Up now, answer me, on your mettle Wisest man of the Mermaid Inn, Soberest man on the old black settle, Out with the truth! It was never a sin.-- Well, if God saved me alone of the seven, Telling me _you_ must be damned, or _you_, "This," I would say, "This is hell, not heaven! Give me the fire and a friend or two!" _Chorus:_ Steel was never so ringing true: "God," we would say, "this is hell, not heaven! Give us the fire, and a friend or two!" III BLACK BILL'S HONEY-MOON The garlands of a Whitsun ale were strewn About our rushes, the night that Raleigh brought Bacon to sup with us. There, on that night, I saw the singer of the _Faerie Queen_ Quietly spreading out his latest cantos For Shakespeare's eye, like white sheets in the sun. Marlowe, our morning-star, and Michael Drayton Talked in that ingle-nook. And Ben was there, Humming a song upon that old black settle: "Or leave a kiss but in the cup And I'll not ask for wine." But, meanwhile, he drank malmsey. Francis Bacon Straddled before the fire; and, all at once, He said to Shakespeare, in a voice that gripped The Mermaid Tavern like an arctic frost: "_There are no poets in this age of ours, Not to compare with Plautus. They are all Dead, the men that were famous in old days._" "Why--so they are," said Will. The humming stopped. I saw poor Spenser, a shy gentle soul, With haunted eyes like starlit forest pools, Smuggling his cantos under his cloak again. "There's verse enough, no doubt," Bacon went on, "But English is no language for the Muse. Whom would you call our best? There's Gabriel Harvey, And Edward, Earl of Oxford. Then there's Dyer, And Doctor Golding; while, for tragedy, Thomas, Lord Buckhurst, hath a lofty vein. And, in a lighter prettier vein, why, Will, There is _thyself!_ But--where's Euripides?" "Dead," echoed Ben, in a deep ghost-like voice. And drip--drip--drip--outside we heard the rain Miserably dropping round the Mermaid Inn.