Part 3

They brought him to an open square, where stood An upright stake with iron rings and chains, Awaiting his frail body to entwine, And round about were twigs of birch and pine, Piled up in bundles, groaning with the pains, They should inflict on one whose life was good.

The rising sun cast on the earth a soft, Warm, trembling light, God’s Cherubim who told To all whose soul had vision: “He is Love;” At least one marked it, smiled and looked above, Into infinity of blue and gold, And as his eyes were lifted thus aloft,

He said: “What profit hath a man, if he Should gain the entire world and lose his soul? What can he give for it in true exchange? This is the truth which saves or doth avenge, And now as I am here to give my all, I thank thee Father for the Victory.”

A pray’r which followed was by clamor drowned, The torch applied set loose the crackling flame, Which leaped about his limbs and to his face, Extinguishing the glory of his gaze, And silencing the lisping of His name Who hath with immortality him crowned.

XX

I said, Sordino was a Catholic, But more than that, a true philosopher, And at this sight within himself he mused: “How is the Gospel of the Christ abused By those who should its saving love confer, Upon a world with sin and hatred sick!”

“The light of love changed into flames of hell, The praise of joy to wails of agony, The cross into a fetish of dark fear, Around the which the fiendish demons leer, While erring souls are shackled to the tree, And fagots blaze amid the rabble’s yell.”

“How terrible is zeal without true knowledge; How awful bigotry, born by religion! How black is priestcraft, bred by selfishness, Before whose judgment-seat there’s no redress For any sympathizer with rebellion Against the schemes of Jesuitic college!”

His tender-heartedness aroused such thought;-- He paused, and crossed himself, perhaps he sinned,-- In thinking thus, and carried thus away By that sad spectacle, and then did say, Within himself: “May be the fellow grinned, Because his faith a glory to him brought.”

“Was that the motive which led him to suffer? Then was he despicable more than they Who brazed themselves his dirty flesh to fry, Then was his smoke a stench beneath the sky, His ashes unfit for his country’s clay, He, not a martyr, but a worthless duffer.”

“If pride, quite obstinate, of fancied light, Diviner, truer than of mother church, Did actuate the Protestants to die, Then there is justice in the people’s cry, For such an arrogance the truth will smirch, And rob its scepter of celestial right.”

Thus did philosopher and churchman speak, And now the poet whispered: “Peace be still! Where are thy chimes? All England needs their tone Of harmony to make the people one; Thy golden chimes! At last their music will Interpret all which men through suff’ring seek.”

XXI

Pained and disgusted with the sight, he passed Out of the city--’twas not very far Before he struck the open country-road-- Which led to Shoreditch church, and meadows broad, And fields of golden grain, where nought did mar The peace of all that was with nature classed.

Amid a field, below a hillock’s slope, He saw a man at work, also a lad, With sickles in their hands, a-cutting grain, He stopped and looked at them, the boy with pain Seemed, raise himself, when he a bundle had Completed, trying with his sire to cope.

And while he stretched his aching, weary back, He gazed across the field with longing look, A-measuring how many days ’twould take To reach the end--the field’s dividing stake, Then spit into his hands and firmly took His place behind his father’s cleancut track.

This incident Sordino much impressed, He read at once the feelings of the boy, That not alone in body, but in mind He suffered, sought deliverance to find, And so he said: “I will the lad employ, I need a guide whom heav’n with dreams hath blessed.”

The father would not listen to Sordino, Whose English he but scarcely understood, And half afraid of this so swarthy stranger, In times, like those, so full of lurking danger, But when he saw his gold, it seemed quite good, And gave consent to let his helper go.

But not before his mother had been seen, Her sanction gained, for what he felt some fears, And so they left the sheaves of ripened wheat, And sought their humble dwelling’s blithe retreat,-- A little cottage, thatched, and gray with years, Amid the trees and garden-beds still green.

And here they tarried till the close of day, Till Vesper-bells proclaimed its toil should cease, Yea, tarried over night, for mother’s heart Is more reluctant with the child to part, But in the morn she said: “Do as ye please,” And gave her blessing, and they went away.

And as they left, the peals from Shoreditch tow’r Came on the crispéd morning air like streams Of living water from the Holy Mount,-- Where priests with silver basins at its fount Oblation brought to golden Cherubims, Amid rejoicing of the festive hour.

Their cleansing tones, refreshing to the mind, And nature, smiling, drank their harmony, The crystal dew vibrating with delight, A veil of mist, the garment of the night, Hung o’er the deepest valley, seemed to flee Before their dancing with a timid wind.

Sordino felt their rapture like a flow Of scented warmth, which crept through limbs and brain, And to his heart, where lotus-like it stayed, Until each chilling sorrow was allayed, And joy of other years returned again, Enkindling in his face a new life’s glow.

The silent, wond’ring lad, who followed him, Had often heard this gladsome melody, It was a part of him from infancy, It cast upon his soul a witchery, From which no mood or attitude was free, And claimed him for a realm remote and dim.

It was the springtime of the golden age Of England’s minstrelsy, and here and there A youth did feel its heart-throb ’mid the flowers, And saw sweet, flitting forms amongst the bowers, And heard transporting voices in the air, Which captured him and did his life engage.

And though, perhaps, he never won a name, And though it spoiled his life for “useful things,” And Fate endowed him, as she did a Greene, With wretched penury and squalor mean,-- Still he who sees and hears and gladly sings Hath recompense, transcending gold and fame.

Woe, unto him around whose cradle danced The fairies on the golden morning ray, Anointing him with essence of the rose, Into whose soul the magic music flows, To shape itself into a deathless lay, Who all denies, by earthliness entranced.

To him no smiling faces shall appear, When comes the eve of life with lowering sky, But voices chiding him with cowardice, Because he chose the lucre and the ease, And did his calling wilfully deny,-- To him no light shall be,--but darkness drear.

XXII

’Twas here that from the church and nature rose The English stage, when he, the stable-groom, Should write the Drama of Humanity,-- The greatest poet of all history, Who mingled laughter with the deepest gloom, Life’s music with its sterner prose.

The modern drama,--modern Ishmael, Begotten of religion; like a youth, Fair, myrtle-crowned, and slender, innocent, With dancing measures upon pleasure bent; Then cast away by “guardians of the truth,” And, homeless, nourished at the secret well.

And when his great Emancipator came, He dared to dance and frisk on country lanes, But not in London town (his mother’s there); Until the king of poesy laid bare His ancient birthright, lost ’mongst Grecian manes, Then waxed he strong and daily gained in fame,

And found a home within the city wall, Where still he dwells, and ever will abide, In his duplicity, since life is very double, A-laughing, crying, at its fleeting bubble, Appearing on the restless ocean-tide, In morning splendor, or dusk even-fall.

Still Ishmael, to Sarah’s first begotten, Still preached against by heaven’s best elect, And he returns, at times, with taunts and gibes; But if they put away some modern scribes, And did great Shakespeare’s drama resurrect, Our modern stage would not be half as rotten.

Regenerated, cleansed, what ally this To all that’s true and noble under heaven! A mirror of ourselves? Much more! A vision Of life’s ideal, and its highest mission, And though the weary heart must mirth be given, The thrill of truth’s clear gleam is better bliss.

So, let the true born help the quondam alien, They need each other in their common quest For happiness, the rainbow’s pot of gold, And let the secret of the quest be told By each, in love, that each may do his best To lift and cheer, where life is low and failing.

XXIII

Into the city on the Thames they walked, And to the inn, where he had rented rooms, An hospitable inn, by no means small, Of quaint designs, o’ershadowed by some tall, Outspreading elm trees, in whose pleasant glooms The thievish rooks to one another talked.

And there were gardens in its rear, where fruit Of cherries and of pears were sweetly ripe, For London still had nature in its heart, Long since ejected by a soul-less mart; Though knowing statesmen may its grandeur pipe, Another Shakespeare it makes ever mute.

Here did Sordino hope to respite find From journeys which accounted seemed but vain; He would his simple country-lad engage In spying bells, and in the work of page, For such a boy he easily could train: He had an honest heart and ready mind.

This tavern was, however, seldom quiet, But oft for merry souls a rendezvous,-- For wits and poets, chiefly for the latter, To whom the outside of the social platter Was less important than the inside true, Whose highest law was their own spirit’s fiat.

When God makes poets He’s misunderstood, The mixture is too much for common folk; The blending of all things in earth and heaven, Of light and darkness, unto them is given, An angel and a fiend in common yoke, The great extremes of evil and of good.

As in time’s morn the light from darkness sprang, And cosmic beauty out of Chaos rose, Thus out of reeking stews and taverns came A Marlow’s strong, illuminating flame, And stars of magnitudes did follow close,-- The morning stars which rapt together sang.

XXIV

The sights of London were but meagre then, Compared with all its wonders of to-day;-- Still each age thinks his own the grandest, best, A truth, may be, why else the ceaseless quest? Though it is left to Wisdom yet to say, If things are worse or better among men.

The Tow’r knew greater anguish in those days, The bridge gave terror with its ghastliness Of hoary heads uplifted high on spits; The palaces had dungeons, vermin-pits Of heartless cruelties and grim distress; And halls of splendor had dark, hidden ways.

But there was sunlight on the crimson tile, And there was blueness in the open sky, And breezes bore the scent of rose and thyme, As in the morn they met St. Mary’s chime, No cloud of smoke, as now, oppressed the eye, And made the gentle breath of heaven vile.

And men were frank and honest with their friends, And also frank and honest with their foes, And either loved with nakedness of soul, Or fought until one of the two did fall, Strong was the love, and hard the hater’s blows, While now his love and hate man subtly blends.

Sordino loitered much in lane and street, And listened well to every swinging bell, And searched the city for his treasure lost, But not a sound was from a steeple tost, Of its abiding-place his ear to tell, Nor did a single clue his vision meet.

He daily searched, until the winter fog Began to close about the sightly town, Then melancholy claimed him for her own, And lest he should be lost in grief and groan, He sought the company of those who drown The sorrows of their hearts with ale and grog.

XXV

Once poets tuned their lyres in praise of Bacchus,-- Forsooth he was a mirth-inspiring god-- All garlanded with leaves of blooming vine,-- Adored by Aphrodite and the Nine,-- Bacchant and Satyr at his worship trod Fantastic measures, such as now would wrack us.

Bards have turned preachers, which is for the better, And no more should their songs extol his name, But rather sound the anguish and the woe Brought upon man by this relentless foe, Take up the note of poverty and shame, And ills of drunkenness which man enfetter.

Until his pow’r, in human nature seated, As on a throne, shall no more have its sway,-- When man shall cease forgetfulness to borrow,-- Of failures, disappointments and dark sorrow,-- From his delusions, which no ills allay,-- Until--until--his reign shall be defeated!

But judge not harshly those who suffer most, The victims of the cup, the self-condemned, Who fight a hopeless battle and go down; Show love and pity, rather than a frown, For though the sot by men may be contemned,-- Still there is One who came to save the lost.

We know but little why he gave himself An abject slave to appetite and lust, What passions of past generations found In him their culmination, held him bound, And though he struggled hard, it seems he must Into the depths of sin and darkness delv.

Perchance ambition was his Waterloo, And having lost the last and strongest trench, He spends a starless night mid weeping gloom, Abandoning life’s dreams to their dark tomb, He seeks, at last, his soul’s remorse to quench With what he knows his manhood will undo.

Perhaps the fire of love has been extinguished, And left but cooling ashes on the hearth, And one, whose face was radiant with light, Moves ’round him like a shadow of the night, And since his life has lost its highest worth, He turns to Rum, and soon is all relinquished.

XXVI

When men are drunk, they often babble things, They scarce would whisper to a bosom-friend, But when the wine has loosened sense and tongue, The hidden secret to the crowd is flung, And with an oath its owner will defend A truth exaggerated, till the ring

Of brawlers doth declare it is a lie, For which he ought to buy a round of drinks; Thus in that tavern, on a foggy night, A group was sitting in the candle-light, Around a table, drinking, till their blinks Did tell that Reason was about to fly.

And one, a bearded, lion-voiced sailor, Began to tell of escapades at sea,-- Of war in foreign lands, of victory, In such a loud and boasting way, that three Out of the five did laugh derisively, And said, he was a bandy-legged tailor.

At which he swore and drained his tankard dry, And called them all a motley lubber-gang, And rose to go, but then his friends cried “no,” “You must not leave us yet, for dontcher know, The best is coming? Say how did ye hang Those tinklers in the tow’r?--Let’s have a rye!”

Sordino being witness to this scene, Approached the table and said: “Gentlemen, Allow me to provide a drink for all,” A sentence which upon their ears did fall With some surprise, since he a stranger; then A grin of acceptation in their mien.

And he sat down with them, and freely drank, And paid for all the drinks, the barmaid poured, Thus made them almost feel, he was their host, And when he ordered for their midnight lunch a roast, They sang his praise; the grizzly sailor roared: “Say, fellow, have you robbed the Venice bank?”

They revelled, and caroused, and stories told, The most of which were tavern-coarse and smutty,-- The sailor being richest in his stores Of drunken bouts and fights on foreign shores, But as the chemist in the chimney-sut finds tutty, Thus sought Sordino in this slag the gold.

For he had thought at first to see a glint Of something in the “tinklers and the tower,” And now he tried to draw the sailor out On this allusion in his fellow’s flout;-- An instant’s hesitation and a lower, And then the old tar understood the hint.

“The tinklers, aye, ha! ha! those merry bells, We carried up from France to Limerick,-- And nearly lost in a confounded gale,-- Aye, aye, old top, by these there hangs a tale,-- I heard from one who wounded lay and sick,-- A soldier who had seen a hundred hells.”

“Those bells were taken in a bloody war Sir,--what is that to thee?--another drink!” Sordino forced a laugh, and ordered wine,-- A bottle of old port--none did decline, But drank, until the weak began to wink, And Silence made encroachment round the bar.

The sailor bibbed the longest, ate his roast, And told Sordino, how the bells were sold To a great churchman in the Irish isle, That they are ringing daily from a pile Most venerable, whence no price of gold Can e’er return them to their native coast.

Sordino knew, they were his own, and smiled To learn the place where strangely they had landed, And when the sailor swore it all was true, Sordino from the company withdrew, But not before it was of him demanded, That what he heard for ever must be “tiled.”

XXVII

Sordino looking for his boy that night, Found him departed, whither, none could tell; They sought him in the tavern and the street, But all in vain; the watchman on his beat Was queried, as he passed and cried: “All’s well!” And laughingly replied: “He’s out of sight!”

The boy had weary grown and sick for home, When he his master saw with drunkards douce, And dared the denseness of the fog, to find That place which daily occupied his mind,-- The little cottage ’mongst the trees, recluse, Seemed grander than the city’s pillard dome.

A dog might find its way, but not a child, Through such a maze, bewildering and weird; He thought, he surely knew the homeward road, And eagerly, for hours, he onward strode, But only to discover, what he feared: He was as lost as ’mid a forest wild.

The Thames was like a spectral realm of sound And shapes: The masts of many ships at tow Were dimly visible, and larger seemed,-- Like mighty giants, as the moonlight beamed Into the woolly fog. The sounds below:-- The river’s song, and baying of a hound.

All else was silent till a sailor coughed And damned the dog which thus disturbed his sleep; And now the wand’ring lad called out in fear: “I’m lost, oh, help me, who-soe’er is near!” To which a voice arose, as from the deep: “It is a lubber straying from his croft.”

But then, ere long, there was a splash of oar, And muffled talking twixt two drowsy tars, The boy took heart, since rescue was at hand; But when he found himself pushed out from land, And lifted to a deck of lofty spars, He kind of wished himself back to the shore.

The sailors showed him to a bunk for rest. “Yea, in the morn the fog may lifted be, So you can find your way,” thus cheered they him; But as of old the halfbaked Ephraim Howled on his bed, so would now even he, Had not submission been for him the best.

XXVIII

The fog grew lighter with the dawn of day, As did the boy’s heart after night of weeping, He early ’rose, and would have left the ship, But since for boatswain he possessed no tip, He dared not rouse him from his pleasant sleeping, And distance from the shore compelled his stay.

At last both crew and passengers awoke, And all gazed at the lad, some with a smile, When of his rescue told, some poked their fun; But ’mongst the passengers his eye met one, Who read the trouble of a homesick child, And in strange accents kindly to him spoke.

She seemed to him the fairest he had seen, A spirit, from the silv’ry mist emerged, A gleam of light, strayed from the hidden sun, Enlivening the sodden scene and dun, A Venus from the foam where billows surged, Born to be worshiped, or to be a queen.

But what she said to him was quite Egyptian, It mattered not, since he could understand The sympathy and goodness of her heart, A thing much better than linguistic art In any woman, yea, in any man,-- Though speech is fine, the deed is much more Christian.

She gave him food and wine and cheered his soul, Then left him to himself, an hour or so, When came the captain and thus to him spake: “Art thou a stranger here, or canst thou make Thy way alone and knowest where to go, When lifted is the fog’s distressing pall?”

To which the lad replied: “I know the town, When I can see its street and thoroughfare, And now can find my way up to the inn, Where dwells my master; oh, it was a sin, That I deserted him, since he may care! I will return to him;--please let me down!”

To which the captain said: “We have on board Two passengers who wish an inn to find, And canst thou guide them to such place, my son? That lovely lady, whom you met, is one, The other is her father, noble, kind, A foreign scholar, and methinks, a lord.”

The boy responded readily to this, As mid-day drew on clear, became their guide, Up to that quite pretentious hostelry, Half glad, half ’fraid his master there to see, But ignorant how fate strode by his side, And how it seldom seems to go amiss.

XXIX

That afternoon Sordino sought his place Among the garden-trees, a rustic seat, Which during gloomy days had stood alone, But now again the sun so brightly shone, Inviting him to this belov’d retreat, Though it had lost the summer’s tender grace.

And whom should here his pensive eyes behold, But one of whom he at that moment thought, And as he met her quite astonished gaze, Surprise brought strong emotions to his face, He knew not what strange magic this had wrought, His heart beat fast, his hands grew clammy cold.

She smiled, and greeted him in his own tongue, Then wist he that it was no mere illusion, But Stella, yea, the Stella of his dreams, So strange, so sweetly strange, it ever seems To lonely lovers such a rapt confusion, When that which separates aside is flung.

And yet it did not give to him the joy Of one who knows why his beloved came; He wondered much, but did not dare to ask, His self-control became a subtle mask, Which hid the raging of the inward flame, That might again a newborn hope destroy.

A woman’s eye can look through lover’s feint, Behind his mask she sees the naked soul, And laughs with mingled sympathy and scorn, She suffers not because he is forlorn, And rather likes to see him prostrate fall Before her feet, as if she were a saint.

And Stella knew, it racked Sordino’s mind Why she was there, but only this she told: “My father and myself last night arrived In London harbor, but the fog contrived To keep us captives in the vessel’s hold, Until this morn, when we this place did find.”