Collected Poems Volume II Part 97

Break, break out on every sea, O, fair white sails of Englande!

'Each for all, and all for each,' quoth Richard Whittington.

Marchaunt Adventurers, O what 'ull ye bring home again?

Woonders and works and the thunder of the sea!

Whom will ye traffic with? The King of the sunset!-- What shall be your pilot, then?--A wind from Galilee!

--Nay, but ye be marchaunts, will ye come back empty-handed?-- Ay, we be marchaunts, though our gain we ne'er shall see!

Cast we now our bread upon the waste wild waters; After many days it shall return with usury.

_Chorus:_--Marchaunt Adventurers, Marchaunt Adventurers, What shall be your profit in the mighty days to be?

Englande! Englande! Englande! Englande!

Glory everlasting and the lords.h.i.+p of the sea.

What need to tell you, sirs, how Whittington Remembered? Night and morning, as he knelt In those old days, O, like two children still, Whittington and his Alice bowed their heads Together, praying.

From such simple hearts, O never doubt it, though the whole world doubt The G.o.d that made it, came the steadfast strength Of England, all that once was her strong soul, The soul that laughed and shook away defeat As her strong cliffs hurl back the streaming seas.

Sirs, in his old age Whittington returned, And stood with Alice, by the silent tomb In little Pauntley church.

There, to his Arms, The Gules and Azure, and the Lion's Head So proudly blazoned on the painted panes; (O, sirs, the simple wistfulness of it Might move hard hearts to laughter, but I think Tears tremble through it, for the Mermaid Inn) He added his new crest, the hard-won sign And lowly prize of his own industry, _The Honey-bee_. And, far away, the bells Peal softly from the pure white City of G.o.d:-- _Ut fragrans nardus Fama fuit iste Ricardus._ With folded hands he waits the Judgment now.

Slowly our dark bells toll across the world, For him who waits the reckoning, his accompt Secure, his conscience clear, his ledger spread A _Liber Albus_ flooded with pure light.

_Flos Mercatorum, Fundator presbyterorum_,...

Slowly the dark bells toll for him who asks No more of men, but that they may sometimes Pray for the souls of Richard Whittington, Alice, his wife, and (as themselves of old Had prayed) the father and mother of each of them.

Slowly the great notes fall and float away:--

_Omnibus exemplum Barathrum vincendo morosum Condidit hoc templum ...

Pauperibus pater ...

Finiit ipse dies Sis sibi Christe quies. Amen._"

IX

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 b.l.o.o.d.y Tower, But they must fling him forth in his old age To hunt for El Dorado. Then, mine host, Because his poor old s.h.i.+p _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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 owners.h.i.+p. "_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 pa.s.sed.

"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 G.o.d!--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 cl.u.s.ter 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 sh.o.r.es 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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.