Volume II Part 86 (1/2)
Puff reeled between, laughing. 'd.a.m.n you,' cried Kit, And, catching the fat swine by his round soft throat, Hurled him headlong, cras.h.i.+ng across the tables, To lie and groan in the red bilge of wine That washed the scuppers.
Kit gave him not one glance.
'Archer,' he said in a whisper.
Instantly A long thin rapier flashed in Archer's hand.
The s.h.i.+p was one wild uproar. Women screamed And huddled together. A drunken clamorous ring Seethed around Marlowe and his enemy.
Kit drew his dagger, slowly, and I knew Blood would be spilt.
'Here, take my rapier, Kit!'
I cried across the crowd, seeing the lad Was armed so slightly. But he did not hear.
I could not reach him.
All at once he leapt Like a wounded tiger, past the rapier point Straight at his enemy's throat. I saw his hand Up-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 claw Twisting 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 flas.h.!.+ I heard the driving grunt Of him that struck! Then, with a shout, the crowd Sundered, and through the gap, a blank red thing Streaming 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 die And Faustus meet his end.
Repent, repent, or presentlie To h.e.l.l ye must descend._”
And, as in answer, Chapman slowly breathed Those mightiest lines of Marlowe's own despair:
”_Think'st thou that I who saw the face of G.o.d, And tasted the eternal joys of heaven, Am not tormented with ten thousand h.e.l.ls?_”
”Ah, you have said it,” said Nash, ”and there you know Why Kit desired your hand to crown his work.
He reverenced you as one whose temperate eyes Austere and grave, could look him through and through; One whose firm hand could grasp the reins of law And guide those furious horses of the sun, As Ben and Will can guide them, where you will.
His were, perchance, the n.o.blest steeds of all, And from their nostrils blew a fierier dawn Above the world. That glory is his own; But where he fell, he fell. Before his hand Had 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 heard From earth, the rumour of those golden hooves Far, far above them. Yes, you know the kind, The fools that scorn Will for his lack of fire Because he quells the storms they never knew, And rides above the thunder; fools of Art That skip and vex, like little vicious fleas, Their only Helicon, some green madam's breast.
Art! Art! O, G.o.d, that I could send my soul, In one last wave, from that night-hidden wreck, Across the sh.o.r.es of all the years to be; O, G.o.d, that like a crowder I might shake Their blind dark cas.e.m.e.nts with the pity of it, Piers Penniless his ballad, a poor sc.r.a.p, 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 bestowed For loftier airs than this!
The sun-like eyes whose light and life Had 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 G.o.d had set apart, The n.o.blest wine of all, Wine of the grapes that angels trod, The vintage of the glory of G.o.d, The crimson wine of that rich heart, Spilt in a drunken brawl,
Poured out to make a steaming bath That night in the Devil's Inn, A steaming bath of living wine Poured out for Circe and her swine, A bath of blood for a harlot To supple and sleek her skin.
And many a fool that finds it sweet Through 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 outs.h.i.+ne the soul Of 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'-Lent That 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 Marlowe The man, the king of men?
Pa.s.sion? You kiss the painted mouth, The hand that clipped his wings, The hand that into his heart she thrust And tuned him to her whimpering l.u.s.t, And played upon his quivering youth As a crowder plucks the strings.