Collected Poems: Volume Two

by Alfred Noyes

Pale in the dawn, ere he marched on his adventure,
Starving for a crust, did he kneel a-while again,
Then, upon the fourth night, he cried, O, like a wounded bird
"Let me die, if die I must, in Red Rose Lane."

Like a little wounded bird he trailed through the darkness,
Laid him on a door-step, and then—O, like a breath
Pitifully blowing out his life's little rushlight,
Came a gush of blackness, a swoon deep as death.

Then he heard a rough voice! Then he saw a lanthorn!
Then he saw a bearded face, and blindly wondered whose:
Then—a marchaunt's portly legs, with great Rose-Windows,
Bigger than St. Paul's, he thought, embroidered on his shoes.

"Alice!" roared the voice, and then, O like a lilied angel,
Leaning from the lighted door a fair face afraid,
Leaning over Red Rose Lane, O, leaning out of Paradise,
Drooped the sudden glory of his green-gowned maid!

* * * *

"O, mellow be thy malmsey," grunted Ben,
Filling the Clerk another cup. "The peal,"
Quoth Clopton, "is not ended; but the pause
In ringing, chimes to a deep inward ear
And tells its own deep tale. Silence and sound,
Darkness and light, mourning and mirth,—no tale,
No painting, and no music, nay, no world,
If God should cut their fruitful marriage-knot.
A shallow sort to-day would fain deny
A hell, sirs, to this boundless universe.
To such I say 'no hell, no Paradise!'
Others would fain deny the topless towers
Of heaven, and make this earth a hell indeed.
To such I say, 'the unplumbed gulfs of grief
Are only theirs for whom the blissful chimes
Ring from those unseen heights.' This earth, mid-way,
Hangs like a belfry where the ringers grasp
Their ropes in darkness, each in his own place,
Each knowing, by the tune in his own heart,
Never by sight, when he must toss through heaven
The tone of his own bell. Those bounded souls
Have never heard our chimes! Why, sirs, myself
Simply by running up and down the scale
Descend to hell or soar to heaven. My bells
Height above height, deep below deep, respond!
Their scale is infinite. Dare I, for one breath,
Dream that one note hath crowned and ended all,
Sudden I hear, far, far above those clouds,
Like laughing angels, peal on golden peal,
Innumerable as drops of April rain,
Yet every note distinct, round as a pearl,
And perfect in its place, a chime of law,
Whose pure and boundless mere arithmetic
Climbs with my soul to God."
Ben looked at him,
Gently. "Resume, old moralist," he said.
"On to thy marriage-bells!"
"The fairy-tales
Are wiser than they know, sirs. All our woes
Lead on to those celestial marriage-bells.
The world's a-wooing; and the pure City of God
Peals for the wedding of our joy and pain! This was well seen of Richard Whittington;
For only he that finds the London streets
Paved with red flints, at last shall find them paved
Like to the Perfect City, with pure gold.
Ye know the world! what was a London waif
To Hugh Fitzwarren's daughter? He was fed
And harboured; and the cook declared she lacked
A scullion. So, in Hugh Fitzwarren's house,
He turned the jack, and scoured the dripping-pan.
How could he hope for more?
This marchaunt's house
Was builded like a great high-gabled inn,
Square, with a galleried courtyard, such as now
The players use. Its rooms were rich and dim
With deep-set coloured panes and massy beams.
Its ancient eaves jutted o'er Red Rose Lane
Darkly, like eyebrows of a mage asleep.
Its oaken stair coiled upward through a dusk
Heavy with fume of scented woods that burned
To keep the Plague away,—a gloom to embalm
A Pharaoh, but to dull the cheek and eye
Of country lads like Whittington.
He pined
For wind and sunlight. Yet he plied his task
Patient as in old tales of Elfin-land,
The young knight would unhelm his golden locks
And play the scullion, so that he might watch
His lady's eyes unknown, and oftener hear
Her brook-like laughter rippling overhead;
Her green gown, like the breath of Eden boughs,
Rustling nigh him. And all day long he found
Sunshine enough in this. But when at night
He crept into the low dark vaulted den,
The cobwebbed cellar, where the cook had strewn
The scullion's bed of straw (and none too thick
Lest he should sleep too long), he choked for breath;
And, like an old man hoarding up his life,
Fostered his glimmering rushlight as he sate
Bolt upright, while a horrible scurry heaved
His rustling bed, and bright black-beaded eyes
Peered at him from the crannies of the wall. Then darkness whelmed him, and perchance he slept,—
Only to fight with nightmares and to fly
Down endless tunnels in a ghastly dream,
Hunted by horrible human souls that took
The shape of monstrous rats, great chattering snouts,
Vile shapes of shadowy cunning and grey greed,
That gnaw through beams, and undermine tall towns,
And carry the seeds of plague and ruin and death
Under the careless homes of sleeping men.
Thus, in the darkness, did he wage a war
With all the powers of darkness. 'If the light
Do break upon me, by the grace of God,'
So did he vow, 'O, then will I remember,
Then, then, will I remember, ay, and help
To build that lovelier City which is paved
For rich and poor alike, with purest gold.'

Ah, sirs, he kept his vow. Ye will not smile
If, at the first, the best that he could do
Was with his first poor penny-piece to buy
A cat, and bring her home, under his coat
By stealth (or else that termagant, the cook,
Had drowned it in the water-butt, nor deemed
The water worse to drink). So did he quell
First his own plague, but bettered others, too.
Now, in those days, Marchaunt Adventurers
Shared with their prentices the happy chance
Of each new venture. Each might have his stake,
Little or great, upon the glowing tides
Of high romance that washed the wharfs of Thames;
And every lad in London had his groat
Or splendid shilling on some fair ship at sea.

So, on an April eve, Fitzwarren called
His prentices together; for, ere long,
The Unicorn, his tall new ship, must sail
Beyond the world to gather gorgeous webs
From Eastern looms, great miracles of silk
Dipt in the dawn by wizard hands of Ind;
Or, if they chanced upon that fabled coast
Where Sydon, river of jewels, like a snake Slides down the gorge its coils of crimson fire,
Perchance a richer cargo,—rubies, pearls,
Or gold bars from the Gates of Paradise.
And many a moon, at least, a faërie foam
Would lap Blackfriars wharf, where London lads
Gazed in the sunset down that misty reach
For old black battered hulks and tattered sails
Bringing their dreams home from the uncharted sea.

And one flung down a groat—he had no more.
One staked a shilling, one a good French crown;
And one an angel, O, light-winged enough
To reach Cathay; and not a lad but bought
His pennyworth of wonder,
So they thought,
Till all at once Fitzwarren's daughter cried
'Father, you have forgot poor Whittington!'
"Snails,' laughed the rosy marchaunt, 'but that's true!
Fetch Whittington! The lad must stake his groat!
'Twill bring us luck!'
'Whittington! Whittington!'
Down the dark stair, like a gold-headed bird,
Fluttered sweet Alice. 'Whittington! Richard! Quick!
Quick with your groat now for the Unicorn!'

'A groat!' cried Whittington, standing there aghast,
With brown bare arms, still coloured by the sun,
Among his pots and pans. 'Where should I find
A groat? I staked my last groat in a cat!'
—'What! Have you nothing? Nothing but a cat?
Then stake the cat,' she said; and the quick fire
That in a woman's mind out-runs the thought
Of man, lit her grey eyes.
Whittington laughed
And opened the cellar-door. Out sailed his wealth,
Waving its tail, purring, and rubbing its head
Now on his boots, now on the dainty shoe
Of Alice, who straightway, deaf to his laughing prayers,
Caught up the cat, whispered it, hugged it close,
Against its grey fur leaned her glowing cheek,
And carried it off in triumph.