Volume II Part 99 (1/2)

I mistook The avenger for the victim. There she lay Panting, that night, her eyes like summer stars Her pale gold hair upon the pillows tossed Dishevelled, while the fever in her face Brought back the lost wild roses of her youth For half an hour. Against a breast as pure And smooth as any maid's, her soft arms pressed A bundle wrapped in a white embroidered cloth.

She crooned over it as a mother croons Over her suckling child. I stood beside her.

--That was her wish, and mine, while Stukeley stayed.-- And, over against me, on the other side, Stood Stukeley, gnawing his nether lip to find She could not, or she would not, speak one word In answer to his letter.

'Lady Raleigh, You wrong me, and you wrong yourself,' he cried, 'To play like a green girl when great affairs Are laid before you. Let me speak with you Alone.'

'But I am all alone,' she said, 'Far more alone than I have ever been In all my life before. This is my doctor.

He must not leave me.'

Then she lured him on, Played on his brain as a musician plays Upon the lute.

'Forgive me, dear Sir Lewis, If I am grown too gay for widowhood.

But I have pondered for a long, long time On all these matters. I know the world was right; And Spain was right, Sir Lewis. Yes, and you, You too, were right; and my poor husband wrong.

You see I knew his mind so very well.

I knew his every gesture, every smile.

I lived with him. I think I died with him.

It is a strange thing, marriage. For my soul (As if myself were present in this flesh) Beside him, slept in his grey prison-cell On that last dreadful dawn. I heard the throng Murmuring round the scaffold far away; And, with the smell of sawdust in my nostrils, I woke, bewildered as himself, to see That tall black-ca.s.socked figure by his bed.

I heard the words that made him understand: _The Body of our Lord--take and eat this!_ I rolled the small sour flakes beneath my tongue With him. I caught, with him, the gleam of tears, Far off, on some strange face of sickly dread.

_The Blood_--and the cold cup was in my hand, Cold as an axe-heft washed with waterish red.

I heard his last poor cry to wife and child.-- Could any that heard forget it?--_My true G.o.d, Hold you both in His arms, both in His arms._ And then--that last poor wish, a thing to raise A smile in some. I have smiled at it myself A thousand times.

”_Give me my pipe_,” he said, ”_My old Winchester clay, with the long stem, And half an hour alone. The crowd can wait.

They have not waited half so long as I._”

And then, O then, I know what soft blue clouds, What wavering rings, fragrant ascending wreaths Melted his prison walls to a summer haze, Through which I think he saw the little port Of Budleigh Salterton, like a sea-bird's nest Among the Devon cliffs--the tarry quay Whence in his boyhood he had flung a line For ba.s.s or whiting-pollock. I remembered (Had he not told me, on some summer night, His arm about my neck, kissing my hair) He used to sit there, gazing out to sea; Fish, and for what? Not all for what he caught And handled; but for rainbow-coloured things, The water-drops that jewelled his thin line, Flotsam and jetsam of the sunset-clouds; While the green water, gurgling through the piles, Heaving and sinking, helped him to believe The fast-bound quay a galleon plunging out Superbly for Cathay. There would he sit Listening, a radiant boy, child of the sea, Listening to some old seaman's glowing tales, His grey eyes rich with pictures--

Then he saw, And I with him, that gathering in the West, To break the Fleet Invincible. O, I heard The trumpets and the neighings and the drums.

I watched the beacons on a hundred hills.

I drank that wine of battle from _his_ cup, And gloried in it, lying against his heart.

I sailed with him and saw the unknown worlds!

The slender ivory towers of old Cathay Rose for us over lilac-coloured seas That crumbled a sky-blue foam on long sh.o.r.es Of s.h.i.+ning sand, sh.o.r.es of so clear a gla.s.s They drew the sunset-clouds into their bosom And hung that City of Vision in mid-air Girdling it round, as with a moat of sky, Hopelessly beautiful. O, yet I heard, Heard from his blazoned p.o.o.ps the trumpeters Blowing proud calls, while overhead the flag Of England floated from white towers of sail-- And yet, and yet, I knew that he was wrong, And soon he knew it, too.

I saw the cloud Of doubt a.s.sail him, in the b.l.o.o.d.y Tower, When, being withheld from sailing the high seas For sixteen years, he spread a prouder sail, Took up his pen, and, walled about with stone, Began to write--his _History of the World_.

And emperors came like Lazarus from the grave To wear his purple. And the night disgorged Its empires, till, O, like the swirl of dust Around their marching legions, that dim cloud Of doubt closed round him. Was there any man So sure of heart and brain as to record The simple truth of things himself had seen?

Then who could plumb that night? The work broke off!

He knew that he was wrong. I knew it, too!

Once more that stately structure of his dreams Melted like mist. His eagles perished like clouds.

Death wound a thin horn through the centuries.

The grave resumed his forlorn emperors.

His empires crumbled back to a little ash Knocked from his pipe.-- He dropped his pen in homage to the truth.

The truth? _O, eloquent, just and mighty Death!_

Then, when he forged, out of one golden thought, A key to open his prison; when the King Released him for a tale of faerie gold Under the tropic palms; when those grey walls Melted before his pa.s.sion; do you think The gold that lured the King was quite the same As that which Raleigh saw? You know the song:

”Say to the King,” quoth Raleigh, ”I have a tale to tell him; Wealth beyond derision, Veils to lift from the sky, Seas to sail for England, And a little dream to sell him, Gold, the gold of a vision That angels cannot buy.”

Ah, no! For all the beauty and the pride, Raleigh was wrong; but not so wrong, I think, As those for whom his kingdoms oversea Meant only glittering dust. The fight he waged Was not with them. They never worsted him.

It was _The Destiny_ that brought him home Without the Spanish gold.--O, he was wrong, But such a wrong, in Gloriana's day, Was more than right, was immortality.

He had just half an hour to put all this Into his pipe and smoke it,--

The red fire, The red heroic fire that filled his veins When the proud flag of England floated out Its challenge to the world--all gone to ash?

What! Was the great red wine that Drake had quaffed Vinegar? He must fawn, haul down his flag, And count all nations n.o.bler than his own, Tear out the lions from the painted s.h.i.+elds That hung his p.o.o.p, for fear that he offend The pride of Spain? Treason to sack the s.h.i.+ps Of Spain? The wounds of slaughtered Englishmen Cried out--_there is no law beyond the line!_ Treason to sweep the seas with Francis Drake?