Volume I Part 43 (1/2)

Then, for a moment, silence froze their veins, Till one fierce seamen stooped with a hoa.r.s.e cry; And, like an eagle clutching up its prey, His arm swooped down and bore the head aloft, Gorily streaming, by the long dark hair; And a great shout went up, ”So perish all Traitors to G.o.d and England.” Then Drake turned And bade them to their s.h.i.+ps; and, wondering, They left him. As the boats thrust out from sh.o.r.e Brave old Tom Moone looked back with faithful eyes Like a great mastiff to his master's face.

He, looming larger from his loftier ground Clad with the slowly gathering night of stars And gazing seaward o'er his quiet dead, Seemed like some t.i.tan bronze in grandeur based Unshakeable until the crash of doom Shatter the black foundations of the world.

BOOK IV

Dawn, everlasting and almighty Dawn, Hailed by ten thousand names of death and birth, Who, chiefly by thy name of Sorrow, seem'st To half the world a sunset, G.o.d's great Dawn, Fair light of all earth's partings till we meet Where dawn and sunset, mingling East and West, Shall make in some deep Orient of the soul One radiant Rose of Love for evermore; Teach me, oh teach to bear thy broadening light, Thy deepening wonder, lest as old dreams fade With love's unfaith, like wasted hours of youth, And dim illusions vanish in thy beam, Their rapture and their anguish break that heart Which loved them, and must love for ever now.

Let thy great sphere of splendour, ring by ring For ever widening, draw new seas, new skies, Within my ken; yet, as I still must bear This love, help me to grow in spirit with thee.

Dawn on my song which trembles like a cloud Pierced with thy beauty. Rise, s.h.i.+ne, as of old Across the wondering ocean in the sight Of those world-wandering mariners, when earth Rolled flat up to the Gates of Paradise, And each slow mist that curled its gold away From each new sea they furrowed into pearl Might bring before their blinded mortal eyes G.o.d and the Glory. Lighten as on the soul Of him that all night long in torment dire, Anguish and thirst unceasing for thy ray Upon that lonely Patagonian sh.o.r.e Had lain as on the bitterest coasts of h.e.l.l.

For all night long, mocked by the dreadful peace Of world-wide seas that darkly heaved and sank With cold recurrence, like the slow sad breath Of a fallen t.i.tan dying all alone In lands beyond all human loneliness, While far and wide glimmers that broken targe Hurled from tremendous battle with the G.o.ds, And, as he breathes in pain, the chain-mail rings Round his broad breast a m.u.f.fled rattling make For many a league, so seemed the sound of waves Upon those beaches--there, be-mocked all night, Beneath Magellan's gallows, Drake had watched Beside his dead; and over him the stars Paled as the silver chariot of the moon Drove, and her white steeds ramped in a fury of foam On splendid peaks of cloud. The _Golden Hynde_ Slept with those other shadows on the bay.

Between him and his home the Atlantic heaved; And, on the darker side, across the strait Of starry sheen that softly rippled and flowed Betwixt the mainland and his isle, it seemed Death's Gates indeed burst open. The night yawned Like a foul wound. Black shapes of the outer dark Poured out of forests older than the world; And, just as reptiles that take form and hue, Speckle and blotch, in strange a.s.similation From thorn and scrub and stone and the waste earth Through which they crawl, so that almost they seem The incarnate spirits of their wilderness, Were these most horrible kindred of the night.

aeonian glooms unfathomable, grim aisles, Grotesque, distorted boughs and dancing shades Out-belched their dusky brood on the dim sh.o.r.e; Monsters with sooty limbs, red-raddled eyes, And faces painted yellow, women and men; Fierce naked giants howling to the moon, And loathlier Gorgons with long snaky tresses Pouring vile purple over pendulous b.r.e.a.s.t.s Like wine-bags. On the mainland beach they lit A brushwood fire that reddened creek and cove And lapped their swarthy limbs with hideous tongues Of flame; so near that by their light Drake saw The blood upon the dead man's long black hair Clotting corruption. The fierce funeral pyre Of all things fair seemed rolling on that sh.o.r.e; And in that dull red battle of smoke and flame, While the sea crunched the pebbles, and dark drums Rumbled out of the gloom as if this earth Had some t.i.tanic tigress for a soul Purring in forests of Eternity Over her own grim dreams, his lonely spirit Pa.s.sed through the circles of a world-wide waste Darker than ever Dante roamed. No gulf Was this of fierce harmonious reward, Where Evil moans in anguish after death, Where all men reap as they have sown, where gluttons Gorge upon toads and usurers gulp hot streams Of molten gold. This was that Malebolge Which hath no harmony to mortal ears, But seems the reeling and tremendous dream Of some omnipotent madman. There he saw The naked giants dragging to the flames Young captives hideous with a new despair: He saw great craggy blood-stained stones upheaved To slaughter, saw through mists of blood and fire The cannibal feast prepared, saw filthy hands Rend limb from limb, and almost dreamed he saw Foul mouths a-drip with quivering human flesh And horrible laughter in the crimson storm That clomb and leapt and stabbed at the high heaven Till the whole night seemed saturate with red.

And all night long upon the _Golden Hynde_, A cloud upon the waters, brave Tom Moone Watched o'er the bulwarks for some dusky plunge To warn him if that savage crew should mark His captain and swim over to his isle.

Whistle in hand he watched, his boat well ready, His men low-crouched around him, swarthy faces Grim-chinned upon the taffrail, muttering oaths That trampled down the fear i' their bristly throats, While at their sides a dreadful hint of steel Sent stray gleams to the stars. But little heed Had Drake of all that menaced him, though oft Some wandering giant, belching from the feast, All blood-besmeared, would come so near he heard His heavy breathing o'er the narrow strait.

Yet little care had Drake, for though he sat Bowed in the body above his quiet dead, His burning spirit wandered through the wastes, Wandered through h.e.l.ls behind the apparent h.e.l.l, Horrors immeasurable, clutching at dreams Found fair of old, but now most foul. The world Leered at him through its old remembered mask Of beauty: the green gra.s.s that clothed the fields Of England (shallow, shallow fairy dream!) What was it but the hair of dead men's graves.

Rooted in death, enriched with all decay?

And like a leprosy the hawthorn bloom Crawled o'er the whitening bosom of the spring; And bird and beast and insect, ay and man, How fat they fed on one another's blood!

And Love, what faith in Love, when spirit and flesh Are found of such a filthy composition?

And Knowledge, G.o.d, his mind went reeling back To that dark voyage on the deadly coast Of Panama, where one by one his men Sickened and died of some unknown disease, Till Joseph, his own brother, in his arms Died; and Drake trampled down all tender thought, All human grief, and sought to find the cause, For his crew's sake, the ravenous unknown cause Of that fell scourge. There, in his own dark cabin, Lit by the wild light of the swinging lanthorn, He laid the naked body on that board Where they had supped together. He took the knife From the ague-stricken surgeon's palsied hands, And while the s.h.i.+p rocked in the eternal seas And dark waves lapped against the rolling hulk Making the silence terrible with voices, He opened his own brother's cold white corse, That pale deserted mansion of a soul, Bidding the surgeon mark, with his own eyes, While yet he had strength to use them, the foul spots, The swollen liver, the strange sodden heart, The yellow intestines. Yea, his dry lips hissed There in the stark face of Eternity, ”Seest thou? Seest thou? Knowest thou what it means?”

Then, like a dream up-surged the belfried night Of Saint Bartholomew, the scented palaces Whence harlots leered out on the twisted streets Of Paris, choked with slaughter! Europe flamed With human torches, living altar candles, Lighted before the Cross where men had hanged The Christ of little children. Cirque by cirque The world-wide h.e.l.l reeled round him, East and West, To where the tortured Indians worked the will Of lordly Spain in golden-famed Peru.

”G.o.d, is thy world a madman's dream?” he groaned: And suddenly, the clamour on the sh.o.r.e Sank and that savage horde melted away Into the midnight forest as it came, Leaving no sign, save where the brushwood fire Still smouldered like a ruby in the gloom; And into the inmost caverns of his mind That other clamour sank, and there was peace.

”A madman's dream,” he whispered, ”Ay, to me A madman's dream,” but better, better far Than that which bears upon its awful gates, Gates of a h.e.l.l defined, unalterable, _Abandon hope all ye who enter here!_ Here, here at least the dawn hath power to bring New light, new hope, new battles. Men may fight And sweep away that evil, if no more, At least from the small circle of their swords; Then die, content if they have struck one stroke For freedom, knowledge, brotherhood; one stroke To hasten that great kingdom G.o.d proclaims Each morning through the trumpets of the Dawn.

And far away, in Italy, that night Young Galileo, gazing upward, heard The self-same whisper from the abyss of stars Which lured the soul of Shakespeare as he lay Dreaming in may-sweet England, even now, And with its infinite music called once more The soul of Drake out to the unknown West.

Now like a wild rose in the fields of heaven Slipt forth the slender fingers of the Dawn, And drew the great grey Eastern curtains back From the ivory saffroned couch. Rosily slid One s.h.i.+ning foot and one warm rounded knee From silken coverlets of the tossed-back clouds.

Then, like the meeting after desolate years, Face to remembered face, Drake saw the Dawn Step forth in naked splendour o'er the sea; Dawn, bearing still her rich divine increase Of beauty, love, and wisdom round the world; The same, yet not the same. So strangely gleamed Her pearl and rose across the sapphire waves That scarce he knew the dead man at his feet.

His world was made anew. Strangely his voice Rang through that solemn Eden of the morn Calling his men, and stranger than a dream Their boats black-blurred against the crimson East, Or flas.h.i.+ng misty sheen where'er the light Smote on their smooth wet sides, like seraph s.h.i.+ps Moved in a dewy glory towards the land; Their oars of glittering diamond broke the sea As by enchantment into burning jewels And scattered rainbows from their flaming blades.

The clear green water lapping round their prows, The words of sharp command as now the keels Crunched on his lonely sh.o.r.e, and the following wave Leapt slapping o'er the sterns, in that new light Were more than any miracle. At last Drake, as they grouped a little way below The crumbling sandy cliff whereon he stood, Seeming to overshadow them as he loomed A cloud of black against the crimson sky, Spoke, as a man may hardly speak but once: ”My seamen, oh my friends, companions, kings; For I am least among you, being your captain; And ye are men, and all men born are kings, By right divine, and I the least of these Because I must usurp the throne of G.o.d And sit in judgment, even till I have set My seal upon the red wax of this blood, This blood of my dead friend, ere it grow cold.

Not all the waters of that mighty sea Could wash my hands of sin if I should now Falter upon my path. But look to it, you, Whose word was doom last night to this dead man; Look to it, I say, look to it! Brave men might shrink From this great voyage; but the heart of him Who dares turn backward now must be so hardy That G.o.d might make a thousand millstones of it To hang about the necks of those that hurt Some little child, and cast them in the sea.

Yet if ye will be found so more than bold, Speak now, and I will hear you; G.o.d will judge.

But ye shall take four s.h.i.+ps of these my five, Tear out the lions from their painted s.h.i.+elds, And speed you homeward. Leave me but one s.h.i.+p, My _Golden Hynde_, and five good friends, nay one, To watch when I must sleep, and I will prove This judgment just against all winds that blow.

Now ye that will return, speak, let me know you, Or be for ever silent, for I swear Over this butchered body, if any swerve Hereafter from the straight and perilous way, He shall not die alone. What? Will none speak?

My comrades and my friends! Yet ye must learn, Mark me, my friends, I'd have you all to know That ye are kings. I'll have no jealousies Aboard my fleet. I'll have the gentleman To pull and haul wi' the seaman. I'll not have That canker of the Spaniards in my fleet.

Ye that were captains, I cas.h.i.+er you all.

I'll have no captains; I'll have nought but seamen, Obedient to my will, because I serve England. What, will ye murmur? Have a care, Lest I should bid you homeward all alone, You whose white hands are found too delicate For aught but dallying with your jewelled swords!

And thou, too, master Fletcher, my s.h.i.+p's chaplain, Mark me, I'll have no priest-craft. I have heard Overmuch talk of judgment from thy lips, G.o.d's judgment here, G.o.d's judgment there, upon us!

Whene'er the winds are contrary, thou takest Their powers upon thee for thy moment's end.

Thou art G.o.d's minister, not G.o.d's oracle: Chain up thy tongue a little, or, by His wounds, If thou canst read this wide world like a book, Thou hast so little to fear, I'll set thee adrift On G.o.d's great sea to find thine own way home.

Why, 'tis these very tyrannies o' the soul We strike at when we strike at Spain for England; And shall we here, in this great wilderness, Ungrappled and unchallenged, out of sight, Alone, without one struggle, sink that flag Which, when the cannon thundered, could but stream Triumphant over all the storms of death.

Nay, master Wynter and my gallant captains, I see ye are tamed. Take up your ranks again In humbleness, remembering ye are kings, Kings for the sake and by the will of England, Therefore her servants till your lives' last end.

Comrades, mistake not this, our little fleet Is freighted with the golden heart of England, And, if we fail, that golden heart will break.

The world's wide eyes are on us, and our souls Are woven together into one great flag Of England. Shall we strike it? Shall it be rent Asunder with small discord, party strife, Ephemeral conflict of contemptible tongues, Or shall it be blazoned, blazoned evermore On the most heaven-wide page of history?

This is that hour, I know it in my soul, When we must choose for England. Ye are kings, And sons of Vikings, exiled from your throne.

Have ye forgotten? Nay, your blood remembers!