Barstow School - Weathercock Yearbook (Kansas City, MO)

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TALEs OF THE MERMAID TAVERN 7 X ik 3' light gleam of celestial mirth Flit o'er the face of Shakespeare-scarce a smile- A swift irradiation from within As of a cloud that softly veils the sun. l-low light and effervescent is the Companion of a Mile! 'Tis like the first bird song in spring, like a whiff of lilac bloom, like a tenor morris-bell. lt dances tipsily, light-heartedly by. One would almost think the words would dance themselves off the page- - I fitted her with morris-bells, with treble, bass and tenor bells. And o'er a field of buttercups, a field of lambs and buttercups, We danced along a cloth of gold, a summer king and queen. Then listen to him next bawl forth a drinking song. Our Noyes is no molly-coddle. For l-larry the Fourth was a godly king And loved great godly bells! He bade them ring and he bade them swing Till a man might hear naught else. ln every tavern it soured the sack With discord and with din, But they drowned it all in a madrigal Like this at the Mermaid lnn. And then there is the simple, mystic Noyes, the poet who gloats over a sweetly morbid tale and lets his fancy play about a subject awful and solemn until we have a dirge like 'iThe Burial of the Queen. or such a tragic picture as that of Raleighs wife, 'iwith a smile that would make angels weep, nursing his severed head terrible as Medusa. And so in an instant Noyes is the lover, the jester, the moralist, the troubadour, the mourner. What true poet is not! But, like Will Shakespeare himself, the distinguishing quality of the writer of the Mermaid Tavern Tales is a genius for re-creating characters, for making past heroes live again, real yet ideal. To him Raleigh, Gilbert, Marlowe, jonson, Stukeley, Greene, Drayton, Peel. Lodge, Beau- mont and Fletcher have never died. It would seem saerilege to make these gods seem common spirits, and yet it is their very humanness that: so appeals to us. There is something comforting in the thought that they were once men, even as it is consoling to remember jesus was a child. But the danger of such a task is likely to be a shattering of ideals. Noyes, however, has come at the human souls in those Elizabethan geniuses with-

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6 THE W EATI Hill-COCK Sea. It breaths the lure of adventure, the fresh wind off the bounding waves. the smell of the salt spray. all the heroism and all the pathos of the Merchant Adventurers life. And the song sings itself. as all true poetry should. XVe can never forget the booming of his chorus- Over our fleet for evermore The winds will triumph and the waves roar! But he sails on. sails on before! It awakens in us a fire and enthusiasm that only a simple tale of dearly honored people and true heroism can raise. We feel it is true to our ideals. Rollicking songs are jolly, and high heroism is noblel but there is something even more impressive than heroism, and that is,-struggling failure. Those poor gold-laden spirits that sink for lack of ballast. they are the pitiful warnings of the world: those wrecks of promise, those need- less bankrupts, those total losses.-and all for slavery to some petty weak- ness. These touch us through our sympathies, and through our common sense. too. Gazing at such a ruin fine sense says. What a loss to the world1 sympathy moans, 'iWhat tortures and woes to a golden lad! Look at poor Robin Greene with One groat's worth of wit. Bought at an exceeding price, Ay, a million of repentance, and at Kit Marlowe, the simple fool, Dead, like a dog upon the roadg Dead, for a harlot's kissl The Apollian throat and brow, The lyric lips, so silent now, The flaming wings that heaven bestowed For loftier airs than this! But to think of Noyes as a black moralist. a high-tragedy preacher. a sombre-clad Langland. a dog of a Puritan, is to think of the root as the tree. True, if the center of life be sound. the tree grows straight and grace- ful. And Noyes is sound: a jolly rogue. guffawing over a good joke, amusedly smiling over a witticism, sunny. cheerful, and a good-fellow with all his seriousness. I-low he chuckles over Black Bill, the atheist buccaneer. 'AWith a disk of a lily behind his head Like a cherubin's aureolef' And how amused he is at the drone of Francis Bacon, the ponderous, scientific judge with his Pliny saith and various principles of natural philosophy that make a

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8 THE Wi3A'l'Hi2R-eoczk t succeeding years have out dissolving the mist of romance and sentimen wrapped about them, His Rare Ben is not a thing of beauty with that great pocked face and bull-dog jaws. But Noyes redeems him. A joke were meat and drink to jolly Ben. Were he not eoneoeting some elaborate forgery for Bama. he was swaggering and bragging like a play actor to frighten Dekker, And he could be a warm, strong friend, too. When his companions were in Newgate while he was free, He gripped his eudgel if li if and surged along Chcapside Snorting with wrath, and rolled into the gaol. To share the punishment. But Noyes's greatest triumph is his handling of Will Shakespeare. Think of attempting to paint the sun. and finding onthe canvas. not a star or a moon nor a semblance of the sun, but the very sun itself. 'Tis the elfln Shakespeare that Noyes shows, the Shakespeare that steals the fairy deer for his sweet Anne, Shakespeare, the superman, who understood all things, and because he understood, forgave all things. Better than any statue of Shakespeare could be. is Noyess quiet portrait: Like some rare old picture. in a dream Recalled-quietly listening, laughing, watching. Pale on that black oakcn wainseot floated One bearded oval face. young. with deep eyes. Whom Raleigh hailed as 'Will'! And better than any tribute is that which he puts into the mouth of Greene who, in his jealously, had cried, Trust them notg there is an upstart crow Beautifled with our feathers. - and who. repentant, had generously yieldedg Will, l knew it all the while! And you know it-and you smile! My quill was but a jackdaw's feather, While the quill that Ben. there wields, Fluttered down thro' azure fields. From an eagle in the sun: And yours, Will, yours, no earth-borne thing, A plume of rainbow-tinctured grain. Dropt out of an angels wing. Only a jackdaws feather mine. And mine ran ink. and B-en's ran wine. And yours the pure Pierian streams.