Collected Poems: Volume Two

by Alfred Noyes

Stukeley looked at her.
She whispered something, and his lewd old eyes
Fastened upon her own. He knelt by her.
'Perhaps,' he said, 'your woman's wit has found
A better way to solve this bitter business.'
Her head moved on the pillow with little tossings.
He touched her hand. It leapt quickly away.
She hugged that strange white bundle to her breast,
And writhed back, smiling at him, across the bed.

'Ah, Bess,' he whispered huskily, pressing his lips
To that warm hollow where her head had lain,
'There is one way to close the long dispute,
Keep the estates unbroken in your hands
And stop all slanderous tongues, one happy way.
We have some years to live; and why alone?'
'Alone?' she sighed. 'My husband thought of that.
He wrote a letter to me long ago,
When he was first condemned. He said—he said—
Now let me think—what was it that he said?—
I had it all by heart. "Beseech you, Bess,
Hide not yourself for many days", he said.'
'True wisdom that,' quoth Stukeley, 'for the love
That seeks to chain the living to the dead
Is but self-love at best!'

'And yet,' she said,
'How his poor heart was torn between two cares,
Love of himself and care for me, as thus:

Love God! Begin to repose yourself on Him!
Therein you shall find true and lasting riches;
But all the rest is nothing. When you have tired
Your thoughts on earthly things, when you have travelled
Through all the glittering pomps of this proud world
You shall sit down by Sorrow in the end.
Begin betimes, and teach your little son
To serve and fear God also.
Then God will be a husband unto you,
And unto him a father; nor can Death
Bereave you any more. When I am gone,
No doubt you shall be sought unto by many
For the world thinks that I was very rich.
No greater misery can befall you, Bess,
Than to become a prey, and, afterwards,
To be despised.'

'Human enough,' said Stukeley,
'And yet—self-love, self-love!'

'Ah no,' quoth she,
'You have not heard the end: God knows, I speak it
Not to dissuade you—not to dissuade you, mark—
From marriage. That will be the best for you,
Both in respect of God and of the world.
Was that self-love, Sir Lewis? Ah, not all.
And thus he ended: For his father's sake
That chose and loved you in his happiest times,
Remember your poor child! The Everlasting,
Infinite, powerful, and inscrutable God,
Keep you and yours, have mercy upon me,
And teach me to forgive my false accusers—
Wrong, even in death, you see. Then—My true wife,
Farewell!
Bless my poor boy! Pray for me! My true God,
Hold you both in His arms, both in His arms!
I know that he was wrong. You did not know,
Sir Lewis, that he had left me a little child.
Come closer. You shall see its orphaned face,
The sad, sad relict of a man that loved
His country—all that's left to me. Come, look!'
She beckoned Stukeley nearer. He bent down
Curiously. Her feverish fingers drew

The white wrap from the bundle in her arms,
And, with a smile that would make angels weep,
She showed him, pressed against her naked breast,
Terrible as Medusa, the grey flesh
And shrivelled face, embalmed, the thing that dropped
Into the headsman's basket, months agone,—
The head of Raleigh.
Half her body lay
Bare, while she held that grey babe to her heart;
But Judas hid his face....
'Living,' she said, 'he was not always mine;
But—dead—I shall not wean him'—
Then, I too
Covered my face—I cannot tell you more.
There was a dreadful silence in that room,
Silence that, as I know, shattered the brain
Of Stukeley.—When I dared to raise my head
Beneath that silent thunder of our God,
The man had gone—
This is his letter, sirs,
Written from Lundy Island: "For God's love,
Tell them it is a cruel thing to say
That I drink blood. I have no secret sin.
A thousand pound is not so great a sum;
And that is all they paid me, every penny.
Salt water, that is all the drink I taste
On this rough island. Somebody has taught
The sea-gulls how to wail around my hut
All night, like lost souls. And there is a face,
A dead man's face that laughs in every storm,
And sleeps in every pool along the coast.
I thought it was my own, once. But I know
These actions never, never, on God's earth,
Will turn out to their credit, who believe
That I drink blood."
He crumpled up the letter
And tossed it into the fire.
"Galen," said Ben,
"I think you are right—that one should pity villains."

* * * *

The clock struck twelve. The bells began to peal.
We drank a cup of sack to the New Year.
"New songs, new voices, all as fresh as may,"
Said Ben to Brome, "but I shall never live
To hear them."

All was not so well, indeed,
With Ben, as hitherto. Age had come upon him.
He dragged one foot as in paralysis.
The critics bayed against the old lion, now,
And called him arrogant. "My brain," he said,
"Is yet unhurt although, set round with pain,
It cannot long hold out." He never stooped,
Never once pandered to that brainless hour.
His coat was thread-bare. Weeks had passed of late
Without his voice resounding in our inn.