RALEIGH

Ben was our only guest that day. His tribe

Had flown to their new shrine — the Apollo Room,

To which, though they enscrolled his golden verse

Above their doors like some great-fruited vine,

Ben still preferred our Mermaid, and to smoke

Alone in his old nook; perhaps to hear

The voices of the dead,

The voices of his old companions.

Hovering near him,— Will and Kit and Rob.

“Our Ocean-shepherd from the Main-deep sea,

Raleigh,” he muttered, as I brimmed his cup,

“Last of the men that broke the fleets of Spain,

‘ Twas not enough to cage him, sixteen years,

Rotting his heart out in the Bloody Tower,

But they must fling him forth in his old age

To hunt for El Dorado. Then, mine host,

Because his poor old ship The Destiny

Smashes the Spaniard, but comes tottering home

Without the Spanish gold, our gracious king,

To please a catamite,

Sends the old lion back to the Tower again.

The friends of Spain will send him to the block

This time. That male Salome, Buckingham,

Is dancing for his head. Raleigh is doomed.”

A shadow stood in the doorway. We looked up;

And there, but O, how changed, how worn and grey,

Sir Walter Raleigh, like a hunted thing,

Stared at us.

“Ben,” he said, and glanced behind him.

Ben took a step towards him.

“O, my God,

Ben,” whispered the old man in a husky voice,

Half timorous and half cunning, so unlike

His old heroic self that one might weep

To hear it, “Ben, I have given them all the slip!

I may be followed. Can you hide me here

Till it grows dark?”

Ben drew him quickly in, and motioned me

To lock the door. “Till it grows dark,” he cried,

“My God, that you should ask it!”

“Do not think,

Do not believe that I am quite disgraced,”

The old man faltered, “for they'll say it, Ben;

And when my boy grows up, they'll tell him, too,

His father was a coward. I do cling

To life for many reasons, not from fear

Of death. No, Ben, I can disdain that still;

But — there's my boy!”

Then all his face went blind.

He dropt upon Ben's shoulder and sobbed outright,

“They are trying to break my pride, to break my pride!”

The window darkened, and I saw a face

Blurring the panes. Ben gripped the old man's arm,

And led him gently to a room within,

Out of the way of guests.

“Your pride,” he said,

“That is the pride of England!”

At that name —

England!—

As at a signal-gun, heard in the night

Far out at sea, the weather and world-worn man,

That once was Raleigh, lifted up his head.

Old age and weakness, weariness and fear

Fell from him like a cloak. He stood erect.

His eager eyes, full of great sea-washed dawns,

Burned for a moment with immortal youth,

While tears blurred mine to see him.

“You do think

That England will remember? You do think it?”

He asked with a great light upon his face.

Ben bowed his head in silence.

“I have wronged

My cause by this,” said Raleigh. “Well they know it

Who left this way for me. I have flung myself

Like a blind moth into this deadly light

Of freedom. Now, at the eleventh hour,

Is it too late? I might return and —”

“No!

Not now!” Ben interrupted. “I'd have said

Laugh at the headsman sixteen years ago,

When England was awake. She will awake

Again. But now, while our most gracious king,

Who hates tobacco, dedicates his prayers

To Buckingham —

This is no land for men that, under God,

Shattered the Fleet Invincible.”

A knock

Startled us, at the outer door. “My friend

Stukeley,” said Raleigh, “if I know his hand.

He has a ketch will carry me to France,

Waiting at Tilbury.”

I let him in,—

A lean and stealthy fellow, Sir Lewis Stukeley,— liked him little. He thought much of his health,

More of his money bags, and most of all

On how to run with all men all at once

For his own profit. At the Mermaid Inn

Men disagreed in friendship and in truth;

But he agreed with all men, and his life

Was one soft quag of falsehood. Fugitives

Must use false keys, I thought; and there was hope

For Raleigh if such a man would walk one mile

To serve him now. Yet my throat moved to see him

Usurping, with one hand on Raleigh's arm,

A kind of ownership. “Lend me ten pounds,”

Were the first words he breathed in the old man's ear,

And Raleigh slipped his purse into his hand.

Just over Bread Street hung the bruised white moon

When they crept out. Sir Lewis Stukeley's watch-dog,

A derelict bo'sun, with a mulberry face,

Met them outside. “The coast quite clear, eh, Hart?”

Said Stukeley. “Ah, that's good. Lead on, then, quick.”

And there, framed in the cruddle of moonlit clouds

That ended the steep street, dark on its light,

And standing on those glistening cobblestones

Just where they turned to silver, Raleigh looked back

Before he turned the corner. He stood there.

A figure like foot-feathered Mercury,

Tall, straight and splendid, waving his plumed hat

To Ben, and taking his last look, I felt,

Upon our Mermaid Tavern. As he paused,

His long fantastic shadow swayed and swept

Against our feet. Then, like a shadow, he passed.

“It is not right,” said Ben, “it is not right.

Why did they give the old man so much grace?

Witness and evidence are what they lack.

Would you trust Stukeley — not to draw him out?

Raleigh was always rash. A phrase or two

Will turn their murderous axe into a sword

Of righteousness —

Why, come to think of it,

Blackfriar's Wharf, last night, I landed there,

And — no, by God!— Raleigh is not himself,

The tide will never serve beyond Gravesend.

It is a trap! Come on! We'll follow them!

Quick! To the river side!” —

We reached the wharf

Only to see their wherry, a small black cloud

Dwindling far down that running silver road.

Ben touched my arm.

“Look there,” he said, pointing up-stream.

The moon

Glanced on a cluster of pikes, like silver thorns,

Three hundred yards away, a little troop

Of weaponed men, embarking hurriedly.

Their great black wherry clumsily swung about,

Then, with twelve oars for legs, came striding down,

An armoured beetle on the glittering trail

Of some small victim.

Just below our wharf

A little dinghy waddled.

Ben cut the painter, and without one word

Drew her up crackling thro’ the lapping water,

Motioned me to the tiller, thrust her off,

And, pulling with one oar, backing with the other,

Swirled her round and down, hard on the track

Of Raleigh. Ben was an old man now but tough,

O tough as a buccaneer. We distanced them.

His oar blades drove the silver boiling back.

By Broken Wharf the beetle was a speck.

It dwindled by Queen Hythe and the Three Cranes.

By Bellyn's Gate we had left it, out of sight.

By Custom House and Galley Keye we shot

Thro’ silver all the way, without one glimpse

Of Raleigh. Then a dreadful shadow fell

And over us the Tower of London rose

Like ebony; and, on the glittering reach

Beyond it, I could see the small black cloud

That carried the great old seaman slowly down

Between the dark shores whence in happier years

The throng had cheered his golden galleons out,

And watched his proud sails filling for Cathay.

There, as through lead, we dragged by Traitor's Gate,

There, in the darkness, under the Bloody Tower,

There, on the very verge of victory,

Ben gasped and dropped his oars.

“Take one and row,” he said, “my arms are numbed.

We'll overtake him yet!” I clambered past him,

And took the bow oar.

Once, as the pace flagged,

Over his shoulder he turned his great scarred face

And snarled, with a trickle of blood on his coarse lips,

“Hard!” —

And blood and fire ran through my veins again,

For half a minute more.

Yet we fell back.

Our course was crooked now. And suddenly

A grim black speck began to grow behind us,

Grow like the threat of death upon old age.

Then, thickening, blackening, sharpening, foaming, swept

Up the bright line of bubbles in our wake,

That armoured wherry, with its long twelve oars

All well together now.

“Too late,” gasped Ben,

His ash-grey face uplifted to the moon,

One quivering hand upon the thwart behind him,

A moment. Then he bowed over his knees

Coughing. “But we'll delay them. We'll be drunk,

And hold the catch-polls up!”

We drifted down

Before them, broadside on. They sheered aside.

Then, feigning a clumsy stroke, Ben drove our craft

As they drew level, right in among their blades.

There was a shout, an oath. They thrust us off;

And then we swung our nose against their bows

And pulled them round with every well-meant stroke.

A full half minute, ere they won quite free,

Cursing us for a pair of drunken fools.

We drifted down behind them.

“There's no doubt,”

Said Ben, “the headsman waits behind all this

For Raleigh. This is a play to cheat the soul

Of England, teach the people to applaud

The red fifth act.”

Without another word we drifted down

For centuries it seemed, until we came

To Greenwich.

Then up the long white burnished reach there crept

Like little sooty clouds the two black boats

To meet us.

“He is in the trap,” said Ben,

“And does not know it yet. See, where he sits

By Stukeley as by a friend.”

Long after this,

We heard how Raleigh, simply as a child,

Seeing the tide would never serve him now,

And they must turn, had taken from his neck

Some trinkets that he wore. “Keep them,” he said

To Stukeley, “in remembrance of this night.”

He had no doubts of Stukeley when he saw

The wherry close beside them. He but wrapped

His cloak a little closer round his face.

Our boat rocked in their wash when Stukeley dropped

The mask. We saw him give the sign, and heard

His high-pitched quavering voice — “IN THE KING'S NAME!”

Raleigh rose to his feet. “I am under arrest?”

He said, like a dazed man.

And Stukeley laughed.

Then, as he bore himself to the grim end,

All doubt being over, the old sea-king stood

Among those glittering points, a king indeed.

The black boats rocked. We heard his level voice,

“Sir Lewis, these actions never will turn out

To your good credit.” Across the moonlit Thames

It rang contemptuously, cold as cold steel,

And passionless as the judgment that ends all.

Some three months later, Raleigh's widow came

To lodge a se'nnight at the Mermaid Inn.

His house in Bread Street was no more her own,

But in the hands of Stukeley, who had reaped

A pretty harvest...

She kept close to her room, and that same night,

Being ill and with some fever, sent her maid

To fetch the apothecary from Friday Street,

Old “Galen” as the Mermaid christened him.

At that same moment, as the maid went out,

Stukeley came in. He met her at the door;

And, chucking her under the chin, gave her a letter.

“Take this up to your mistress. It concerns

Her property,” he said. “Say that I wait,

And would be glad to speak with her.”

The wench

Looked pertly in his face, and tripped upstairs.

I scarce could trust my hands.

“Sir Lewis,” I said,

“This is no time to trouble her. She is ill.”

“Let her decide,” he answered, with a sneer.

Before I found another word to say

The maid tripped down again. I scarce believed

My senses, when she beckoned him up the stair.

Shaking from head to foot, I blocked the way.

“Property!” Could the crux of mine and thine

Bring widow and murderer into one small room?

“Sir Lewis,” I said, “she is ill. It is not right!

She never would consent.”

He sneered again,

“You are her doctor? Out of the way, old fool!

She has decided!”

“Go,” I said to the maid,

“Fetch the apothecary. Let it rest

With him!”

She tossed her head. Her quick eyes glanced,

Showing the white, like the eyes of a vicious mare.

She laughed at Stukeley, loitered, then obeyed.

And so we waited, till the wench returned,

With Galen at her heels. His wholesome face,

Russet and wrinkled like an apple, peered

Shrewdly at Stukeley, twinkled once at me,

And passed in silence, leaving a whiff of herbs

Behind him on the stair.

Five minutes later,

To my amazement, that same wholesome face

Leaned from the lighted door above, and called

“Sir Lewis Stukeley!”

Sir Judas hastened up.

The apothecary followed him within.

The door shut. I was left there in the dark

Bewildered; for my heart was hot with thoughts

Of those last months. Our Summer's Nightingale,

Our Ocean-Shepherd from the Main-deep Sea,

The Founder of our Mermaid Fellowship,

Was this his guerdon — at the Mermaid Inn?

Was this that maid-of-honour whose romance

With Raleigh, once, had been a kingdom's talk?

Could Bess Throckmorton slight his memory thus?

“It is not right,” I said, “it is not right.

She wrongs him deeply.”

I leaned against the porch

Staring into the night. A ghostly ray

Above me, from her window, bridged the street,

And rested on the goldsmith's painted sign

Opposite.

I could hear the muffled voice

Of Stukeley overhead, persuasive, bland;

And then, her own, cooing, soft as a dove

Calling her mate from Eden cedar-boughs,

Flowed on and on; and then — all my flesh crept

At something worse than either, a long space

Of silence that stretched threatening and cold,

Cold as a dagger-point pricking the skin

Over my heart.

Then came a stifled cry,

A crashing door, a footstep on the stair

Blundering like a drunkard's, heavily down;

And with his gasping face one tragic mask

Of horror,— may God help me to forget

Some day the frozen awful eyes of one

Who, fearing neither hell nor heaven, has met

That ultimate weapon of the gods, the face

And serpent-tresses that turn flesh to stone —

Stukeley stumbled, groping his way out,

Blindly, past me, into the sheltering night.

I led him in. “I knew it, sir,” he said,

While Galen broke the seal. “Soon as I saw

That sweet young naked wench curling her tail

In those red waves.— The old man called it blood.

Blood is his craze, you see.— But you can tell

‘ Tis wine, sir, by the foam. Malmsey, no doubt.

And that sweet wench to make you smack your lips

Like oysters, with her slippery tail and all!

Why, sir, no doubt, this was the Mermaid Inn.”

“But this,” said Galen, lifting his grave face

To Ben, “this letter is from all that's left

Of Stukeley. The good host, there, thinks I wronged

Your Ocean-shepherd's memory. From this letter,

I think I helped to avenge him. Do not wrong

His widow, even in thought. She loved him dearly.

You know she keeps his poor grey severed head

Embalmed; and so will keep it till she dies;

Weeps over it alone. I have heard such things

In wild Italian tales. But this was true.

Had I refused to let her speak with Stukeley

I feared she would go mad. This letter proves

That I — and she perhaps — were instruments,

Of some more terrible chirurgery

Than either knew.”

“Ah, when I saw your sign,”

The bo'sun interjected, “I'd no doubt

That letter was well worth a cup of ale.”

“Go — paint your bows with hell-fire somewhere else,

Not at this inn,” said Ben, tossing the rogue

A good French crown. “Pickle yourself in hell.”

And Hart lurched out into the night again,

Muttering “Thank you, sirs.‘ Twas worth all that.

No doubt at all.”

“There are some men,” said Galen,

Spreading the letter out on his plump knees,

“Will heap up wrong on wrong; and, at the last,

Wonder because the world will not forget

Just when it suits them, cancel all they owe,

And, like a mother, hold its arms out wide

At their first cry. And, sirs, I do believe

That Stukeley, on that night, had some such wish

To reconcile himself. What else had passed

Between the widow and himself I know not;

But she had lured him on until he thought

That words and smiles, perhaps a tear or two,

Might make the widow take the murderer's hand

In friendship, since it might advantage both.

Indeed, he came prepared for even more.

Villains are always fools. A wicked act,

What is it but a false move in the game,

A blind man's blunder, a deaf man's reply,

The wrong drug taken in the dead of night?

I always pity villains.

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-cassocked 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 God,

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 bass 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 shores

Of shining sand, shores of so clear a glass

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 poops 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 assail him, in the Bloody 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 faërie gold

Under the tropic palms; when those grey walls

Melted before his passion; 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 nobler than his own,

Tear out the lions from the painted shields

That hung his poop, for fear that he offend

The pride of Spain? Treason to sack the ships

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 passed 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 coarse 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 friendship 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 god. But, when he climbed

The scaffold, I believe he looked a man.

And when the axe fell, I believe that God

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 coarse 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 God! 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 God also.

Then God 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: God 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 God and of the world.

Was that self-love, Sir Lewis? Ah, not all.

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 God,

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 God,

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 God,

The man had gone —

This is his letter, sirs,

Written from Lundy Island: “For God'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 God'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 hitherto. 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 passed of late

Without his voice resounding in our inn.

“The statues are defiled, the gods 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 shore:

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.

Where is the singer of the Faërie Queen?

Where are the lyric lips of Astrophel?

Long, long ago, their quiet graves were green;

Ay, and the grave, too, of their Faërie Queen!

And yet their faces, hovering here unseen,

Call me to taste their new-found oenomel;

To sup with him who sang the Faërie Queen;

To drink with him whose name was Astrophel.

I drink to that great Inn beyond the grave!

— If there be none, the gods 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:

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.

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.

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.