Collected Poems Volume II Part 99

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-ca.s.socked 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 G.o.d, 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 ba.s.s 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 sh.o.r.es Of s.h.i.+ning sand, sh.o.r.es of so clear a gla.s.s 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 p.o.o.ps 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 a.s.sail him, in the b.l.o.o.d.y 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 faerie gold Under the tropic palms; when those grey walls Melted before his pa.s.sion; 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 n.o.bler than his own, Tear out the lions from the painted s.h.i.+elds That hung his p.o.o.p, for fear that he offend The pride of Spain? Treason to sack the s.h.i.+ps 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 pa.s.sed 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 coa.r.s.e 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 G.o.d. But, when he climbed The scaffold, I believe he looked a man.

And when the axe fell, I believe that G.o.d 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 coa.r.s.e 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 G.o.d! 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 G.o.d also.

Then G.o.d 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: _G.o.d 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 G.o.d and of the world._ Was _that_ self-love, Sir Lewis? Ah, not all.