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Young Adventure Alexander VI Dines with the Cardinal of Capua Next, then, the peacock, gilt With all its feathers. Look, what gorgeous dyes Flow in the eyes! And how deep, lustrous greens are splashed and spilt Along the back, that like a sea-wave's crest Scatters soft beauty o'er th' emblazoned breast! A strange fowl! But most fit For feasts like this, whereby I honor one Pure as the sun! Yet glowing with the fiery zeal of it! Some wine? Your goblet's empty? Let it foam! It is not often that you come to Rome! You like the Venice glass? Rippled with lines that float like women's curls, Neck like a girl's, Fierce-glowing as a chalice in the Mass? You start -- 'twas artist then, not Pope who spoke! Ave Maria stella! -- ah, it broke! 'Tis said they break alone When poison writhes within. A foolish tale! What, you look pale? Caraffa, fetch a silver cup! . . . You own A Birth of Venus, now -- or so I've heard, Lovely as the breast-plumage of a bird. Also a Dancing Faun, Hewn with the lithe grace of Praxiteles; Globed pearls to please A sultan; golden veils that drop like lawn -- How happy I could be with but a tithe Of your possessions, fortunate one! Don't writhe But take these cushions here! Now for the fruit! Great peaches, satin- skinned, Rough tamarind, Pomegranates red as lips -- oh they come dear! But men like you we feast at any price -- A plum perhaps? They're looking rather nice! I'll cut the thing in half. There's yours! Now, with a one-side-poisoned knife One might snuff life And leave one's friend with -- "fool" for epitaph! An old trick? Truth! But when one has the itch For pretty things and isn't very rich. . . . There, eat it all or I'll Be angry! You feel giddy? Well, it's hot! This bergamot Take home and smell -- it purges blood of bile! And when you kiss Bianca's dimpled knee, Think of the poor Pope in his misery! Now you may kiss my ring! Ho there, the Cardinal's litter! -- You must dine When the new wine Is in, again with me -- hear Bice sing, Even 24

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Young Adventure admire my frescoes -- though they're nought Beside the calm Greek glories you have bought! Godspeed, Sir Cardinal! And take a weak man's blessing! Help him there To the cool air! . . . Lucrezia here? You're ready for the ball? -- He'll die within ten hours, I suppose -- MhM! Kiss your poor old father, little rose! 25

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Young Adventure The Breaking Point It was not when temptation came, Swiftly and blastingly as flame, And seared me white with burning scars; When I stood up for age-long wars And held the very Fiend at grips; When all my mutinous body rose To range itself beside my foes, And, like a greyhound in the slips, The Beast that dwells within me roared, Lunging and straining at his cord. . . . For all the blusterings of Hell, It was not then I slipped and fell; For all the storm, for all the hate, I kept my soul inviolate! But when the fight was fought and won, And there was Peace as still as Death On everything beneath the sun. Just as I started to draw breath, And yawn, and stretch, and pat myself, -- The grass began to whisper things -- And every tree became an elf, That grinned and chuckled counsellings: Birds, beasts, one thing alone they said, Beating and dinning at my head. I could not fly. I could not shun it. Slimily twisting, slow and blind, It crept and crept into my mind. Whispered and shouted, sneered and laughed, Screamed out until my brain was daft. . . . One snaky word, "WHAT IF YOU'D DONE IT?" And I began to think . . . Ah, well, What matter how I slipped and fell? Or you, you gutter-searcher say! Tell where you found me yesterday! 26

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Young Adventure Lonely Burial There were not many at that lonely place, Where two scourged hills met in a little plain. The wind cried loud in gusts, then low again. Three pines strained darkly, runners in a race Unseen by any. Toward the further woods A dim harsh noise of voices rose and ceased. -- We were most silent in those solitudes -- Then, sudden as a flame, the black-robed priest, The clotted earth piled roughly up about The hacked red oblong of the new-made thing, Short words in swordlike Latin -- and a rout Of dreams most impotent, unwearying. Then, like a blind door shut on a carouse, The terrible bareness of the soul's last house. 27

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Young Adventure Dinner in a Quick Lunch Room Soup should be heralded with a mellow horn, Blowing clear notes of gold against the stars; Strange entrees with a jangle of glass bars Fantastically alive with subtle scorn; Fish, by a plopping, gurgling rush of waters, Clear, vibrant waters, beautifully austere; Roast, with a thunder of drums to stun the ear, A screaming fife, a voice from ancient slaughters! Over the salad let the woodwinds moan; Then the green silence of many watercresses; Dessert, a balalaika, strummed alone; Coffee, a slow, low singing no passion stresses; Such are my thoughts as -- clang! crash! bang! -- I brood And gorge the sticky mess these fools call food! 28

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Young Adventure The Hemp (A Virginia Legend.) The Planting of the Hemp. Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas (Black is the gap below the plank) From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees (Down by the marsh the hemp grows rank). His fear was on the seaport towns, The weight of his hand held hard the downs. And the merchants cursed him, bitter and black, For a red flame in the sea-fog's wrack Was all of their ships that might come back. For all he had one word alone, One clod of dirt in their faces thrown, "The hemp that shall hang me is not grown!" His name bestrode the seas like Death. The waters trembled at his breath. This is the tale of how he fell, Of the long sweep and the heavy swell, And the rope that dragged him down to hell. The fight was done, and the gutted ship, Stripped like a shark the sea- gulls strip, Lurched blindly, eaten out with flame, Back to the land from where she came, A skimming horror, an eyeless shame. And Hawk stood upon his quarter-deck, And saw the sky and saw the wreck. Below, a butt for sailors' jeers, White as the sky when a white squall nears, Huddled the crowd of the prisoners. Over the bridge of the tottering plank, Where the sea shook and the gulf yawned blank, They shrieked and struggled and dropped and sank, Pinioned arms and hands bound fast. One girl alone was left at last. Sir Henry Gaunt was a mighty lord. He sat in state at the Council board; The governors were as nought to him. From one rim to the other rim Of his great plantations, flung out wide Like a purple cloak, was a full month's ride. Life and death in his white hands lay, And his only daughter stood at 29

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Young Adventure bay, Trapped like a hare in the toils that day. He sat at wine in his gold and his lace, And far away, in a bloody place, Hawk came near, and she covered her face. He rode in the fields, and the hunt was brave, And far away his daughter gave A shriek that the seas cried out to hear, And he could not see and he could not save. Her white soul withered in the mire As paper shrivels up in fire, And Hawk laughed, and he kissed her mouth, And her body he took for his desire. The Growing of the Hemp. Sir Henry stood in the manor room, And his eyes were hard gems in the gloom. And he said, "Go dig me furrows five Where the green marsh creeps like a thing alive -- There at its edge, where the rushes thrive." And where the furrows rent the ground, He sowed the seed of hemp around. And the blacks shrink back and are sore afraid At the furrows five that rib the glade, And the voodoo work of the master's spade. For a cold wind blows from the marshland near, And white things move, and the night grows drear, And they chatter and crouch and are sick with fear. But down by the marsh, where the gray slaves glean, The hemp sprouts up, and the earth is seen Veiled with a tenuous mist of green. And Hawk still scourges the Caribbees, And many men kneel at his knees. Sir Henry sits in his house alone, And his eyes are hard and dull like stone. And the waves beat, and the winds roar, And all things are as they were before. And the days pass, and the weeks pass, And nothing changes but the grass. But down where the fireflies are like eyes, And the damps shudder, and the mists rise, The hemp-stalks stand up toward the skies. And down from the poop of the pirate ship A body falls, and the great 30

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Young Adventure sharks grip. Innocent, lovely, go in grace! At last there is peace upon your face. And Hawk laughs loud as the corpse is thrown, "The hemp that shall hang me is not grown!" Sir Henry's face is iron to mark, And he gazes ever in the dark. And the days pass, and the weeks pass, And the world is as it always was. But down by the marsh the sickles beam, Glitter on glitter, gleam on gleam, And the hemp falls down by the stagnant stream. And Hawk beats up from the Caribbees, Swooping to pounce in the Northern seas. Sir Henry sits sunk deep in his chair, And white as his hand is grown his hair. And the days pass, and the weeks pass, And the sands roll from the hour-glass. But down by the marsh in the blazing sun The hemp is smoothed and twisted and spun, The rope made, and the work done. The Using of the Hemp. Captain Hawk scourged clean the seas (Black is the gap below the plank) From the Great North Bank to the Caribbees (Down by the marsh the hemp grows rank). He sailed in the broad Atlantic track, And the ships that saw him came not back. And once again, where the wide tides ran, He stooped to harry a merchantman. He bade her stop. Ten guns spake true From her hidden ports, and a hidden crew, Lacking his great ship through and through. Dazed and dumb with the sudden death, He scarce had time to draw a breath Before the grappling-irons bit deep, And the boarders slew his crew like sheep. Hawk stood up straight, his breast to the steel; His cutlass made a bloody wheel. His cutlass made a wheel of flame. They shrank before him as he 31

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Young Adventure came. And the bodies fell in a choking crowd, And still he thundered out aloud, "The hemp that shall hang me is not grown!" They fled at last. He was left alone. Before his foe Sir Henry stood. "The hemp is grown, and my word made good!" And the cutlass clanged with a hissing whir On the lashing blade of the rapier. Hawk roared and charged like a maddened buck. As the cobra strikes, Sir Henry struck, Pouring his life in a single thrust, And the cutlass shivered to sparks and dust. Sir Henry stood on the blood-stained deck, And set his foot on his foe's neck. Then from the hatch, where the rent decks slope, Where the dead roll and the wounded grope, He dragged the serpent of the rope. The sky was blue, and the sea was still, The waves lapped softly, hill on hill, And between one wave and another wave The doomed man's cries were little and shrill. The sea was blue, and the sky was calm; The air dripped with a golden balm. Like a wind-blown fruit between sea and sun, A black thing writhed at a yard-arm. Slowly then, and awesomely, The ship sank, and the gallows-tree, And there was nought between sea and sun -- Nought but the sun and the sky and the sea. But down by the marsh where the fever breeds, Only the water chuckles and pleads; For the hemp clings fast to a dead man's throat, And blind Fate gathers back her seeds. 32

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Young Adventure Poor Devil! Well, I was tired of life; the silly folk, The tiresome noises, all the common things I loved once, crushed me with an iron yoke. I longed for the cool quiet and the dark, Under the common sod where louts and kings Lie down, serene, unheeding, careless, stark, Never to rise or move or feel again, Filled with the ecstasy of being dead. . . . I put the shining pistol to my head And pulled the trigger hard -- I felt no pain, No pain at all; the pistol had missed fire I thought; then, looking at the floor, I saw My huddled body lying there -- and awe Swept over me. I trembled -- and looked up. About me was -- not that, my heart's desire, That small and dark abode of death and peace -- But all from which I sought a vain release! The sky, the people and the staring sun Glared at me as before. I was undone. My last state ten times worse than was my first. Helpless I stood, befooled, betrayed, accursed, Fettered to Life forever, horribly; Caught in the meshes of Eternity, No further doors to break or bars to burst! 33