Collected Poems Volume II Part 84

"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 pa.s.sion 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 h.e.l.lespont 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 G.o.ds 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 sh.o.r.e, 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--G.o.d 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 sc.r.a.p 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 st.i.tched in the sun, Nodding and smiling at everyone; For St. Hugh makes all good cobblers merry, And often he sang as the pilgrims pa.s.sed, "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 Glas...o...b..ry 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 pa.s.sed, 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 h.e.l.l 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 sc.r.a.ps 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 c.o.c.k-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 d.a.m.ned blood-sucking c.o.c.katrice, 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 s.e.xtons' 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d 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 h.e.l.l."

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;