CAN GRANDE'S CASTLE
BY
AMY LOWELL
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY AMY LOWELL
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1918
REPRINTED OCTOBER, 1918; MARCH, DECEMBER, 1919;
MARCH, 1922; DECEMBER, 1924; DECEMBER, 1925
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE * MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.
_I turn the page and read...
. . .
The heavy musty air, the black desks,
The bent heads and the rustling noises
In the great dome
Vanish...
And
The sun hangs in the cobalt-blue sky,
The boat drifts over the lake shallows,
The fishes skim like umber shades through the undulating weeds,
The oleanders drop their rosy petals on the lawns,
And the swallows dive and swirl and whistle
About the cleft battlements of Can Grande's castle..._"
Richard Aldington. "AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM."
PREFACE
The four poems in this book are more closely related to one another
than may at first appear. They all owe their existence to the war,
for I suppose that, had there been no war, I should never have
thought of them. They are scarcely war poems, in the strict sense of
the word, nor are they allegories in which the present is made to
masquerade as the past. Rather, they are the result of a vision
thrown suddenly back upon remote events to explain a strange and
terrible reality. "Explain" is hardly the word, for to explain the
subtle causes which force men, once in so often, to attempt to break
the civilization they have been at pains to rear, and so oblige
other, saner, men to oppose them, is scarcely the province of poetry.
Poetry works more deviously, but perhaps not less conclusively.
It has frequently been asserted that an artist lives apart, that he
must withdraw himself from events and be somehow above and beyond
them. To a certain degree this is true, as withdrawal is usually an
inherent quality of his nature, but to seek such a withdrawal is both
ridiculous and frustrating. For an artist to shut himself up in the
proverbial "ivory tower" and never look out of the window is merely a
tacit admission that it is his ancestors, not he, who possess the
faculty of creation. This is the real decadence: to see through the
eyes of dead men. Yet to-day can never be adequately expressed,
largely because we are a part of it and only a part. For that reason
one is flung backwards to a time which is not thrown out of
proportion by any personal experience, and which on that very account
lies extended in something like its proper perspective.
Circumstances beget an interest in like circumstances, and a poet,
suddenly finding himself in the midst of war, turns naturally to the
experiences of other men in other wars. He discovers something which
has always hitherto struck him as preposterous, that life goes on in
spite of war. That war itself is an expression of life, a barbaric
expression on one side calling for an heroic expression on the other.
It is as if a door in his brain crashed open and he looked into a
distance of which he had heard but never before seen. History has
become life, and he stands aghast and exhilarated before it.
That is why I have chosen Mr. Aldington's poem as a motto to this
book. For it is obvious that I cannot have experienced what I have
here written. I must have got it from books. But, living now, in
the midst of events greater than these, the books have become reality
to me in a way that they never could have become before, and the
stories I have dug out of dusty volumes seem as actual as my own
existence. I hope that a little of this vividness may have got into
the poems themselves, and so may reach my readers. Perhaps it has
been an impossible task, I can only say that I was compelled to
attempt it.
The poems are written in "polyphonic prose," a form which has proved
a stumbling-block to many people. "Polyphonic prose" is perhaps a
misleading title, as it tends to make the layman think that this is a
prose form. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The word
"prose" in its title simply refers to the manner in which the words
are printed; "polyphonic"--many-voiced--giving the real key.
"Polyphonic prose" is the freest, the most elastic, of all forms, for
it follows at will any, and all, of the rules which guide other
forms. Metrical verse has one set of laws, cadenced verse another;
"polyphonic prose" can go from one to the other in the same poem with
no sense of incongruity. Its only touchstone is the taste and
feeling of its author.
Yet, like all other artistic forms, it has certain fundamental
principles, and the chief of these is an insistence on the absolute
adequacy of the manner of a passage to the thought it embodies.
Taste is therefore its determining factor; taste and a rhythmic ear.
In the preface to "Sword Blades and Poppy Seed," I stated that I had
found the idea of the form in the works of the French poet, M. Paul
Fort. But in adapting it for use in English I was obliged to make so
many changes that it may now be considered as practically a new form.
The greatest of these changes was in the matter of rhythm. M. Fort's
practice consists, almost entirely, of regular verse passages
interspersed with regular prose passages. But a hint in one of his
poems led me to believe that a closer blending of the two types was
desirable, and here at the very outset I met with a difficulty.
Every form of art must have a base; to depart satisfactorily from a
rhythm it is first necessary to have it. M. Fort found this basic
rhythm in the alexandrine. But the rhythm of the alexandrine is not
one of the basic rhythms to an English ear. Altered from syllables
to accent, it becomes light, even frivolous, in texture. There
appeared to be only one basic rhythm for English serious verse:
iambic pentameter, which, either rhymed as in the "heroic couplet" or
unrhymed as in "blank verse," seems the chief foundation of English
metre. It is so heavy and so marked, however, that it is a difficult
rhythm to depart from and go back to; therefore I at once discarded
it for my purpose.
Putting aside one rhythm of English prosody after another, I finally
decided to base my form upon the long, flowing cadence of oratorical
prose. The variations permitted to this cadence enable the poet to
change the more readily into those of _vers libre_, or even to take
the regular beat of metre, should such a marked time seem advisable.
It is, of course, important that such changes should appear as not
only adequate but necessary when the poem is read aloud. And so I
have found it. However puzzled a reader may be in trying to
apprehend with the eye a prose which is certainly not prose, I have
never noticed that an audience experiences the slightest confusion in
hearing a "polyphonic prose" poem read aloud. I admit that the
typographical arrangement of this form is far from perfect, but I
have not as yet been able to hit upon a better. As all printing is a
mere matter of convention, however, I hope that people will soon
learn to read it with no more difficulty than a musician knows in
reading a musical score.
So much for the vexed question of rhythm. Others of the many voices
of "polyphonic prose" are rhyme, assonance, alliteration, and return.
Rhyme is employed to give a richness of effect, to heighten the
musical feeling of a passage, but it is employed in a different way
from that usual in metrical verse. For, although the poet may,
indeed must, employ rhyme, it is not done always, nor, for the most
part, regularly. In other words, the rhymes should seldom come at
the ends of the cadences, unless such an effect be especially
desired. This use of rhyme has been another difficulty to readers.
Seeing rhymes, their minds have been compelled by their seeming
strangeness to pull them, Jack-Horner-like, out of the text and
unduly notice them, to the detriment of the passage in which they are
embedded. Hearing them read without stress, they pass unobserved,
merely adding their quota of tonal colour to the whole.
Return in "polyphonic prose" is usually achieved by the recurrence of
a dominant thought or image, coming in irregularly and in varying
words, but still giving the spherical effect which I have frequently
spoken of as imperative in all poetry.
It will be seen, therefore, that "polyphonic prose" is, in a sense,
an orchestral form. Its tone is not merely single and melodic as is
that of _vers libre_, for instance, but contrapuntal and various. I
have analyzed it here with some care because, as all the poems in
this volume are written in it, some knowledge of how to approach it
is necessary if one is to understand them. I trust, however, that my
readers will speedily forget matters of technique on turning to the
poems themselves.
One thing more I wish to say in regard to "Guns as Keys: and the
Great Gate Swings." I should be exceedingly sorry if any part of
this poem were misunderstood, and so construed into an expression of
discourtesy toward Japan. No such idea entered my mind in writing
it; in fact, the Japanese sections in the first part were intended to
convey quite the opposite meaning. I wanted to place in
juxtaposition the delicacy and artistic clarity of Japan and the
artistic ignorance and gallant self-confidence of America. Of
course, each country must be supposed to have the faults of its
virtues; if, therefore, I have also opposed Oriental craft to
Occidental bluff, I must beg indulgence.
I have tried to give a picture of two races at a moment when they
were brought in contact for the first time. Which of them has gained
most by this meeting, it would be difficult to say. The two episodes
in the "Postlude" are facts, but they can hardly epitomize the whole
truth. Still they are striking, occurring as they did in the same
year. I owe the scene of the drowning of the young student in the
Kegon waterfall to the paper "Young Japan," by Seichi Naruse, which
appeared in the "Seven Arts" for April, 1917. The inscription on the
tree I have copied word for word from Mr. Naruse's translation, and I
wish here to express my thanks, not for his permission (as with a
perfect disregard of morals, I never asked it), but for his beautiful
rendering of the original Japanese. I trust that my appreciation
will exonerate my theft.
AMY LOWELL.
BROOKLINE, MASS.
MAY 24, 1918.
CONTENTS
Sea-Blue and Blood-Red
Guns as Keys: and the Great Gate Swings
Hedge Island
The Bronze Horses
Thanks are due to the editor of _The North American Review_ for
permission to reprint "Sea-Blue and Blood-Red" and "Hedge Island,"
and to the editor of _The Seven Arts_ for a like permission in regard
to "Guns as Keys: and the Great Gate Swings."
SEA-BLUE AND BLOOD-RED
I
THE MEDITERRANEAN
Blue as the tip of a salvia blossom, the inverted cup of the sky
arches over the sea. Up to meet it, in a flat band of glaring
colour, rises the water. The sky is unspecked by clouds, but the sea
is flecked with pink and white light shadows, and silver
scintillations snip-snap over the tops of the waves.
Something moves along the horizon. A puff of wind blowing up the
edges of the silver-blue sky? Clouds! Clouds! Great thunderheads
marching along the skyline! No, by Jove! The sun shining on sails!
Vessels, hull down, with only their tiers of canvas showing.
Beautiful ballooning thunderheads dipping one after another below the
blue band of the sea.
II
NAPLES
Red tiles, yellow stucco, layer on layer of windows, roofs, and
balconies, Naples pushes up the hill away from the curving bay. A
red, half-closed eye, Vesuvius watches and waits. All Naples prates
of this and that, and runs about its little business, shouting,
bawling, incessantly calling its wares. Fish frying, macaroni
drying, seven feet piles of red and white brocoli, grapes heaped high
with rosemary, sliced pomegranates dripping seeds, plucked and
bleeding chickens, figs on spits, lemons in baskets, melons cut and
quartered nicely, "_Ah, che bella cosa!_" They even sell water,
clear crystal water for a paul or two. And everything done to a
hullabaloo. They jabber over cheese, they chatter over wine, they
gabble at the corners in the bright sunshine. And piercing through
the noise is the beggar-whine, always, like an undertone, the
beggar-whine; and always the crimson, watching eye of Vesuvius.
Have you seen her--the Ambassadress? Ah, _Bellissima Creatura!_
_Una Donna Kara!_ She is fairer than the Blessed Virgin; and good!
Never was such a soul in such a body! The role of her benefactions
would stretch from here to Posilipo. And she loves the people, loves
to go among them and speak to this one and that, and her
apple-blossom face under the big blue hat works miracles like the
Holy Images in the Churches.
In her great house with the red marble stairway, Lady Hamilton holds
brilliant sway. From her boudoir windows she can see the bay, and on
the left, hanging there, a flame in a cresset, the blood-red glare of
Vesuvius staring at the clear blue air.
Blood-red on a night of stars, red like a wound, with lava scars. In
the round wall-mirrors of her boudoir, is the blackness of the bay,
the whiteness of a star, and the bleeding redness of the mountain's
core. Nothing more. All night long, in the mirrors, nothing more.
Black water, red stain, and above, a star with its silver rain.
Over the people, over the king, trip the little Ambassadorial feet;
fleet and light as a pigeon's wing, they brush over the artists, the
friars, the _abbés_, the Court. They bear her higher and higher at
each step. Up and over the hearts of Naples goes the beautiful Lady
Hamilton till she reaches even to the Queen; then rests in a
sheening, shimmering altitude, between earth and sky, high and
floating as the red crater of Vesuvius. Buoyed up and sustained in a
blood-red destiny, all on fire for the world to see.
Proud Lady Hamilton! Superb Lady Hamilton! Quivering, blood-swept,
vivid Lady Hamilton! Your vigour is enough to awake the dead, as you
tread the newly uncovered courtyards of Pompeii. There is a murmur
all over the opera house when you enter your box. And your frocks!
Jesu! What frocks! "India painting on wyte sattin!" And a new
camlet shawl, all sea-blue and blood-red, in an intricate pattern,
given by Sir William to help you do your marvellous "Attitudes."
Incomparable actress! No theatre built is big enough to compass you.
It takes a world; and centuries shall elbow each other aside to watch
you act your part. Art, Emma, or heart?
The blood-red cone of Vesuvius glows in the night.
She sings "_Luce Bella_," and Naples cries "_Brava! Ancora!_" and
claps its hands. She dances the tarantella, and poses before a
screen with the red-blue shawl. It is the frescoes of Pompeii
unfrozen; it is the fine-cut profiles of Sicilian coins; it is Apollo
Belvedere himself--Goethe has said it. She wears a Turkish dress,
and her face is sweet and lively as rippled water.
The lava-streams of Vesuvius descend as far as Portici. She climbs
the peak of fire at midnight--five miles of flame. A blood-red
mountain, seeping tears of blood. She skips over glowing ashes and
laughs at the pale, faded moon, wan in the light of the red-hot lava.
What a night! Spires and sparks of livid flame shooting into the
black sky. Blood-red smears of fire; blood-red gashes, flashing her
out against the smouldering mountain. A tossing fountain of
blood-red jets, it sets her hair flicking into the air like licking
flamelets of a burning aureole. Blood-red is everywhere. She wears
it as a halo and diadem. Emma, Emma Hamilton, Ambassadress of Great
Britain to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.
III
ABOUKIR BAY, EGYPT
North-north-west, and a whole-sail breeze, ruffling up the
larkspur-blue sea, breaking the tops of the waves into egg-white
foam, shoving ripple after ripple of pale jade-green over the shoals
of Aboukir Bay. Away to the East rolls in the sluggish water of old
Nile. West and South--hot, yellow land. Ships at anchor. Thirteen
ships flying the _tricolore_, and riding at ease in a patch of blue
water inside a jade-green hem. What of them? Ah, fine ships! The
_Orient_, one hundred and twenty guns, _Franklin_, _Tonnant_, each
with eighty. Weighty metal to float on a patch of blue with a green
hem. They ride stem to stern, in a long line, pointing the way to
Aboukir Bay.
To the North are thunderheads, ballooning silver-white thunderheads
rising up out of the horizon. The thunderheads draw steadily up into
the blue-blossomed sky. A topgallant breeze pushes them rapidly over
the white-specked water. One, two, six, ten, thirteen separate
tiered clouds, and the wind sings loud in their shrouds and spars.
The royals are furled, but the topgallantsails and topsails are full
and straining. Thirteen white thunderheads bearing down on Aboukir
Bay.
The Admiral is working the stump of his right arm; do not cross his
hawse, I advise you.
"Youngster to the mast-head. What! Going without your glass, and be
damned to you! Let me know what you see, immediately."
"The enemy fleet, Sir, at anchor in the bay."
"Bend on the signal to form in line of battle, Sir Ed'ard."
The bright wind straightens the signal pennants until they stand out
rigid like boards.
"Captain Hood reports eleven fathoms, Sir, and shall he bear up and
sound?"
"Signal Captain Hood to lead, sounding."
"By the mark ten! A quarter less nine! By the deep eight!"
Round to starboard swing the white thunderheads, the water of their
bows washing over the green jade hem. An orange sunset steams in the
shrouds, and glints upon the muzzles of the cannon in the open ports.
The hammocks are down; the guns run out and primed; beside each is a
pile of canister and grape; gunners are blowing on their matches;
snatches of fife music drift down to the lower decks. In the
cockpits, the surgeons are feeling the edges of knives and saws; men
think of their wives and swear softly, spitting on their hands.
"Let go that anchor! By God, she hangs!"
Past the _Guerrier_ slides the _Goliath_, but the anchor drops and
stops her on the inner quarter of the _Conquérant_. The _Zealous_
brings up on the bow of the _Guerrier_, the _Orion_, _Theseus_,
_Audacious_, are all come to, inside the French ships.
The _Vanguard_, Admiral's pennant flying, is lying outside the
_Spartiate_, distant only a pistol shot.
In a pattern like a country dance, each balanced justly by its
neighbour, lightly, with no apparent labour, the ships slip into
place, and lace a design of white sails and yellow yards on the
purple, flowing water. Almighty Providence, what a day!
Twenty-three ships in one small bay, and away to the Eastward, the
water of old Nile rolling sluggishly between its sand-bars.
Seven hundred and forty guns open fire on the French fleet. The sun
sinks into the purple-red water, its low, straight light playing gold
on the slaughter. Yellow fire, shot with red, in wheat sheafs from
the guns; and a racket and ripping which jerks the nerves, then
stuns, until another broadside crashes the ears alive again. The men
shine with soot and sweat, and slip in the blood which wets the deck.
The surgeons cut and cut, but men die steadily. It is heady work,
this firing into ships not fifty feet distant. Lilac and grey, the
heaving bay, slapped and torn by thousands of splashings of shot and
spars. Great red stars peer through the smoke, a mast is broke short
off at the lashings and falls overboard, with the rising moon
flashing in its top-hamper.
There is a rattle of musketry; pipe-clayed, red-coated marines swab,
and fire, and swab. A round shot finishes the job, and tears its way
out through splintering bulwarks. The roar of broadside after
broadside echoes from the shore in a long, hoarse humming. Drums
beat in little fire-cracker snappings, and a boatswain's whistle
wires, thin and sharp, through the din, and breaks short off against
the scream of a gun crew, cut to bits by a bursting cannon.
Three times they clear the _Vanguard's_ guns of a muck of corpses,
but each new crew comes on with a cheer and each discharge is a jeer
of derision.
The Admiral is hit. A flying sliver of iron has shivered his head
and opened it, the skin lies quivering over his one good eye. He
sees red, blood-red, and the roar of the guns sounds like water
running over stones. He has to be led below.
Eight bells, and the poop of the _Orient_ is on fire. "Higher, men,
train your guns a little higher. Don't give them a loophole to
scotch the flame. 'Tis their new fine paint they'll have to blame."
Yellow and red, waving tiger-lilies, the flames shoot up--round,
serrated petals, flung out of the black-and-silver cup of the bay.
Each stay is wound with a flickering fringe. The ropes curl up and
shrivel as though a twinge of pain withered them. Spasm after spasm
convulses the ship. A Clap!--A Crash!--A Boom!--and silence. The
ships have ceased firing.
Ten, twenty, forty seconds ...
Then a dash of water as masts and spars fall from an immense height,
and in the room of the floating, licking tiger-lily is a chasm of
yellow and red whirling eddies. The guns start firing again.
Foot after foot across the sky goes the moon, with her train of
swirling silver-blue stars.
The day is fair. In the clear Egyptian air, the water of Aboukir Bay
is as blue as the bottom flowers of a larkspur spray. The shoals are
green with a white metal sheen, and between its sand-bars the Nile
can be seen, slowly rolling out to sea.
The Admiral's head is bound up, and his eye is bloodshot and very
red, but he is sitting at his desk writing, for all that. Through
the stern windows is the blue of the sea, and reflections dance
waveringly on his paper. This is what he has written:
"VANGUARD. MOUTH OF THE NILE.
August 8th, 1798.
MY DEAR SIR--
Almighty God has made me the happy instrument in destroying the
enemy's fleet; which, I hope, will be a blessing to Europe... I hope
there will be no difficulty in our getting refitted at Naples...
Your most obliged and affectionate
HORATIO NELSON."
Dance, little reflections of blue water, dance, while there is yet
time.
IV
NAPLES
"Get out of the way, with your skewbald ass. Heu! Heu!" There is
scant room for the quality to pass up and down the whole Strada di
Toledo. Such a running to and fro! Such a clacking, and clapping,
and fleering, and cheering. Holy Mother of God, the town has gone
mad. Listen to the bells. They will crack the very doors of Heaven
with their jangling. The sky seems the hot half-hollow of a clanging
bell. I verily believe they will rock the steeples off their
foundations. Ding! _Dang!_ Dong! Jingle-Jingle! Clank! Clink!
Twitter! Tingle! Half Naples is hanging on the ropes, I vow it is
louder than when they crown the Pope. The lapis-lazuli pillars in
Jesus Church positively lurch with the noise; the carvings of Santa
Chiara are at swinging poise. In San Domenico Maggiore, the altar
quivers; Santa Maria del Carmine's chimes run like rivers tinkling
over stones; the big bell of the Cathedral hammers and drones. It is
gay to-day, with all the bells of Naples at play.
That's a fine equipage; those bays shine like satin. Why, it is the
British Ambassadress, and two British officers with her in the
carriage! Where is her hat? Tut, you fool, she doesn't need one,
she is wearing a ribbon like a Roman senator. Blue it is, and there
are gold letters: "Nelson and Victory." The woman is undoubtedly
mad, but it is a madness which kindles. "Viva Nelson! _Viva
Miladi!_" Half a hundred hats are flying in the air like kites, and
all the white handkerchiefs in Naples wave from the balconies.
Brava, Emma Hamilton, a fig for the laws of good taste, your heart
beats blood, not water. Let pale-livered ladies wave decorously; do
you drive the streets and tell the lazzaroni the good news. Proud
Lady Hamilton! Mad, whole-hearted Lady Hamilton! _Viva!_ _Viva
ancora!_ Wear your Nelson-anchor earrings for the sun to flash in;
cut a dash in your new blue shawl, spotted with these same anchors.
What if lily-tongued dandies dip their pens in gall to jeer at you,
your blood is alive. The red of it stains a bright band across the
pages of history. The others are ghosts, rotting in aged tombs.
Light your three thousand lamps, that your windows spark and twinkle
"Nelson" for all the world to see, and even the little wavelets of
the bay have a largess of gold petals dropped from his name. Rule,
Britannia, though she doesn't deserve it; it is all Nelson and the
Ambassadress, in the streets of Naples.
He has rooms at the Palazzo Sesso, the British Admiral, and all day
long he watches the red, half-closed eye of Vesuvius gazing down at
his riding ships. At night, there is a red plume over the mountain,
and the light of it fills the room with a crimson glow, it might be a
gala lit for him. His eyes swim. In the open sky hangs a
steel-white star, and a bar of silver cuts through the red
reflections of the mirrors. Red and silver, for the bay is not blue
at night.
"Oh brave Nelson, oh God bless and protect our brave deliverer, oh,
Nelson, Nelson, what do we not owe to you." Sea-blue, the warp; but
the thread of the woof is bolted red. Fiddlers and dinners--Well, or
Hell! as the case may be. Queens, populace--these are things, like
guns, to face. Rostral Columns and birthday fêtes jar the nerves of
a wounded head; it is better in bed, in the rosy gloom of a plume-lit
room.
So the Admiral rests in the Palazzo Sesso, the guest of his
Ambassador, and his ships ride at anchor under the flaming mountain.
The shuttle shoots, the shuttle weaves. The red thread to the blue
thread cleaves. The web is plaiting which nothing unreaves.
The Admiral buys the Ambassadress a table, a pleasant tribute to
hospitality. It is of satin-wood, sprinkled over with little flying
loves arrayed in pink and blue sashes. They sit at this table for
hours, he and she, discussing the destiny of the Kingdom of the Two
Sicilies, and her voice is like water tinkling over stones, and her
face is like the same water twinkling in shallows.
She counts his money for him, and laughs at his inability to reduce
carotins to English sixpences. She drives him out to Caserta to see
the Queen, and parades him on the Chiaia to delight the common
people. She is always before him, a mist of rose and silver, a
damask irradiation, shading and lighting like a palpitant gem.
In the evenings, by the light of two wax candles, the Admiral writes
kind acknowledgements to the tributes of half a world. Moslem and
Christian sweetly united to stamp out liberty. It is an inspiring
sight to see. Rule Britannia indeed, with Slavs and Turks boosting
up her footstool. The Sultan has sent a Special Envoy bearing gifts:
the _Chelenck_--"Plume of Triumph," all in diamonds, and a pelisse of
sables, just as bonds of his eternal gratitude. "_Viva il Turco!_"
says Lady Hamilton. The Mother of His Sultanic Majesty begs that the
Admiral's pocket may be the repository of a diamond-studded box to
hold his snuff. The Russian Tzar, a bit self-centred as most
monarchs are, sends him his portrait, diamond-framed of course. The
King of Sardinia glosses over his fewer gems by the richness of his
compliments. The East India Company, secure of its trade, has paid
him ten thousand pounds. The Turkish Company has given him plate. A
grateful country augments his state by creating him the smallest kind
of peer, with a couple of tuppences a year, and veneering it over by
a grant of arms. Arms for an arm, but what for an eye! Does the
Admiral smile as he writes his reply? Writes with his left hand that
he is aware of the high honour it will be to bear this shield: "A
chief undulated argent, from which a palm-tree issuant, between a
disabled ship on the dexter, and a ruinous battery on the sinister,
all proper." "Very proper, indeed," nods Sir William, but Lady
Hamilton prods the coloured paper shield a trifle scornfully. "If I
was King of England, I would make you Duke Nelson, Marquis Nile, Earl
Aboukir, Viscount Pyramid, Baron Crocodile and Prince Victory." "My
dear Emma, what a child you are," says Sir William, but the Admiral
looks out of the window at the blood-red mountain and says nothing at
all.
Something shakes Naples. Shakes so violently that it makes the
candles on the Admiral's writing-table flicker. Earthquakes,
perhaps. Aye, earthquakes, but not from the red, plumed mountain.
The dreadful tread of marching men is rocking the Bourbon Kingdom of
the Two Sicilies, and the fanfare of Republican trumpets blows over
the city like a great wind. It swirls the dust of Monarchy in front
of it, across Naples and out over the Chiaia to the sea.
The Admiral walks his quarter-deck with the blue bay beneath him, but
his eyes are red with the glare of Vesuvius, and the blood beats in
and out of his heart so rapidly that he is almost stifled. All
Naples is red to the Admiral, but the core of crimson is the Palazzo
Sesso, in whose windows, at night, the silver stars flash so
brightly. "Crimson and silver," thinks the Admiral, "O Emma, Emma
Hamilton!"
It is December now, and Naples is heaving and shuddering with the
force of the Earth shock. There is no firm ground on which to stand.
Beneath the Queen's footsteps is a rocking jelly. Even the water of
the bay boils and churns and knocks loudly against the wooden sides
of the British ships.
Over the satin-wood table, the Admiral and the Ambassadress sit in
consultation, and red fire flares between them across its polished
surface. "My adorable, unfortunate Queen! Dear, dear Queen!" Lady
Hamilton's eyes are carbuncles burning into the Admiral's soul. He
is dazzled, confused, used to the glare on blue water he thinks he
sees it now. It is Duty and Kings. Caste versus riff-raff. The
roast-beef of old England against fried frogs' legs.
Red, blood-red, figures the weaving pattern, red blushing over blue,
flushing the fabric purple, like lees of wine.
A blustering night to go to a party. But the coach is ready, and
Lord Nelson is arrived from his ship. Official persons cannot give
the slip to other official persons, and it is Kelim Effendi who gives
the reception, the Sultan's Special Envoy. "Wait," to the coachman;
then lights, jewels, sword-clickings, compliments, a promenade round
the rooms, bowing, and a quick, unwatched exit from a side door.
Someone will wake the snoring coachman hours hence and send him away.
But it will not be his Master or Mistress. These hurry through dark,
windy streets to the Molesiglio. How the waves flow by in the
darkness! "A heavy ground-swell," says the Admiral, but there is a
lull in the wind. A password in English--we are all very English
to-night. "Can you find your way, Emma?" Sir William is perturbed.
But the Ambassadress is gone, gone lightly, swiftly, up the dark mole
and disappeared through a postern in the wall. She is aflame,
scorching with red and gold fires, a torch of scarlet and ochre, a
meteor of sulphur and chrome dashed with vermilion.
There are massacres in the streets of Naples; in the Palace, a
cowering Queen. This is melodrama, and Emma is the Princess of Opera
Bouffe. Opera Bouffe, with Death as Pulchinello. Ho! Ho! You
laugh. A merry fellow, and how if Death had you by the gizzard?
Comedy and Tragedy shift masks, but Emma is intent on her task and
sees neither. Frightened, vacillating monarchs to guide down a
twisting stair; but there is Nelson climbing up. And there are
lanterns, cutlasses, pistols, and, at last, the night air, black
slapping water, and boats.
They are afloat, off the trembling, quivering soil of Naples, and
their way is lit by a blood-red glimmer from the tossing fires of
Vesuvius.
V
PALERMO, ET AL.
Storm-tossed water, and an island set in a sea as blue as the bottom
flowers of a spike of larkspur, come upon out of a hurly-burly of
wind, and rain, and jagged waves. Through it all has walked the
Ambassadress like some starry saint, pouring mercy out of full hands.
The Admiral sees her misted with rose and purple, radiating comfort
in a phosphoric glow. Is it wise to light one's life with an
iridescence? Perhaps not, but the bolt is shot.
The stuff is weaving. Now one thread is uppermost, now another,
making striæ of reds and blues, or clouding colour over colour.
There are lemon groves, and cool stars, and love flooding beneath
them. There are slanting decks, and full sails, and telescopes,
wearying to a one-eyed man. Then a span of sunlight under pink
oleanders; and evenings beneath painted ceilings, surrounded by the
hum of a court.
Naples again, with cannon blazing. A haze of orders, documents,
pardons, and a hanging. Palermo, and Dukedoms and "_Nostro
Liberatore_." One cannot see everything with one eye. Flight is
possible, but misted vision shows strange shapes. It is Opera
Bouffe, with Tragedy in the front row. Downing Street hints reproof,
mentions stories of gaming-tables and high piles of gold. What
nonsense to talk of a duel! Sir William and the Admiral live like
brothers. But they will not be silent, those others. "Poor Lady
Nelson, what will she do?" Still it is true that the lady in
question is a bit of a shrew.
Blood beats back and forth under the lemon groves, proving itself a
right of way. "I worship, nay, adore you, and if you was single, and
I found you under a hedge, I would instantly marry you. Santa Emma!
As truly as I believe in God, do I believe you are a saint." If the
lady is a saint and he her acolyte, it is by a Divine right. These
are the ways of Heaven; the Admiral prays and knows himself forgiven
and absolved.
Revolve slowly, shuttle of the blue thread, red is a strong colour
under Sicilian skies.
VI
LEGHORN TO LONDON
A court, an Ambassador, and a great Admiral, in travelling carriages
rolling over the map of Europe. Straining up hills, bowling along
levels, rolling down slopes, and all to the tune of "Hip! Hip!
Hurrah!" From Leghorn to Florence, to Ancona, to Trieste, is one
long _Festa_. Every steeple sways with clashing bells, and people
line the roads, yelling "_Viva Nelson! Hola! Hola! Viva
Inghilterra!_" Wherever they go, it is a triumphal progress and a
pinny-pinny-poppy-show. Whips crack, sparks fly, sails fill--another
section of the map is left behind. Carriages again, up hill and
down, from the seaboard straight into Austria.
Hip! Hip! Hip! The wheels roll into Vienna. Then what a to-do!
Concerts, Operas, Fireworks too. Dinners where one hundred six-foot
grenadiers do the waiting at table. Such grandiloquence! Such
splendid, regal magnificence! Trumpets and cannons, and Nelson's
health; the Jew wealth of Baron Arnstein, and the excellent wine of
his cellars. Haydn conducts an oratorio while the guests are playing
faro. Delightful city! What a pity one must leave! These are
rewards worthy of the Battle of the Nile. You smile. Tut! Tut!
Remember they are only foreigners; the true British breed writes home
scurvy letters for all London to read. Hip! Hip! God save the King!
For two months, the travelling carriages stand in the stables; but
horses are put to them at last, and they are off again. No Court
this time; but what is a fleeing Queen to a victorious Admiral! Up
hill, down dale, round and round roll the sparkling wheels, kicking
up all the big and little stones of Austria. "Huzza for the Victor
of Aboukir!" shouts the populace. The traces tighten, and the
carriages are gone. In and out of Prague roll the wheels, and across
the border into Germany.
Dresden at last, but an Electress turning her back on Lady Hamilton.
A stuffy state, with a fussy etiquette! Why distress oneself for
such a rebuff? Emma will get even with them yet. It is enough for
her to do her "Attitudes," and to perfection. And still--and still--
But Lady Hamilton has an iron will.
Proud Lady Hamilton! Blood-betrayed, hot-hearted Lady Hamilton! The
wheels roll out of Dresden, and Lady Hamilton looks at the Admiral.
"Oh, Nelson, Nelson." But the whips are cracking and one cannot hear.
Roll over Germany, wheels. Roll through Magdeburg, Lodwostz, Anhalt.
Roll up to the banks of the Elbe, and deposit your travellers in a
boat once more. Along the green shores of the green-and-brown river
to Hamburg, where merchants and bankers are waiting to honour the man
who has saved their gold. Huzza for Nelson, Saviour of Banks! Where
is the frigate a thankful country might have sent him? Not there.
Why did he come overland, forsooth? The Lion and the Unicorn are
uncouth beasts, but we do not mind in the least. No, indeed! We
take a packet and land at Yarmouth.
"Hip! Hip! Hip! God save the King! Long live Nelson, Britain's
Pride!" The common people are beside themselves with joy, there is
no alloy to their welcome. Before _The Wrestler's_ inn, troops are
paraded. And every road is arcaded with flags and flowers. "He is
ours! Hip! Hip! Nelson!" Cavalcades of volunteer cavalry march
before him. Two days to London, and every road bordered with smiling
faces. They cannot go faster than a footpace because the carriage is
drawn by men. Muskets pop, and every shop in every town is a flutter
of bunting.
Red, Lady Hamilton, red welcome for your Admiral. Red over foggy
London. Bow bells peeling, and the crowded streets reeling through
fast tears. Years, Emma, and Naples covered by their ashes.
Blood-red, his heart flashes to hers, but the great city of London is
blurred to both of them.
VII
MERTON
Early Autumn, and a light breeze rustling through the trees of
Paradise Merton, and pashing the ripples of the Little Nile against
the sides of the arched stone bridge. It is ten o'clock, and through
the blowing leaves, the lighted windows of the house twinkle like
red, pulsing stars. Far down the road is a jingle of harness, and a
crunching of wheels. Out of the darkness flare the lamps of a
post-chaise, blazing basilisk eyes, making the smooth sides of leaves
shine, as they approach, the darkness swallowing in behind them. A
rattle, a stamping of hoofs, and the chaise comes to a stand opposite
a wooden gate. It is not late, maybe a bit ahead of time. The
post-boy eases himself in the saddle, and loosens his reins. The
light from the red windows glitters in the varnished panels of the
chaise.
How tear himself away from so dear a home! Can he wrench himself
apart, can he pull his heart out of his body? Her face is pitiful
with tears. Two years gone, and only a fortnight returned. His head
hums with the rushing of his blood. "Wife in the sight of
Heaven"--surely one life between them now, and yet the summons has
come. Blue water is calling, the peaked seas beckon.
The Admiral kneels beside his child's bed, and prays. These are the
ways of the Almighty. "His will be done." Pathetic trust, thrusting
aside desire. The fire on the hearth is faint and glowing, and
throws long shadows across the room. How quiet it is, how far from
battles and crowning seas.
She strains him in her arms, she whispers, sobbing, "Dearest husband
of my heart, you are all the world to Emma." She delays his going by
minute and minute. "My Dearest and most Beloved, God protect you and
my dear Horatia and grant us a happy meeting. Amen! Amen!"
Tear, blue shuttle, through the impeding red, but have a care lest
the thread snap in following.
"God bless you, George. Take care of Lady Hamilton." He shakes his
brother-in-law by the hand. The chaise door bangs. The post-boy
flicks his whip, the horses start forward. Red windows through
flecking trees. Blood-red windows growing dimmer behind him, until
they are only a shimmer in the distance. His eyes smart, searching
for their faint glimmer through blowing trees. His eyes smart with
tears, and fears which seem to haunt him. All night he drives,
through Guildford, over Hindhead, on his way to Portsmouth.
VIII
AT SEA, OFF CAPE TRAFALGAR
Blue as the tip of a deep blue salvia blossom, the inverted cup of
the sky arches over the sea. Up to meet it, in a concave curve of
bright colour, rises the water, flat, unrippled, for the wind
scarcely stirs. How comes the sky so full of clouds on the horizon,
with none over head? Clouds! Great clouds of canvas! Mighty
ballooning clouds, bearing thunder and crinkled lightning in their
folds. They roll up out of the horizon, tiered, stately. Sixty-four
great thunder-clouds, more perhaps, throwing their shadows over ten
miles of sea.
Boats dash back and forth. Their ordered oars sparkling like silver
as they lift and fall. Frigate captains receiving instructions,
coming aboard the flagship, departing from it. Blue and white, with
a silver flashing of boats.
Thirty-three clouds headed South, twenty-three others converging upon
them! They move over the water as silently as the drifting air.
Lines to lines, drawing nearer on the faint impulse of the breeze.
Blue coated, flashing with stars, the Admiral walks up and down the
poop. Stars on his breast, in his eyes the white glare of the sea.
The enemy wears, looping end to end, and waits, poised in a
half-circle like a pale new moon upon the water. The British ships
point straight to the hollow between the horns, and even their
stu'nsails are set. Arrows flung at a crescent over smooth blue
water.
"Now, Blackwood, I am going to amuse the fleet with a signal. Mr.
Pasco, I wish to say to the fleet, 'England confides that every man
will do his duty.' You must be quick, for I have one more to make,
which is for close action."
"If your Lordship will permit me to substitute 'expects' for
'confides,' it will take less time, because 'expects' is in the
vocabulary and 'confides' must be spelt."
Flutter flags, fling out your message to the advancing arrows.
Ripple and fly over the Admiral's head. Signal flags are of all
colours, but the Admiral sees only the red. It beats above him,
outlined against the salvia-blue sky. A crimson blossom sprung from
his heart, the banner royal of his Destiny struck out sharply against
the blue of Heaven.
Frigate Captain Blackwood bids good-bye to the Admiral. "I trust, my
Lord, that on my return to the Victory, I shall find your Lordship
well and in possession of twenty prizes." A gash of blood-colour
cuts across the blue sky, or is it that the Admiral's eyes are tired
with the flashing of the sea? "God bless you, Blackwood, I shall
never speak to you again." What is it that haunts his mind? He is
blinded by red, blood-red fading to rose, smeared purple, blotted out
by blue. Larkspur sea and blue sky above it, with the flickering
flags of his signal standing out in cameo.
Boom! A shot passes through the main topgallantsail of the
_Victory_. The ship is under fire. Her guns cannot bear while she
is head on. Straight at the floating half-moon of ships goes the
_Victory_, leading her line, muffled in the choking smoke of the
_Bucentaure's_ guns. The sun is dimmed, but through the smoke-cloud
prick diamond sparkles from the Admiral's stars as he walks up and
down the quarter-deck.
Red glare of guns in the Admiral's eyes. Red stripe of marines drawn
up on the poop. Eight are carried off by a single shot, and the red
stripe liquefies, and seeps, lapping, down the gangway. Every
stu'nsail boom is shot away. The blue of the sea has vanished; there
is only the red of cannon, and the white twinkling sparks of the
Admiral's stars.
The bows of the _Victory_ cross the wake of the _Bucentaure_, and one
after another, as they bear, the double-shotted guns tear through the
woodwork of the French ship. The _Victory_ slips past like a
shooting shuttle, and runs on board the _Redoubtable_, seventy-four,
and their spars lock, with a shock which almost stops their headway.
It is a glorious Autumn day outside the puff-ball of smoke. A still,
blue sea, unruffled, banded to silver by a clear sun.
Guns of the _Victory_, guns of the _Redoubtable_, exploding
incessantly, making one long draw of sound. Rattling upon it, rain
on a tin roof, the pop-pop of muskets from the mizzen-top of the
_Redoubtable_. There are sharpshooters in the mizzen-top, aiming at
the fog below. Suddenly, through it, spears the gleam of diamonds;
it is the Admiral's stars, reflecting the flashes of the guns.
Red blood in a flood before his eyes. Red from horizon to zenith,
crushing down like beaten metal. The Admiral falls to his knees, to
his side, and lies there, and the crimson glare closes over him, a
cupped inexorable end. "They have done for me at last, Hardy. My
back-bone is shot through."
The blue thread is snapped and the bolt falls from the loom. Weave,
shuttle of the red thread. Weave over and under yourself in a
scarlet ecstasy. It is all red now he comes to die. Red, with the
white sparkles of those cursed stars.
Carry him gently down, and let no man know that it is the Admiral who
has fallen. He covers his face and his stars with his handkerchief.
The white glitter is quenched; the white glitter of his life will
shine no more. "Doctor, I am gone. I leave Lady Hamilton and my
daughter Horatia as a legacy to my Country." Pathetic trust,
thrusting aside knowledge. Flint, the men who sit in Parliament,
flint which no knocking can spark to fire. But you still believe in
men's goodness, knowing only your own heart. "Let my dear Lady
Hamilton have my hair, and all other things belonging to me."
The red darkens, and is filled with tossing fires. He sees Vesuvius,
and over it the single silver brilliance of a star.
"One would like to live a little longer, but thank God, I have done
my duty."
Slower, slower, passes the red thread and stops. The weaving is done.
In the log-book of the _Victory_, it is written: "Partial firing
continued until 4.30, when a victory having been reported to the
Right Honourable Lord Viscount Nelson, K.B., he died of his wound."
IX
CALAIS
It is a timber-yard, pungent with the smell of wood: Oak, Pine, and
Cedar. But under the piles of white boards, they say there are bones
rotting. An old guide to Calais speaks of a wooden marker shaped
like a battledoor, handle downwards, on the broad part of which was
scratched: "Emma Hamilton, England's Friend." It was a poor thing
and now even that has gone. Let us buy an oak chip for remembrance.
It will only cost a sou.
GUNS AS KEYS: AND THE GREAT GATE SWINGS
PART I
Due East, far West. Distant as the nests of the opposite winds.
Removed as fire and water are, as the clouds and the roots of the
hills, as the wills of youth and age. Let the key-guns be mounted,
make a brave show of waging war, and pry off the lid of Pandora's box
once more. Get in at any cost, and let out at little, so it seems,
but wait--wait--there is much to follow through the Great Gate!
They do not see things in quite that way, on this bright November
day, with sun flashing, and waves splashing, up and down Chesapeake
Bay. On shore, all the papers are running to press with huge
headlines: "Commodore Perry Sails." Dining-tables buzz with
travellers' tales of old Japan culled from Dutch writers. But we are
not like the Dutch. No shutting the stars and stripes up on an
island. Pooh! We must trade wherever we have a mind. Naturally!
The wharves of Norfolk are falling behind, becoming smaller, confused
with the warehouses and the trees. On the impetus of the strong
South breeze, the paddle-wheel steam frigate, _Mississippi_, of the
United States Navy, sails down the flashing bay. Sails away, and
steams away, for her furnaces are burning, and her paddle-wheels
turning, and all her sails are set and full. Pull, men, to the old
chorus:
"A Yankee ship sails down the river,
Blow, boys, blow;
Her masts and spars they shine like silver,
Blow, my bully boys, blow."
But what is the use? That plaguy brass band blares out with "The
Star Spangled Banner," and you cannot hear the men because of it.
Which is a pity, thinks the Commodore, in his cabin, studying the
map, and marking stepping-stones: Madeira, Cape Town, Mauritius,
Singapore, nice firm stepping-places for seven-league boots.
Flag-stones up and down a hemisphere.
My! How she throws the water off from her bows, and how those
paddle-wheels churn her along at the rate of seven good knots! You
are a proud lady, Mrs. _Mississippi_, curtseying down Chesapeake Bay,
all a-flutter with red white and blue ribbons.