Kit was not clever. Clever men--like Pomp-- Might jest. And fools might laugh. But when a man, Simple as all great elemental things, Makes his whole heart a sacrificial fire To one whose love is in her supple skin, There comes a laughter in which jests break up Like icebergs in a sea of burning marl. Then dreamers turn to murderers in an hour. Then topless towers are burnt, and the Ocean-sea Tramples the proud fleet, down, into the dark, And sweeps over it, laughing. Come and see, The heart now of this darkness--no more waves, But the black central hollow where that wreck Went down for ever. How should Piers Penniless Brand that wild picture on the world's black heart?-- Last night I tried the way of the Florentine, And bruised myself; but we are friends together Mourning a dead friend, none will ever know!-- Kit, do you smile at poor Piers Penniless, Measuring it out? Ah, boy, it is my best! Since hearts must beat, let it be _terza rima_, A ladder of rhyme that two sad friends alone May let down, thus, to the last circle of hell."
So saying, and motionless as a man in trance, Nash breathed the words that raised the veil anew, Strange intervolving words which, as he spake them, Moved like the huge slow whirlpool of that pit Where the wreck sank, the serpentine slow folds Of the lewd Kraken that sucked it, shuddering, down:--
This is the Deptford Inn. Climb the dark stair. Come, come and see Kit Marlowe lying dead! See, on the table, by that broken chair,
The little phials of paint--the white and red. A cut-lawn kerchief hangs behind the door, Left by his punk, even as the tapster said.
There is the gold-fringed taffeta gown she wore, And, on that wine-stained bed, as is most meet, He lies alone, never to waken more.
O, still as chiselled marble, the frayed sheet Folds the still form on that sepulchral bed, Hides the dead face, and peaks the rigid feet.
Come, come and see Kit Marlowe lying dead! Draw back the sheet, ah, tenderly lay bare The splendour of that Apollonian head;
The gloriole of his flame-coloured hair; The lean athletic body, deftly planned To carry that swift soul of fire and air;
The long thin flanks, the broad breast, and the grand Heroic shoulders! Look, what lost dreams lie Cold in the fingers of that delicate hand;