CANTO THE SECOND

Now, Rabelais, art thou quite foredone,

Dan Chaucer, Drayton, Every One!

Leave we aboard our Cloud i’ the Sun

This crew of pirates dreaming —

Of Angels, minted in the blue

Like golden moons, Rose-nobles, too,

As under the silver-sliding dew

Our emerald creek lay gleaming!

Under the stars lay gleaming!

And mailed with scales of gold and green

The high star-lilied banks between,

Nosing our old black hulk unseen,

Great alligators shimmered:

Blood-red jaws i’ the blue-black ooze,

Where all the long warm day they snooze,

Chewing old cuds of pirate-crews,

Around us grimly glimmered.

Their eyes like rubies glimmered.

Let us now sing of Bill, good sirs!

Follow him, all green forestéres,

Fearless of Hyrcanian bears

As of these ghostly lilies!

For O, not Drayton there could sing

Of wild Pigwiggen and his King

So merry a jest, so jolly a thing

As this my tale of Bill is.

Into the woods where Bill is!

Now starts he as a white owl hoots,

And now he stumbles over roots,

And now beneath his big sea-boots

In yon deep glade he crunches

Black cakes of honey-comb that were

So elfin-sweet, perchance, last year;

But neither Bo'sun, now, nor Bear

At that dark banquet munches.

Onward still he crunches!

Black cakes of honey-comb he sees

Above him in the forks of trees,

Filled by stars instead of bees,

With brimming silver glisten:

But ah, such food of gnome and fay

Could neither Bear nor Bill delay

Till where yon ferns and moonbeams play

He starts and stands to listen!

What melody doth he listen?

Is it the Night-Wind as it comes

Through the wood and softly thrums

Silvery tabors, purple drums,

To speed some wild-wood revel?

Nay, Didymus, what faint sweet din

Of viol and flute and violin

Makes all the forest round thee spin,

The Night-Wind or the Devil?

No doubt at all — the Devil!

He stares, with naked knife in hand,

This buccaneer in fairyland!

Dancing in a saraband

The red ferns reel about him!

Dancing in a morrice-ring

The green ferns curtsey, kiss and cling!

Their Marians flirt, their Robins fling

Their feathery heels to flout him!

The whole wood reels about him.

Dance, ye shadows! O'er the glade,

Bill, the Bo'sun, undismayed,

Pigeon-toes with glittering blade!

Drake was never bolder!

Devil or Spaniard, what cares he

Whence your eerie music be?

Till — lo, against yon old oak-tree

He leans his brawny shoulder!

He lists and leans his shoulder!

Ah, what melody doth he hear

As to that gnarled old tree-trunk there

He lays his wind-bit brass-ringed ear,

And steals his arm about it?

What Dryad could this Bo'sun win

To that slow-rippling amorous grin?—

‘ Twas full of singing bees within!

Not Didymus could doubt it!

So loud they buzzed about it!

Straight, o'er a bough one leg he throws,

And up that oaken main-mast goes

With reckless red unlarded nose

And gooseberry eyes of wonder!

Till now, as in a galleon's hold,

Below, he sees great cells of gold

Whence all the hollow trunk up-rolled

A low melodious thunder.

A sweet and perilous thunder!

Ay, there, within that hollow tree,

Will Shakespeare, mightst thou truly see

The Imperial City of the Bee,

In Chrysomelan splendour!

And, in the midst, one eight-foot dome

Swells o'er that Titan honey-comb

Where the Bee-Empress hath her home,

With such as do attend her,

Weaponed with stings attend her!

But now her singing sentinels

Have turned to sleep in waxen cells,

And Bill leans down his face and smells

The whole sweet summer's cargo —

In one deep breath, the whole year's bloom,

Lily and thyme and rose and broom,

One Golden Fleece of flower-perfume

In that old oaken Argo.

That green and golden Argo!

And now he hangs with dangling feet

Over that dark abyss of sweet,

Striving to reach such wild gold meat

As none could buy for money:

His left hand grips a swinging branch

When — crack! Our Bo'sun, stout and stanch,

Falls like an Alpine avalanche,

Feet first into the honey!

Up to his ears in honey!

And now his red unlarded nose

And bulging eyes are all that shows

Above it, as he puffs and blows!

And now — to‘ scape the scathing

Of that black host of furious bees

His nose and eyes he fain would grease

And bobs below those golden seas

Like an old woman bathing.

Old Mother Hubbard bathing!

And now he struggles, all in vain,

To reach some little bough again;

But, though he heaves with might and main,

This honey holds his ribs, sirs,

So tight, a barque might sooner try

To steer a cargo through the sky

Than Bill, thus honey-logged, to fly

By flopping of his jib, sirs!

His tops'l and his jib, sirs!

Like Oberon in the hive his beard

With wax and honey all besmeared

Would make the crescent moon afeard

That now is sailing brightly

Right o'er his leafy donjon-keep!

But that she knows him sunken deep,

And that his tower is straight and steep,

She would not smile so lightly.

Look down and smile so lightly.

She smiles in that small heavenly space,

Ringed with the tree-trunk's leafy grace,

While upward grins his ghastly face

As if some wild-wood Satyr,

Some gnomish Ptolemy should dare

Up that dark optic tube to stare,

As all unveiled she floated there,

Poor maiden moon, straight at her!

The buccaneering Satyr!

But there, till some one help him out,

Black Bill must stay, without a doubt.

“Help! Help!” he gives a muffled shout.

None but the white owls hear it!

Who? Whoo? they cry: Bill answers “ME!

I am stuck fast in this great tree!

Bring me a rope, good Timothy!

There's honey, lads, we'll share it!”

Ay, now he wants to share it.

Then, thinking help may come with morn,

He sinks, half-famished and out-worn,

And scarce his nose exalts its horn

Above that sea of glory!

But, even as he owns defeat,

His belly saith, “A man must eat,

And since there is none other meat,

Come, lap this mess before‘ ee!”

This glorious mess before‘ ee.

Then Dian sees a right strange sight

As, bidding him a fond good-night,

She flings a silvery kiss to light

In that deep oak-tree hollow,

And finds that gold and crimson nose

A moving, munching, ravenous rose

That up and down unceasing goes,

Save when he stops to swallow!

He finds it hard to swallow!

Ay, now his best becomes his worst,

For honey cannot quench his thirst,

Though he should eat until he burst;

But, ah, the skies are kindly,

And from their tender depths of blue

They send their silver-sliding dew.

So Bill thrusts out his tongue anew

And waits to catch it — blindly!

For ah, the stars are kindly!

And sometimes, with a shower of rain,

They strive to ease their prisoner's pain:

Then Bill thrusts out his tongue again

With never a grace, the sinner!

And day and night and day goes by,

And never a comrade comes anigh,

And still the honey swells as high

For supper, breakfast, dinner!

Yet Bill has grown no thinner!

The young moon grows to full and throws

Her buxom kiss upon his nose,

As nightly over the tree she goes,

And peeps and smiles and passes,

Then with her fickle silver flecks

Our old black galleon's dreaming decks;

And then her face, with nods and becks,

In midmost ocean glasses.

‘ Twas ever the way with lasses!

Ah, Didymus, hast thou won indeed

That Paradise which is thy meed?

( Thy tale not all that run may read! )

Thy sweet hath now no leaven!

Now, like an onion in a cup

Of mead, thou liest for Jove to sup,

Could Polyphemus lift thee up

With Titan hands to heaven!

This great oak-cup to heaven!

The second canto ceased; and, as they raised

Their wine-cups with the last triumphant note,

Bacon, undaunted, raised his grating voice —

“This honey which, in some sort, may be styled

The Spettle of the Stars...” “Bring the Canary!”

Ben Jonson roared. “It is a moral wine

And suits the third, last canto!” At one draught

John Davis drained it and began anew.