Volume II Part 84 (1/2)

”Kit desired, If he died first, that you should finish it,”

Said Nash.

A loaded silence filled the room As with the imminent spirit of the dead Listening. And long that picture haunted me: Nash, like a lithe young Mephistopheles Leaning 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 strength That helms our s.h.i.+ps, and something of the Greek, The cool clear pa.s.sion of Platonic thought Behind the fringe of his Olympian beard And broad Homeric brows, confronting him Gravely.

There was a burden of mystery Brooding on all that night; and, when at last Chapman replied, I knew he felt it, too.

The curious pedantry of his wonted speech Was charged with living undertones, like truths Too strange and too tremendous to be breathed Save thro' a mask. And though, in lines that flamed Once with strange rivalry, Shakespeare himself defied Chapman, that spirit ”by spirits taught to write Above a mortal pitch,” Will's nimbler sense Was quick to breathings from beyond our world And could not hold them lightly.

”Ah, then Kit,”

Said Chapman, ”had some prescience of his end, Like many another dreamer. What strange hints Of things past, present, and to come, there lie Sealed in the magic pages of that music Which, laying strong hold on universal laws, Ranges beyond these mud-walls of the flesh, Though dull wits fail to follow. It was this That made men find an oracle in the books Of Vergil, and an everlasting fount Of science in the prophets.”

Once again That haunted silence filled the shadowy room; And, far away up Bread Street, we could hear The 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 seen The warning of his own._”

”Strange he should ask a hod-man like myself To 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 raise Out of its grave in the green h.e.l.lespont The body of that boy, To make him sparkle and leap thro' the cold waves And fold young Hero to his heart again, The task were scarce as hard.

But ... stranger still,”-- And his next words, although I hardly knew All that he meant, went tingling through my flesh-- ”Before you spoke, before I knew his wish, I had begun to write!

I knew and loved His work. Himself I hardly knew at all; And yet--I know him now! I have heard him now And, since he pledged me in so rare a cup, I'll lift and drink to him, though lightnings fall From envious G.o.ds to scourge me. I will lift This cup in darkness to the soul that reigns In light on Helicon. Who knows how near?

For I have thought, sometimes, when I have tried To work his will, the hand that moved my pen Was mine, and yet--not mine. The bodily mask Is mine, and sometimes, dull as clay, it sleeps With old Musaeus. 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 s.h.i.+p, A lightning-shattered wreck, out in that night, Unseen, has foundered thundering. We sit here Snug on the sh.o.r.e, and feel the wash of it, The widening circles running to our feet.

Can such a soul go down to glut the sharks Without 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 trade His 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 too Was moved, not of myself, to a tune like this.

O, I can play the crowder, fiddle a song On a dead friend, with any the best of you.

Lie and kick heels in the sun on a dead man's grave And yet--G.o.d knows--it is the best we can; And better than the world's way, to forget.”

So saying, like one that murmurs happy words To torture his own grief, half in self-scorn, He breathed a sc.r.a.p of balladry that raised The mists a moment from that Paradise, That primal world of innocence, where Kit In childhood played, outside his father's shop, Under the sign of the _Golden Shoe_, as thus:--

A cobbler lived in Canterbury --He is dead now, poor soul!-- He sat at his door and st.i.tched in the sun, Nodding and smiling at everyone; For St. Hugh makes all good cobblers merry, And often he sang as the pilgrims pa.s.sed, ”I can hammer a soldier's boot, And daintily glove a dainty foot.

Many a sandal from my hand Has 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, out Would 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 queen Dad, one day, Thou and I must ride like this, All along the Pilgrim's Way, By Glas...o...b..ry 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 the _Golden Shoe_, Touched by the glow of the setting sun, While the pilgrims pa.s.sed, The little cobbler would laugh and say: ”When you are old you will understand 'Tis a very long way To Samarcand!

Why, largely to exaggerate Befits 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 there Break, and are lost in one withdrawing sigh:

The little lad that used to play Around the cobbler's door, Kit Marlowe, Kit Marlowe, We shall not see him more.