Collected Poems: Volume One

by Alfred Noyes

IV

The warm red-meal-winged butterfly,—
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?—
Beat on her breast in the golden rye,—
Je vous en prie, pity me,—
Stained her breast with a dusty dye
Red as the print of a kiss might be!
N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?

V

Is there no land, afar or nigh—
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?—
But dreads the kiss o' the sea? Ah, why—
Je vous en prie, pity me!— Why will ye cling to the loves that die?
Is earth all Adon to my plea?
N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?

VI

Under the warm blue summer sky,—
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?
With outstretched arms and a low long sigh,—
Je vous en prie, pity me;—
Over the Channel they saw her fly
To the white-cliffed island that crowns the sea,
N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?

VII

England laughed as her queen drew nigh,—
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?
To the white-walled cottages gleaming high,
Je vous en prie, pity me!
They drew her in with a joyful cry
To the hearth where she sits with a babe on her knee,
She has turned her moan to a lullaby.
She is nursing a son to the kings of the sea,
N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?

Such memories, on the plunging Golden Hynde,
Under the stars, Drake drew before his friend,
Clomb for a moment to that peak of vision,
That purple peak of Darien, laughing aloud
O'er those wild exploits down to Rio Grande
Which even now had made his fierce renown
Terrible to all lonely ships of Spain.
E'en now, indeed, that poet of Portugal,
Lope de Vega, filled with this new fear
Began to meditate his epic muse
Till, like a cry of panic from his lips,
He shrilled the faint Dragontea forth, wherein
Drake is that Dragon of the Apocalypse,
The dread Antagonist of God and Man.

Well had it been for Doughty on that night
Had he not heard what followed; for, indeed,
When two minds clash, not often does the less
Conquer the greater; but, without one thought
Of evil, seeing they now were safe at sea,
Drake told him, only somewhat, yet too much,
Of that close conference with the Queen. And lo,
The face of Doughty blanched with a slow thought
That crept like a cold worm through all his brain,
"Thus much I knew, though secretly, before;
But here he freely tells me as his friend;
If I be false and he be what they say,
His knowledge of my knowledge will mean death."
But Drake looked round at Doughty with a smile
And said, "Forgive me now: thou art not used
To these cold nights at sea! thou tremblest, friend;
Let us go down and drink a cup of sack
To our return!" And at that kindly smile
Doughty shook off his nightmare mood, and thought,
"The yard-arm is for dogs, not gentlemen!
Even Drake would not misuse a man of birth!"
And in the cabin of the Golden Hynde
Revolving subtle treacheries he sat.
There with the sugared phrases of the court
Bartering beads for gold, he drew out all
The simple Devon seaman's inmost heart,
And coiled up in the soul of Francis Drake.
There in the solemn night they interchanged
Lies for sweet confidences. From one wall
The picture of Drake's love looked down on him;
And, like a bashful schoolboy's, that bronzed face
Flushed as he blurted out with brightening eyes
And quickening breath how he had seen her first,
Crowned on the village green, a Queen of May.
Her name, too, was Elizabeth, he said,
As if it proved that she, too, was a queen,
Though crowned with milk-white Devon may alone,
And queen but of one plot of meadow-sweet.
As yet, he said, he had only kissed her hand,
Smiled in her eyes and—there Drake also flinched,
Thinking, "I ne'er may see her face again."