrinkled brow she smooths The lines of care and pain: Hers are the gentle hands and eyes And hers the peaceful breath That ope, in sunset-softened skies, The quiet gates of death.
_Our Lady of the Twilight, She hath such gentle hands, So lovely are the gifts she brings From out the sunset-lands, So bountiful, so merciful So sweet of soul is she; And over all the world she draws Her cloak of charity._
THE HILL-FLOWERS
"_I will lift up mine eyes to the hills"_
I
_Moving through the dew, moving through the dew, Ere I waken in the city--Life, thy dawn makes all things new! And up a fir-clad glen, far from all the haunts of men, Up a glen among the mountains, oh my feet are wings again!_
Moving through the dew, moving through the dew, O mountains of my boyhood, I come again to you, By the little path I know, with the sea far below, And above, the great cloud-galleons with their sails of rose and snow;
As of old, when all was young, and the earth a song unsung And the heather through the crimson dawn its Eden incense flung From the mountain-heights of joy, for a careless-hearted boy, And the lavrocks rose like fountain sprays of bliss that ne'er could cloy,
From their little beds of bloom, from the golden gorse and broom, With a song to God the Giver, o'er that waste of wild perfume; Blowing from height to height, in a glory of great light, While the cottage-clustered valleys held the lilac last of night,
So, when dawn is in the skies, in a dream, a dream, I rise, And I follow my lost boyhood to the heights of Paradise. Life, thy dawn makes all things new! Hills of Youth, I come to you, Moving through the dew, moving through the dew.
II
Moving through the dew, moving through the dew, Floats a brother's face to meet me! Is it you? Is it you? For the night I leave behind keeps these dazzled eyes still blind! But oh, the little hill-flowers, their scent is wise and kind;
And I shall not lose the way from the darkness to the day, While dust can cling as their scent clings to memory for aye; And the least link in the chain can recall the whole again, And heaven at last resume its far-flung harvests, grain by grain.
To the hill-flowers clings my dust, and tho' eyeless Death may thrust All else into the darkness, in their heaven I put my trust; And a dawn shall bid me climb to the little spread of thyme Where first I heard the ripple of the fountain-heads of rhyme.
And a fir-wood that I know, from dawn to sunset-glow, Shall whisper to a lonely sea, that swings far, far below. Death, thy dawn makes all things new. Hills of Youth, I come to you, Moving through the dew, moving through the dew.
THE CAROL OF THE FIR-TREE
Quoth the Fir-tree, "Orange and vine" _Sing 'Nowell, Nowell, Nowell'!_ "Have their honour: I have mine!" _In Excelsis Gloria!_ "I am kin to the great king's house," _Ring 'Nowell, Nowell, Nowell'!_ "And Lebanon whispers in my boughs." _In Excelsis Gloria!_
Apple and cherry, pear and plum, _Winds of Autumn, sigh 'Nowell_'! All the trees like mages come _Bending low with 'Gloria'!_ Holding out on every hand _Summer pilgrims to Nowell!_ Gorgeous gifts from Elfin-land. _And the May saith 'Gloria'!_
Out of the darkness--who shall say _Gold and myrrh for this Nowell!_ How they win their wizard way? _Out of the East with 'Gloria'!_ Men that eat of the sun and dew _Angels laugh and sing, 'Nowell.'_ Call it "fruit," and say it "grew"! _Into the West with 'Gloria'!_
"Leaves that fall," whispered the Fir _Through the forest sing 'Nowell'!_ "I am winter's minister." _In Excelsis Gloria!_ Summer friends may come and go, _Up the mountain sing 'Nowell.'_ Love abides thro' storm and snow. _Down the valley, 'Gloria'!_
"On my boughs, on mine on mine," _Father and mother, sing 'Nowell'!_ "All the fruits of the earth shall twine." _Bending low with 'Gloria.'_ "Sword of wood and doll of wax" _Little children, sing 'Nowell.'_ "Swing on the stem was cleft with the axe!" _Craftsmen all, a 'Gloria.'_
"Hear! I have looked on the other side." _Out of the East, O sing 'Nowell'!_ "Because to live this night I died!" _Into the West with 'Gloria.'_ "Hear! In this lighted room I have found" _Ye that seek, O sing 'Nowell'!_ "The spell that worketh underground." _Ye that doubt, a 'Gloria.'_
"I have found it, even I," _Ye that are lowly, sing 'Nowell'!_ "The secret of this alchemy!" _Ye that are poor, a 'Gloria.'_ "Look, your tinsel turneth to gold." _Sing 'Nowell! Nowell! Nowell!'_ "Your dust to a hand for love to hold!" _In Excelsis Gloria._
"Lay the axe at my young stem now!" _Woodman, woodman, sing 'Nowell.'_ "Set a star on every bough!" _In Excelsis Gloria!_ "Hall and cot shall see me stand," _Rich and poor man, sing 'Nowell'!_ "Giver of gifts from Elfin-land." _Oberon, answer 'Gloria.'_
"Hung by the hilt on your Christmas-tree" _Little children, sing 'Nowell'!_ "Your wooden sword is a cross for me." _Emperors, a 'Gloria.'_ "I have found that fabulous stone" _Ocean-worthies, cry 'Nowell.'_ "Which turneth all things into one," _Wise men all, a 'Gloria.'_
"It is not ruby nor anything" _Jeweller, jeweller, sing 'Nowell'!_ "Fit for the crown of an earthly King:" _In Excelsis Gloria!_ "It is not here! It is not there!" _Traveller, rest and cry 'Nowell'!_ "It is one thing and everywhere!" _Heaven and Earth sing 'Gloria.'_
"It is the earth, the moon, the sun," _Mote in the sunbeam, sing 'Nowell'!_ "And all the stars that march as one." _In Excelsis Gloria!_ "Here, by the touch of it, I can see" _Sing, O Life, a sweet Nowell!_ "The world's King die on a Christmas-tree." _Answer, Death, with 'Gloria.'_
"Here, not set in a realm apart," _East and West are one 'Nowell'!_ "Holy Land is in your Heart!" _North and South one 'Gloria'!_ "Death is a birth, birth is a death," _Love is all, O sing 'Nowell'!_ "And London one with Nazareth." _And all the World a 'Gloria.'_
"And angels over your heart's roof sing" _Birds of God, O pour 'Nowell'!_ "That a poor man's son is the Son of a King!" _Out of your heart this 'Gloria'!_ "Round the world you'll not away" _In your own soul, they sing 'Nowell'!_ "From Holy Land this Christmas Day!" _In your own soul, this 'Gloria.'_
LAVENDER
Lavender, lavender That makes your linen sweet; The hawker brings his basket Down the sooty street: The dirty doors and pavements Are simmering in the heat: He brings a dream to London, And drags his weary feet.
Lavender, lavender, From where the bee hums, To the loud roar of London, With purple dreams he comes, From raggèd lanes of wild-flowers To raggèd London slums, With a basket full of lavender And purple dreams he comes.
Is it nought to you that hear him? With the old strange cry The weary hawker passes, And some will come and buy, And some will let him pass away And only heave a sigh, But most will neither heed nor hear When dreams go by.
_Lavender, lavender! His songs were fair and sweet, He brought us harvests out of heaven, Full sheaves of radiant wheat; He brought us keys to Paradise, And hawked them thro' the street; He brought his dreams to London, And dragged his weary feet._
Lavender, lavender! He is gone. The sunset glows; But through the brain of London The mystic fragrance flows. Each foggy cell remembers, Each raggèd alley knows, The land he left behind him, The land to which he goes.
The End