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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, The man had gone-- This is his letter, sirs, Written from Lundy Island: "_For G.o.d"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 G.o.d"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. .h.i.therto. 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 pa.s.sed of late Without his voice resounding in our inn.
"The statues are defiled, the G.o.ds 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 sh.o.r.e:
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 Faerie Queen?
Where are the lyric lips of Astrophel?
Long, long ago, their quiet graves were green; Ay, and the grave, too, of their Faerie Queen!
And yet their faces, hovering here unseen, Call me to taste their new-found oenomel; To sup with him who sang the Faerie Queen; To drink with him whose name was Astrophel.
III
I drink to that great Inn beyond the grave!
--If there be none, the G.o.ds 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 G.o.d._]
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.