We had just set our brazier smouldering,To keep the Plague away. Many a houseWas marked with the red cross. The bells tolledIncessantly. Nash crept into the roomShivering like a fragment of the night,His face yellow as parchment, and his eyesBurning."The Plague! He has taken it!" voices cried."That's not the Plague! The old carrion-crow is drunk;But stand away. What ails you, Nash my lad?"Then, through the clamour, as through a storm at sea,The master's voice, the voice of Ben, rang out,"Nash!"Ben leapt to his feet, and like a shipShouldering the waves, he shouldered the throng aside."What ails you, man? What's that upon your breast?Blood?""Marlowe is dead," said Nash,And stunned the room to silence ..."Marlowe—dead!"Ben caught him by the shoulders. "Nash! Awake!What do you mean? Marlowe? Kit Marlowe? Dead?I supped with him—why—not three nights ago!You are drunk! You are dazed! There's blood upon your coat!""That's—where he died," said Nash, and suddenly sankSidelong across a bench, bowing his headBetween his hands ...Wept, I believe. Then, like a whip of steel,His lean black figure sprang erect again."Marlowe!" he cried, "Kit Marlowe, killed for a punk,A taffeta petticoat! Killed by an apple-squire!Drunk! I was drunk; but I am sober now,Sober enough, by God! Poor Kit is dead."* * * *The Mermaid Inn was thronged for many a nightWith startled faces. Voices rose and fell,As I recall them, in a great vague dream,Curious, pitiful, angry, thrashing outThe tragic truth. Then, all along the Cheape,The ballad-mongers waved their sheets of rhyme,Croaking:Come buy! Come buy! The bloody deathOf Wormall, writ by Master Richard Bame!Come buy! Come buy! The Atheist's Tragedy.And, even in Bread Street, at our very door,The crowder to his cracked old fiddle sang:—"He was a poet of proud reputeAnd wrote full many a play,Now strutting in a silken suit,Now begging by the way."Then, out of the hubbub and the clash of tongues,The bawdy tales and scraps of balladry,(As out of chaos rose the slow round world)At last, though for the Mermaid Inn alone,Emerged some tragic semblance of a soul,Some semblance of the rounded truth, a worldGlimpsed only through great mists of blood and tears,Yet smitten, here and there, with dreadful light,As I believe, from heaven.Strangely enough,(Though Ben forgot his pipe and Will's deep eyesDeepened and softened, when they spoke of Kit,For many a month thereafter) it was NashThat took the blow like steel into his heart.Nash, our "Piers Penniless," whom Rob Greene had called"Young Juvenal," the first satirist of our age,Nash, of the biting tongue and subtle sneer,Brooded upon it, till his grief becameSharp as a rapier, ready to lunge in hateAt all the lies of shallower hearts.One night,The night he raised the mists from that wild world,He talked with Chapman in the Mermaid InnOf Marlowe's poem that was left half-sung,HisHero and Leander."Kit desired,If he died first, that you should finish it,"Said Nash.A loaded silence filled the roomAs with the imminent spirit of the deadListening. And long that picture haunted me:Nash, like a lithe young MephistophelesLeaning 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 strengthThat helms our ships, and something of the Greek,The cool clear passion of Platonic thoughtBehind the fringe of his Olympian beardAnd broad Homeric brows, confronting himGravely.There was a burden of mysteryBrooding on all that night; and, when at lastChapman replied, I knew he felt it, too.The curious pedantry of his wonted speechWas charged with living undertones, like truthsToo strange and too tremendous to be breathedSave thro' a mask. And though, in lines that flamedOnce with strange rivalry, Shakespeare himself defiedChapman, that spirit "by spirits taught to writeAbove a mortal pitch," Will's nimbler senseWas quick to breathings from beyond our worldAnd could not hold them lightly."Ah, then Kit,"Said Chapman, "had some prescience of his end,Like many another dreamer. What strange hintsOf things past, present, and to come, there lieSealed in the magic pages of that musicWhich, laying strong hold on universal laws,Ranges beyond these mud-walls of the flesh,Though dull wits fail to follow. It was thisThat made men find an oracle in the booksOf Vergil, and an everlasting fountOf science in the prophets."Once againThat haunted silence filled the shadowy room;And, far away up Bread Street, we could hearThe 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 seenThe warning of his own.""Strange he should ask a hod-man like myselfTo 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 raiseOut of its grave in the green HellespontThe body of that boy,To make him sparkle and leap thro' the cold wavesAnd fold young Hero to his heart again,The task were scarce as hard.But ... stranger still,"—And his next words, although I hardly knewAll that he meant, went tingling through my flesh—"Before you spoke, before I knew his wish,I had begun to write!I knew and lovedHis work. Himself I hardly knew at all;And yet—I know him now! I have heard him nowAnd, since he pledged me in so rare a cup,I'll lift and drink to him, though lightnings fallFrom envious gods to scourge me. I will liftThis cup in darkness to the soul that reignsIn light on Helicon. Who knows how near?For I have thought, sometimes, when I have triedTo work his will, the hand that moved my penWas mine, and yet—not mine. The bodily maskIs mine, and sometimes, dull as clay, it sleepsWith old Musæus. 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 hereSnug on the shore, and feel the wash of it,The widening circles running to our feet.Can such a soul go down to glut the sharksWithout 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 tradeHis 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 tooWas moved, not of myself, to a tune like this.O, I can play the crowder, fiddle a songOn a dead friend, with any the best of you.Lie and kick heels in the sun on a dead man's graveAnd yet—God knows—it is the best we can;And better than the world's way, to forget."So saying, like one that murmurs happy wordsTo torture his own grief, half in self-scorn,He breathed a scrap of balladry that raisedThe mists a moment from that Paradise,That primal world of innocence, where KitIn childhood played, outside his father's shop,Under the sign of theGolden Shoe, as thus:—A cobbler lived in Canterbury—He is dead now, poor soul!—He sat at his door and stitched in the sun,Nodding and smiling at everyone;For St. Hugh makes all good cobblers merry,And often he sang as the pilgrims passed,"I can hammer a soldier's boot,And daintily glove a dainty foot.Many a sandal from my handHas 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, outWould 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 queenDad, one day,Thou and I must ride like this,All along the Pilgrim's Way,By Glastonbury 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 theGolden Shoe,Touched by the glow of the setting sun,While the pilgrims passed,The little cobbler would laugh and say:"When you are old you will understand'Tis a very long wayTo Samarcand!Why, largely to exaggerateBefits 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 thereBreak, and are lost in one withdrawing sigh:The little lad that used to playAround 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 wreckWent thundering down, and round it hell 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 helpTo crown that work of his. Why, Chapman, think,Think of the cobbler's awl—there's a stout lanceTo couch at London, there's a conquering pointTo carry in triumph through Persepolis!I tell you Kit was nothing but a child,When some rich patron of theGolden ShoeBeheld him riding into SamarcandUpon a broken chair, the which he saidWas a white steed, splashed with the blood of kings.When, on that patron's bounty, he did rideSo 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 scrapsOf song, and all unshielded, all unarmedA child's heart, packed with splendid hopes and dreams.I say a child's heart, Chapman, and that phraseCrowns, not dis-crowns, his manhood.Well—he turnedAn honest penny, taking some small partIn plays at theRed Bull. And, all the while,Beyond the paint and tinsel of the stage,Beyond the greasy cock-pit with its reekOf orange-peel and civet, as all of theseWere but the clay churned by the glorious rushOf 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 towersOf his abiding City.Then—he metThat damned blood-sucking cockatrice, the pugOf some fine strutting mummer, one of those plaguesBred by our stage, a puff-ball on the hillOf Helicon. As for his wench—she tooHad played so many parts that she forgotThe 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 spiteArcher, her latest paramour, a friendAnd apple-squire to Puff, she set her eyesOn Marlowe ... feigned a joy in his young art,Murmured his songs, used all her London tricksTo coney-catch the country greenhorn. Man,Kit never evensawher painted face!He pored on books by candle-light and sawEverything thro' a mist. O, I could laughTo think of it, only—his up-turned skullThere, 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 escapeContagion, and the crashing of sextons' spadesOn 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 passed 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 God had meant to wake one dayUnder the Sun of Love, suddenly wokeBy candle-light and cried, 'The Sun; The Sun!'And he believed it, Chapman, he believed it!He was a cobbler's son, and he believedIn 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 fireTo one whose love is in her supple skin,There comes a laughter in which jests break upLike icebergs in a sea of burning marl.Then dreamers turn to murderers in an hour.Then topless towers are burnt, and the Ocean-seaTramples 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 wreckWent down for ever.How should Piers PennilessBrand 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 togetherMourning 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 beterza rima,A ladder of rhyme that two sad friends aloneMay let down, thus, to the last circle of hell."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 pitWhere the wreck sank, the serpentine slow foldsOf 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 sheetFolds 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 bareThe splendour of that Apollonian head;The gloriole of his flame-coloured hair;The lean athletic body, deftly plannedTo carry that swift soul of fire and air;The long thin flanks, the broad breast, and the grandHeroic shoulders! Look, what lost dreams lieCold in the fingers of that delicate hand;And, shut within those lyric lips, what cryOf unborn beauty, sunk in utter night,Lost worlds of song, sealed in an unknown sky,Never to be brought forth, clothed on with light.Was this, then, this the secret of his song?—Who ever loved that loved not at first?It was not Love, not Love, that wrought this wrong;And yet—what evil shadow of this dark townCould quench a soul so flame-like clean and strong,Strike the young glory of his manhood down,Dead, like a dog, dead in a drunken brawl,Dead for a phial of paint, a taffeta gown?What if his blood were hot? High over allHe heard, as in his song the world still hears,Those angels on the burning heavenly wallWho chant the thunder-music of the spheres.Yet—through the glory of his own young dreamHere did he meet that face, wet with strange tears,Andromeda, with piteous face astream,Hailing him, Perseus. In her treacherous eyesAs in dark pools the mirrored stars will gleam,Here did he see his own eternal skies;And here—she laughed, nor found the dream amiss;But bade him pluck and eat—in Paradise.Here did she hold him, broken up with bliss,Here, like a supple snake, around him coiled,Here did she pluck his heart out with a kiss,Here were the wings clipped and the glory soiled,Here adders coupled in the pure white shrine,Here was the Wine spilt, and the Shew-bread spoiled.Black was that feast, though he who poured the WineDreamed that he poured it in high sacrament.Deep in her eyes he saw his own eyes shine,Beheld Love's god-head and was well content.Subtly her hand struck the pure silver note,The throbbing chord of passion that God meantTo swell the bliss of heaven. Round his young throatShe wound her swarthy tresses; then, with eyesHalf mad to see their power, half mad to gloat,Half mad to batten on their own devilries,And mark what heaven-born splendours they could quell,She held him quivering in a mesh of lies,And in soft broken speech began to tell—There as, against her heart, throbbing he lay—The truth that hurled his soul from heaven to hell.Quivering, she watched the subtle whip-lash flayThe white flesh of the dreams of his pure youth;Then sucked the blood and left them cold as clay.Luxuriously she lashed him with the truth.Against his mouth her subtle mouth she setTo show, as through a mask, O, without ruth,As through a cold clay mask (brackish and wetWith what strange tears!) it was not his, not his,The kiss that through his quivering lips she met.Kissing him, "Thus," she whispered, "did he kiss.Ah, is the sweetness like a sword, then, sweet?Last night—ah, kiss again—aching with bliss,Thus was I made his own, from head to feet."—A sudden agony thro' his body sweptTempestuously.—"Our wedded pulses beatLike this and this; and then, at dawn, he slept."She laughed, pouting her lips against his cheekTo drink; and, as in answer, Marlowe wept.As a dead man in dreams, he heard her speak.Clasped in the bitter grave of that sweet clay,Wedded and one with it, he moaned. Too weakEven to lift his head, sobbing, he lay,Then, slowly, as their breathings rose and fell,He felt the storm of passion, far away,Gather. The shuddering waves began to swell.And, through the menace of the thunder-roll,The thin quick lightnings, thrilling through his hell,Lightnings that hell itself could not control(Even while she strove to bow his neck anew)Woke the great slumbering legions of his soul.Sharp was that severance of the false and true,Sharp as a sword drawn from a shuddering wound.But they, that were one flesh, were cloven in two.Flesh leapt from clasping flesh, without a sound.He plucked his body from her white embrace,And cast him down, and grovelled on the ground.Yet, ere he went, he strove once more to trace,Deep in her eyes, the loveliness he knew;Then—spat his hatred into her smiling face.She clung to him. He flung her off. He drewHis dagger, thumbed the blade, and laughed—"Poor punk!What? Would you make me your own murderer, too?"* * * *"That was the day of our great feast," said Nash,"Aboard theGolden Hynde. The grand old hulkWas drawn up for the citizens' wondermentAt Deptford. Ay, Piers Penniless was there!Soaked and besotted as I was, I sawEverything. On her poop the minstrels played,And round her sea-worn keel, like meadow-sweetCurtseying round a lightning-blackened oak,Prentices and their sweethearts, heel and toe,Danced the brave English dances, clean and freshAs May.But in her broad gun-guarded waistOnce red with British blood, long tables groanedFor revellers not so worthy. Where her gunsHad raked the seas, barrels of ale were sprung,Bestrid by roaring tipplers. Where at nightThe storm-beat crew silently bowed their headsWith Drake before the King of Life and Death,A strumpet wrestled with a mountebankFor pence, a loose-limbed Lais with a clownOf Cherry Hilton. Leering at their lewd twists,Cross-legged upon the deck, sluggish with sack,Like a squat toad sat Puff ...Propped up against the bulwarks, at his side,Archer, his apple-squire, hiccoughed a bawdy song.Suddenly, through that orgy, with wild eyes,Yet with her customary smile, O, thereI saw in daylight what Kit Marlowe sawThrough blinding mists, the face of his first love.She stood before her paramour on the deck,Cocking her painted head to right and left,Her white teeth smiling, but her voice a hiss:'Quickly,' she said to Archer, 'come away,Or there'll be blood spilt!''Better blood than wine,'Said Archer, struggling to his feet, 'but who,Who would spill blood?''Marlowe!' she said.Then PuffReeled to his feet. 'What, Kit, the cobbler's son?The lad that broke his leg at theRed Bull,Tamburlaine-Marlowe, he that would chain kingsTo's chariot-wheel? What, is he rushing hither?He would spill blood for Gloriana, hey?O, my Belphœbe, you will crack my sides!Was this the wench that shipped a thousand squires?O, ho! But here he comes. Now, solemnly, lads,—Now walk the angels on the walls of heavenTo entertain divine Zenocrate!'And there stood Kit, high on the storm-scarred poop,Against the sky, bare-headed. I saw his face,Pale, innocent, just the dear face of that boyWho walked to Cambridge with a bundle and stick,—The little cobbler's son. Yet—there I caughtMy only glimpse of how the sun-god looked,And only for one moment.When he sawHis mistress, his face whitened, and he shook.Down to the deck he came, a poor weak man;And yet—by God—the only man that dayIn all our drunken crew.'Come along, Kit,'Cried Puff, 'we'll all be friends now, all take hands,And dance—ha! ha!—the shaking of the sheets!'Then Archer, shuffling a step, raised his cracked voiceIn Kit's own song to a falsetto tune,Snapping one hand, thus, over his head as he danced:—'Come, live with me, and be my love,And we will all the pleasures prove!' ...Puff reeled between, laughing. 'Damn you,' cried Kit,And, catching the fat swine by his round soft throat,Hurled him headlong, crashing across the tables,To lie and groan in the red bilge of wineThat washed the scuppers.Kit gave him not one glance.'Archer,' he said in a whisper.InstantlyA long thin rapier flashed in Archer's hand.The ship was one wild uproar. Women screamedAnd huddled together. A drunken clamorous ringSeethed around Marlowe and his enemy.Kit drew his dagger, slowly, and I knewBlood would be spilt.'Here, take my rapier, Kit!'I cried across the crowd, seeing the ladWas armed so slightly. But he did not hear.I could not reach him.All at once he leaptLike a wounded tiger, past the rapier pointStraight at his enemy's throat. I saw his handUp-raised to strike! I heard a harlot's scream,And, in mid-air, the hand stayed, quivering, white,A frozen menace.I saw a yellow clawTwisting the dagger out of that frozen hand;I saw his own steel in that yellow grip,His own lost lightning raised to strike at him!I saw it flash! I heard the driving gruntOf him that struck! Then, with a shout, the crowdSundered, and through the gap, a blank red thingStreaming with blood came the blind face of Kit,Reeling, to me! And I, poor drunken I,Held my arms wide for him. Here, on my breast,With one great sob, he burst his heart and died."* * * *Nash ceased. And, far away down Friday Street,The crowder with his fiddler wailed again:"Blaspheming Tambolin must dieAnd Faustus meet his end.Repent, repent, or presentlieTo hell ye must descend."And, as in answer, Chapman slowly breathedThose mightiest lines of Marlowe's own despair:"Think'st thou that I who saw the face of God,And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,Am not tormented with ten thousand hells?""Ah, you have said it," said Nash, "and there you knowWhy Kit desired your hand to crown his work.He reverenced you as one whose temperate eyesAustere and grave, could look him through and through;One whose firm hand could grasp the reins of lawAnd guide those furious horses of the sun,As Ben and Will can guide them, where you will.His were, perchance, the noblest steeds of all,And from their nostrils blew a fierier dawnAbove the world. That glory is his own;But where he fell, he fell. Before his handHad learned to quell them, he was dashed to the earth.'Tis yours to show that good men honoured him.For, mark this, Chapman, since Kit Marlowe fell.There will be fools that, in the name of Art,Will wallow in the mire, crying 'I fall,I fall from heaven!'—fools that have only heardFrom earth, the rumour of those golden hoovesFar, far above them. Yes, you know the kind,The fools that scorn Will for his lack of fireBecause he quells the storms they never knew,And rides above the thunder; fools of ArtThat skip and vex, like little vicious fleas,Their only Helicon, some green madam's breast.Art! Art! O, God, that I could send my soul,In one last wave, from that night-hidden wreck,Across the shores of all the years to be;O, God, that like a crowder I might shakeTheir blind dark casements with the pity of it,Piers Penniless his ballad, a poor scrap,That but for lack of time, and hope and pence,He might have bettered! For a dead man's sake,Thus would the wave break, thus the crowder cry:—Dead, like a dog upon the road;Dead, for a harlot's kiss;The Apollonian throat and brow,The lyric lips, so silent now,The flaming wings that heaven bestowedFor loftier airs than this!The sun-like eyes whose light and lifeHad gazed an angel's down,That burning heart of honey and fire,Quenched and dead for an apple-squire,Quenched at the thrust of a mummer's knife,Dead—for a taffeta gown!The wine that God had set apart,The noblest wine of all,Wine of the grapes that angels trod,The vintage of the glory of God,The crimson wine of that rich heart,Spilt in a drunken brawl,Poured out to make a steaming bathThat night in the Devil's Inn,A steaming bath of living winePoured out for Circe and her swine,A bath of blood for a harlotTo supple and sleek her skin.And many a fool that finds it sweetThrough all the years to be,Crowning a lie with Marlowe's fame,Will ape the sin, will ape the shame,Will ape our captain in defeat;But—not in victory;Till Art become a leaping-house,And Death be crowned as Life,And one wild jest outshine the soulOf Truth ... O, fool, is this your goal?You are not our Kit Marlowe,But the drunkard with the knife;Not Marlowe, but the Jack-o'-LentThat lured him o'er the fen!O, ay, the tavern is in its place,And the punk's painted smiling face,But where is our Kit MarloweThe man, the king of men?Passion? You kiss the painted mouth,The hand that clipped his wings,The hand that into his heart she thrustAnd tuned him to her whimpering lust,And played upon his quivering youthAs a crowder plucks the strings.But he who dared the thunder-roll,Whose eagle-wings could soar,Buffeting down the clouds of night,To beat against the Light of Light,That great God-blinded eagle-soul,We shall not see him, more."
We had just set our brazier smouldering,To keep the Plague away. Many a houseWas marked with the red cross. The bells tolledIncessantly. Nash crept into the roomShivering like a fragment of the night,His face yellow as parchment, and his eyesBurning.
"The Plague! He has taken it!" voices cried."That's not the Plague! The old carrion-crow is drunk;But stand away. What ails you, Nash my lad?"Then, through the clamour, as through a storm at sea,The master's voice, the voice of Ben, rang out,"Nash!"
Ben leapt to his feet, and like a shipShouldering the waves, he shouldered the throng aside."What ails you, man? What's that upon your breast?Blood?"
"Marlowe is dead," said Nash,And stunned the room to silence ...
"Marlowe—dead!"Ben caught him by the shoulders. "Nash! Awake!What do you mean? Marlowe? Kit Marlowe? Dead?I supped with him—why—not three nights ago!You are drunk! You are dazed! There's blood upon your coat!""That's—where he died," said Nash, and suddenly sankSidelong across a bench, bowing his headBetween his hands ...Wept, I believe. Then, like a whip of steel,His lean black figure sprang erect again."Marlowe!" he cried, "Kit Marlowe, killed for a punk,A taffeta petticoat! Killed by an apple-squire!Drunk! I was drunk; but I am sober now,Sober enough, by God! Poor Kit is dead."
* * * *
The Mermaid Inn was thronged for many a nightWith startled faces. Voices rose and fell,As I recall them, in a great vague dream,Curious, pitiful, angry, thrashing outThe tragic truth. Then, all along the Cheape,The ballad-mongers waved their sheets of rhyme,Croaking:Come buy! Come buy! The bloody deathOf Wormall, writ by Master Richard Bame!Come buy! Come buy! The Atheist's Tragedy.And, even in Bread Street, at our very door,The crowder to his cracked old fiddle sang:—
"He was a poet of proud reputeAnd wrote full many a play,Now strutting in a silken suit,Now begging by the way."
Then, out of the hubbub and the clash of tongues,The bawdy tales and scraps of balladry,(As out of chaos rose the slow round world)At last, though for the Mermaid Inn alone,Emerged some tragic semblance of a soul,Some semblance of the rounded truth, a worldGlimpsed only through great mists of blood and tears,Yet smitten, here and there, with dreadful light,As I believe, from heaven.
Strangely enough,(Though Ben forgot his pipe and Will's deep eyesDeepened and softened, when they spoke of Kit,For many a month thereafter) it was NashThat took the blow like steel into his heart.Nash, our "Piers Penniless," whom Rob Greene had called"Young Juvenal," the first satirist of our age,Nash, of the biting tongue and subtle sneer,Brooded upon it, till his grief becameSharp as a rapier, ready to lunge in hateAt all the lies of shallower hearts.
One night,The night he raised the mists from that wild world,He talked with Chapman in the Mermaid InnOf Marlowe's poem that was left half-sung,HisHero and Leander.
"Kit desired,If he died first, that you should finish it,"Said Nash.
A loaded silence filled the roomAs with the imminent spirit of the deadListening. And long that picture haunted me:Nash, like a lithe young MephistophelesLeaning 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 strengthThat helms our ships, and something of the Greek,The cool clear passion of Platonic thoughtBehind the fringe of his Olympian beardAnd broad Homeric brows, confronting himGravely.
There was a burden of mysteryBrooding on all that night; and, when at lastChapman replied, I knew he felt it, too.The curious pedantry of his wonted speechWas charged with living undertones, like truthsToo strange and too tremendous to be breathedSave thro' a mask. And though, in lines that flamedOnce with strange rivalry, Shakespeare himself defiedChapman, that spirit "by spirits taught to writeAbove a mortal pitch," Will's nimbler senseWas quick to breathings from beyond our worldAnd could not hold them lightly.
"Ah, then Kit,"Said Chapman, "had some prescience of his end,Like many another dreamer. What strange hintsOf things past, present, and to come, there lieSealed in the magic pages of that musicWhich, laying strong hold on universal laws,Ranges beyond these mud-walls of the flesh,Though dull wits fail to follow. It was thisThat made men find an oracle in the booksOf Vergil, and an everlasting fountOf science in the prophets."
Once againThat haunted silence filled the shadowy room;And, far away up Bread Street, we could hearThe 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 seenThe warning of his own."
"Strange he should ask a hod-man like myselfTo 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 raiseOut of its grave in the green HellespontThe body of that boy,To make him sparkle and leap thro' the cold wavesAnd fold young Hero to his heart again,The task were scarce as hard.But ... stranger still,"—And his next words, although I hardly knewAll that he meant, went tingling through my flesh—"Before you spoke, before I knew his wish,I had begun to write!I knew and lovedHis work. Himself I hardly knew at all;And yet—I know him now! I have heard him nowAnd, since he pledged me in so rare a cup,I'll lift and drink to him, though lightnings fallFrom envious gods to scourge me. I will liftThis cup in darkness to the soul that reignsIn light on Helicon. Who knows how near?For I have thought, sometimes, when I have triedTo work his will, the hand that moved my penWas mine, and yet—not mine. The bodily maskIs mine, and sometimes, dull as clay, it sleepsWith old Musæus. 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 hereSnug on the shore, and feel the wash of it,The widening circles running to our feet.Can such a soul go down to glut the sharksWithout 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 tradeHis 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 tooWas moved, not of myself, to a tune like this.O, I can play the crowder, fiddle a songOn a dead friend, with any the best of you.Lie and kick heels in the sun on a dead man's graveAnd yet—God knows—it is the best we can;And better than the world's way, to forget."So saying, like one that murmurs happy wordsTo torture his own grief, half in self-scorn,He breathed a scrap of balladry that raisedThe mists a moment from that Paradise,That primal world of innocence, where KitIn childhood played, outside his father's shop,Under the sign of theGolden Shoe, as thus:—
A cobbler lived in Canterbury—He is dead now, poor soul!—He sat at his door and stitched in the sun,Nodding and smiling at everyone;For St. Hugh makes all good cobblers merry,And often he sang as the pilgrims passed,"I can hammer a soldier's boot,And daintily glove a dainty foot.Many a sandal from my handHas 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, outWould 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 queenDad, one day,Thou and I must ride like this,All along the Pilgrim's Way,By Glastonbury 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 theGolden Shoe,Touched by the glow of the setting sun,While the pilgrims passed,The little cobbler would laugh and say:"When you are old you will understand'Tis a very long wayTo Samarcand!Why, largely to exaggerateBefits 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 thereBreak, and are lost in one withdrawing sigh:
The little lad that used to playAround 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 wreckWent thundering down, and round it hell 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 helpTo crown that work of his. Why, Chapman, think,Think of the cobbler's awl—there's a stout lanceTo couch at London, there's a conquering pointTo carry in triumph through Persepolis!I tell you Kit was nothing but a child,When some rich patron of theGolden ShoeBeheld him riding into SamarcandUpon a broken chair, the which he saidWas a white steed, splashed with the blood of kings.When, on that patron's bounty, he did rideSo 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 scrapsOf song, and all unshielded, all unarmedA child's heart, packed with splendid hopes and dreams.I say a child's heart, Chapman, and that phraseCrowns, not dis-crowns, his manhood.Well—he turnedAn honest penny, taking some small partIn plays at theRed Bull. And, all the while,Beyond the paint and tinsel of the stage,Beyond the greasy cock-pit with its reekOf orange-peel and civet, as all of theseWere but the clay churned by the glorious rushOf 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 towersOf his abiding City.Then—he metThat damned blood-sucking cockatrice, the pugOf some fine strutting mummer, one of those plaguesBred by our stage, a puff-ball on the hillOf Helicon. As for his wench—she tooHad played so many parts that she forgotThe 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 spiteArcher, her latest paramour, a friendAnd apple-squire to Puff, she set her eyesOn Marlowe ... feigned a joy in his young art,Murmured his songs, used all her London tricksTo coney-catch the country greenhorn. Man,Kit never evensawher painted face!He pored on books by candle-light and sawEverything thro' a mist. O, I could laughTo think of it, only—his up-turned skullThere, 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 escapeContagion, and the crashing of sextons' spadesOn 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 passed 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 God had meant to wake one dayUnder the Sun of Love, suddenly wokeBy candle-light and cried, 'The Sun; The Sun!'And he believed it, Chapman, he believed it!He was a cobbler's son, and he believedIn 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 fireTo one whose love is in her supple skin,There comes a laughter in which jests break upLike icebergs in a sea of burning marl.Then dreamers turn to murderers in an hour.Then topless towers are burnt, and the Ocean-seaTramples 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 wreckWent down for ever.How should Piers PennilessBrand 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 togetherMourning 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 beterza rima,A ladder of rhyme that two sad friends aloneMay let down, thus, to the last circle of hell."
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 pitWhere the wreck sank, the serpentine slow foldsOf 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 sheetFolds 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 bareThe splendour of that Apollonian head;
The gloriole of his flame-coloured hair;The lean athletic body, deftly plannedTo carry that swift soul of fire and air;
The long thin flanks, the broad breast, and the grandHeroic shoulders! Look, what lost dreams lieCold in the fingers of that delicate hand;
And, shut within those lyric lips, what cryOf unborn beauty, sunk in utter night,Lost worlds of song, sealed in an unknown sky,
Never to be brought forth, clothed on with light.Was this, then, this the secret of his song?—Who ever loved that loved not at first?
It was not Love, not Love, that wrought this wrong;And yet—what evil shadow of this dark townCould quench a soul so flame-like clean and strong,
Strike the young glory of his manhood down,Dead, like a dog, dead in a drunken brawl,Dead for a phial of paint, a taffeta gown?
What if his blood were hot? High over allHe heard, as in his song the world still hears,Those angels on the burning heavenly wall
Who chant the thunder-music of the spheres.Yet—through the glory of his own young dreamHere did he meet that face, wet with strange tears,
Andromeda, with piteous face astream,Hailing him, Perseus. In her treacherous eyesAs in dark pools the mirrored stars will gleam,
Here did he see his own eternal skies;And here—she laughed, nor found the dream amiss;But bade him pluck and eat—in Paradise.
Here did she hold him, broken up with bliss,Here, like a supple snake, around him coiled,Here did she pluck his heart out with a kiss,
Here were the wings clipped and the glory soiled,Here adders coupled in the pure white shrine,Here was the Wine spilt, and the Shew-bread spoiled.
Black was that feast, though he who poured the WineDreamed that he poured it in high sacrament.Deep in her eyes he saw his own eyes shine,
Beheld Love's god-head and was well content.Subtly her hand struck the pure silver note,The throbbing chord of passion that God meant
To swell the bliss of heaven. Round his young throatShe wound her swarthy tresses; then, with eyesHalf mad to see their power, half mad to gloat,
Half mad to batten on their own devilries,And mark what heaven-born splendours they could quell,She held him quivering in a mesh of lies,
And in soft broken speech began to tell—There as, against her heart, throbbing he lay—The truth that hurled his soul from heaven to hell.
Quivering, she watched the subtle whip-lash flayThe white flesh of the dreams of his pure youth;Then sucked the blood and left them cold as clay.
Luxuriously she lashed him with the truth.Against his mouth her subtle mouth she setTo show, as through a mask, O, without ruth,
As through a cold clay mask (brackish and wetWith what strange tears!) it was not his, not his,The kiss that through his quivering lips she met.
Kissing him, "Thus," she whispered, "did he kiss.Ah, is the sweetness like a sword, then, sweet?Last night—ah, kiss again—aching with bliss,
Thus was I made his own, from head to feet."—A sudden agony thro' his body sweptTempestuously.—"Our wedded pulses beat
Like this and this; and then, at dawn, he slept."She laughed, pouting her lips against his cheekTo drink; and, as in answer, Marlowe wept.
As a dead man in dreams, he heard her speak.Clasped in the bitter grave of that sweet clay,Wedded and one with it, he moaned. Too weak
Even to lift his head, sobbing, he lay,Then, slowly, as their breathings rose and fell,He felt the storm of passion, far away,
Gather. The shuddering waves began to swell.And, through the menace of the thunder-roll,The thin quick lightnings, thrilling through his hell,
Lightnings that hell itself could not control(Even while she strove to bow his neck anew)Woke the great slumbering legions of his soul.
Sharp was that severance of the false and true,Sharp as a sword drawn from a shuddering wound.But they, that were one flesh, were cloven in two.
Flesh leapt from clasping flesh, without a sound.He plucked his body from her white embrace,And cast him down, and grovelled on the ground.
Yet, ere he went, he strove once more to trace,Deep in her eyes, the loveliness he knew;Then—spat his hatred into her smiling face.
She clung to him. He flung her off. He drewHis dagger, thumbed the blade, and laughed—"Poor punk!What? Would you make me your own murderer, too?"
* * * *
"That was the day of our great feast," said Nash,"Aboard theGolden Hynde. The grand old hulkWas drawn up for the citizens' wondermentAt Deptford. Ay, Piers Penniless was there!Soaked and besotted as I was, I sawEverything. On her poop the minstrels played,And round her sea-worn keel, like meadow-sweetCurtseying round a lightning-blackened oak,Prentices and their sweethearts, heel and toe,Danced the brave English dances, clean and freshAs May.But in her broad gun-guarded waistOnce red with British blood, long tables groanedFor revellers not so worthy. Where her gunsHad raked the seas, barrels of ale were sprung,Bestrid by roaring tipplers. Where at nightThe storm-beat crew silently bowed their headsWith Drake before the King of Life and Death,A strumpet wrestled with a mountebankFor pence, a loose-limbed Lais with a clownOf Cherry Hilton. Leering at their lewd twists,Cross-legged upon the deck, sluggish with sack,Like a squat toad sat Puff ...Propped up against the bulwarks, at his side,Archer, his apple-squire, hiccoughed a bawdy song.Suddenly, through that orgy, with wild eyes,Yet with her customary smile, O, thereI saw in daylight what Kit Marlowe sawThrough blinding mists, the face of his first love.She stood before her paramour on the deck,Cocking her painted head to right and left,Her white teeth smiling, but her voice a hiss:'Quickly,' she said to Archer, 'come away,Or there'll be blood spilt!''Better blood than wine,'Said Archer, struggling to his feet, 'but who,Who would spill blood?''Marlowe!' she said.Then PuffReeled to his feet. 'What, Kit, the cobbler's son?The lad that broke his leg at theRed Bull,Tamburlaine-Marlowe, he that would chain kingsTo's chariot-wheel? What, is he rushing hither?He would spill blood for Gloriana, hey?O, my Belphœbe, you will crack my sides!Was this the wench that shipped a thousand squires?O, ho! But here he comes. Now, solemnly, lads,—Now walk the angels on the walls of heavenTo entertain divine Zenocrate!'And there stood Kit, high on the storm-scarred poop,Against the sky, bare-headed. I saw his face,Pale, innocent, just the dear face of that boyWho walked to Cambridge with a bundle and stick,—The little cobbler's son. Yet—there I caughtMy only glimpse of how the sun-god looked,And only for one moment.When he sawHis mistress, his face whitened, and he shook.Down to the deck he came, a poor weak man;And yet—by God—the only man that dayIn all our drunken crew.'Come along, Kit,'Cried Puff, 'we'll all be friends now, all take hands,And dance—ha! ha!—the shaking of the sheets!'Then Archer, shuffling a step, raised his cracked voiceIn Kit's own song to a falsetto tune,Snapping one hand, thus, over his head as he danced:—
'Come, live with me, and be my love,And we will all the pleasures prove!' ...
Puff reeled between, laughing. 'Damn you,' cried Kit,And, catching the fat swine by his round soft throat,Hurled him headlong, crashing across the tables,To lie and groan in the red bilge of wineThat washed the scuppers.Kit gave him not one glance.'Archer,' he said in a whisper.InstantlyA long thin rapier flashed in Archer's hand.The ship was one wild uproar. Women screamedAnd huddled together. A drunken clamorous ringSeethed around Marlowe and his enemy.Kit drew his dagger, slowly, and I knewBlood would be spilt.'Here, take my rapier, Kit!'I cried across the crowd, seeing the ladWas armed so slightly. But he did not hear.I could not reach him.All at once he leaptLike a wounded tiger, past the rapier pointStraight at his enemy's throat. I saw his handUp-raised to strike! I heard a harlot's scream,And, in mid-air, the hand stayed, quivering, white,A frozen menace.I saw a yellow clawTwisting the dagger out of that frozen hand;I saw his own steel in that yellow grip,His own lost lightning raised to strike at him!I saw it flash! I heard the driving gruntOf him that struck! Then, with a shout, the crowdSundered, and through the gap, a blank red thingStreaming with blood came the blind face of Kit,Reeling, to me! And I, poor drunken I,Held my arms wide for him. Here, on my breast,With one great sob, he burst his heart and died."
* * * *
Nash ceased. And, far away down Friday Street,The crowder with his fiddler wailed again:
"Blaspheming Tambolin must dieAnd Faustus meet his end.Repent, repent, or presentlieTo hell ye must descend."
And, as in answer, Chapman slowly breathedThose mightiest lines of Marlowe's own despair:
"Think'st thou that I who saw the face of God,And tasted the eternal joys of heaven,Am not tormented with ten thousand hells?"
"Ah, you have said it," said Nash, "and there you knowWhy Kit desired your hand to crown his work.He reverenced you as one whose temperate eyesAustere and grave, could look him through and through;One whose firm hand could grasp the reins of lawAnd guide those furious horses of the sun,As Ben and Will can guide them, where you will.His were, perchance, the noblest steeds of all,And from their nostrils blew a fierier dawnAbove the world. That glory is his own;But where he fell, he fell. Before his handHad learned to quell them, he was dashed to the earth.'Tis yours to show that good men honoured him.For, mark this, Chapman, since Kit Marlowe fell.There will be fools that, in the name of Art,Will wallow in the mire, crying 'I fall,I fall from heaven!'—fools that have only heardFrom earth, the rumour of those golden hoovesFar, far above them. Yes, you know the kind,The fools that scorn Will for his lack of fireBecause he quells the storms they never knew,And rides above the thunder; fools of ArtThat skip and vex, like little vicious fleas,Their only Helicon, some green madam's breast.Art! Art! O, God, that I could send my soul,In one last wave, from that night-hidden wreck,Across the shores of all the years to be;O, God, that like a crowder I might shakeTheir blind dark casements with the pity of it,Piers Penniless his ballad, a poor scrap,That but for lack of time, and hope and pence,He might have bettered! For a dead man's sake,Thus would the wave break, thus the crowder cry:—
Dead, like a dog upon the road;Dead, for a harlot's kiss;The Apollonian throat and brow,The lyric lips, so silent now,The flaming wings that heaven bestowedFor loftier airs than this!
The sun-like eyes whose light and lifeHad gazed an angel's down,That burning heart of honey and fire,Quenched and dead for an apple-squire,Quenched at the thrust of a mummer's knife,Dead—for a taffeta gown!
The wine that God had set apart,The noblest wine of all,Wine of the grapes that angels trod,The vintage of the glory of God,The crimson wine of that rich heart,Spilt in a drunken brawl,
Poured out to make a steaming bathThat night in the Devil's Inn,A steaming bath of living winePoured out for Circe and her swine,A bath of blood for a harlotTo supple and sleek her skin.
And many a fool that finds it sweetThrough all the years to be,Crowning a lie with Marlowe's fame,Will ape the sin, will ape the shame,Will ape our captain in defeat;But—not in victory;
Till Art become a leaping-house,And Death be crowned as Life,And one wild jest outshine the soulOf Truth ... O, fool, is this your goal?You are not our Kit Marlowe,But the drunkard with the knife;
Not Marlowe, but the Jack-o'-LentThat lured him o'er the fen!O, ay, the tavern is in its place,And the punk's painted smiling face,But where is our Kit MarloweThe man, the king of men?
Passion? You kiss the painted mouth,The hand that clipped his wings,The hand that into his heart she thrustAnd tuned him to her whimpering lust,And played upon his quivering youthAs a crowder plucks the strings.
But he who dared the thunder-roll,Whose eagle-wings could soar,Buffeting down the clouds of night,To beat against the Light of Light,That great God-blinded eagle-soul,We shall not see him, more."