Chapter XIII: Canto THE THIRD (1)

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 Musaeus. 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.