Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

  That face but late in slumber took?

  Had he but dreamed it? It was gone.

  But other thoughts were stirring soon,

  To such good purpose, that the saint

  Through promptings scarce by him divined,

  Anew led Clarel thro’ constraint

  Of inner bye-ways, yet inclined

  Away from his peculiar haunt,

  And came upon a little close,

  One wall whereof a creeper won.

  On casement sills, small pots in rows

  Showed herb and flower, the shade and sun—

  Surprise how blest in town but sere.

  Low breathed the guide, “They harbor here—

  Agar, and my young raven, Ruth.

  And, see, there’s Nathan, nothing loath,

  Just in from Sharon, ’tis his day;

  And, yes—the Rabbi in delay.”—

  The group showed just within the door

  Swung open where the creeper led.

  In lap the petting mother bore

  The half reclining maiden’s head—

  The stool drawn neighboring the chair;

  In front, erect, the father there,

  Hollow in cheek, but rugged, brown—

  Sharon’s red soil upon his shoon­—

  With zealot gesture urged some plea

  Which brought small joy to Agar’s eyes,

  Whereto turned Ruth’s. In scrutiny

  Impassive, wrinkled, and how wise

  (If wisdom be but craft profound)

  Sat the hoar Rabbi. This his guise:

  In plaits a head-dress agate-bound,

  A sable robe with mystic hem—

  Clasps silver, locked in monogram.

  An unextinguished lamp they view

  Whose flame scarce visibly did sway,

  Which having burned till morning dew

  Might not be quenched on Saturday

  The unaltered sabbath of the Jew.

  Struck by the attitudes, the scene,

  And loath, a stranger, to advance

  Obtrusive, coming so between;

  While, in emotion new and strange,

  Ruth thrilled him with life’s first romance;

  Clarel abashed and faltering stood,

  With cheek that knew a novel change.

  But Nehemiah with air subdued

  Made known their presence; and Ruth turned,

  And Agar also, and discerned

  The stranger, and a settle placed:

  Matron and maid with welcome graced

  Both visitors, and seemed to find

  In travel-talk which here ensued

  Relief to burdens of the mind.

  But by the sage was Clarel viewed

  With stony and unfriendly look—

  Fixed inquisition, hard to brook.

  And that embarrassment he raised

  The Rabbi marked, and colder gazed.

  But in redemption from his glance—

  For a benign deliverance—

  On Clarel fell the virgin’s eyes,

  Pure home of all we seek and prize,

  And crossing with their humid ray

  The Levite’s arid eyes of gray—

  But skill is none to word the rest:

  To Clarel’s heart there came a swell

  Like the first tide that ever pressed

  Inland, and of a deep did tell.

  Thereafter, little speech was had

  Save syllables which do but skim;

  Even in these, the zealot—made

  A slave to one tyrannic whim—

  Was scant; while still the sage unkind

  Sat a torpedo-fish, with mind

  Intent to paralyze, and so

  Perchance, make Clarel straight forego

  Acquaintance with his flock, at least

  With two, whose yearnings—he the priest

  More than conjectured—oft did flow

  Averse from Salem. None the less

  A talismanic gentleness

  Maternal welled from Agar faint;

  Thro’ the sad circle’s ill constraint

  Her woman’s way could yet instill

  Her prepossession, her good will;

  And when at last they bade good-bye—

  The visitors—another eye

  Spake at the least of amity.

  24. THE GIBE

  In the south wall, where low it creeps

  Crossing the hollow down between

  Moriah and Zion, by dust-heaps

  Of rubbish in a lonely scene,

  A little door there is, and mean—

  Such as a stable may befit;

  ’Tis locked, nor do they open it

  Except when days of drought begin,

  To let the water-donkeys in

  From Rogel. ’Tis in site the gate

  Of Scripture named the dung-gate—that

  Also (the legends this instill)

  Through which from over Kedron’s rill—

  In fear of rescue should they try

  The way less roundabout and shy—

  By torch the tipstaves Jesus led,

  And so thro’ back-street hustling sped

  To Pilate. Odor bad it has

  This gate in story, and alas,

  In fact as well, and is in fine

  Like ancient Rome’s port Esquiline

  Wherefrom the scum was cast.—

  Next day

  Ascending Zion’s rear, without

  The wall, the saint and Clarel stay

  Their feet, being hailed, and by a shout

  From one who nigh the small gate stood:

  “Ho, ho there, worthy pilgrims, ho!

  Acquainted in this neighborhood?

  What city’s this? town beautiful

  Of David? I’m a stranger, know.

  ’Tis heavy prices here must rule;

  Choice house-lot now, what were it worth?

  How goes the market?” and more mirth.

  Down there into the place unclean

  They peer, they see the man therein,

  An iron-gray, short, rugged one,

  Round shouldered, and of knotty bone;

  A hammer swinging in his hand,

  And pouch at side, by the ill door.

  Him had they chanced upon before

  Or rather at a distance seen

  Upon the hills, with curious mien

  And eyes that—scarce in pious dream

  Or sad humility, ’twould seem—

  Still earthward bent, would pry and pore.

  Perceiving that he shocked the twain,

  His head he wagged, and called again,

  “What city’s this? town beautiful——”

  No more they heard; but to annul

  The cry, here Clarel quick as thought

  Turned with the saint and refuge sought

  Passing an angle of the wall.

  When now at slower pace they went

  Clarel observed the sinless one

  Turning his Bible-leaves content;

  And presently he paused: “Dear son,

  The Scripture is fulfilled this day;

  Note what these Lamentations say;

  The doom the prophet doth rehearse

  In chapter second, fifteenth verse:

  ‘All that pass by clap their hands

  At thee; they hiss, and wag the head,

  Saying, Is this the city’—read,

  Thyself here read it where it stands.”

  Inquisitive he quick obeyed
,

  Then dull relapsed, and nothing said,

  Tho’ more he mused, still laboring there

  Upward, by arid gullies bare:—

  What object sensible to touch

  Or quoted fact may faith rely on,

  If faith confideth overmuch

  That here’s a monument in Zion:

  Its substance ebbs—see, day and night

  The sands subsiding from the height;

  In time, absorbed, these grains may help

  To form new sea-bed, slug and kelp.

  “The gate,” cried Nehemiah, “the gate

  Of David!” Wending thro’ the strait,

  And marking that, in common drought,

  ’Twas yellow waste within as out,

  The student mused: The desert, see,

  It parts not here, but silently,

  Even like a leopard by our side,

  It seems to enter in with us—

  At home amid men’s homes would glide.

  But hark! that wail how dolorous:

  So grieve the souls in endless dearth;

  Yet sounds it human—of the earth!

  25. HUTS

  The stone huts face the stony wall

  Inside—the city’s towering screen—

  Leaving a reptile lane between;

  And streetward not a window small,

  Cranny nor loophole least is seen:

  Through excess of biting sympathies

  So hateful to the people’s eyes

  Those lepers and their evil nook,

  No outlook from it will they brook:

  None enter; condolence is none.

  That lava glen in Luna’s sphere,

  More lone than any earthly one—

  Whereto they Tycho’s name have given—

  Not more from visitant is riven

  Than this stone lane.

  But who crouch here?

  Have these been men? these did men greet

  As fellows once? It is a scene—

  Illusion of time’s mirage fleet:

  On dry shard-heaps, and things which rot—

  Scarce into weeds, for weeds are green—

  Backs turned upon their den, they squat,

  Some gossips of that tribe unclean.

  Time was when Holy Church did take,

  Over lands then held by Baldwin’s crown,

  True care for such for Jesu’s sake,

  Who (so they read in ages gone)

  Even as a leper was foreshown;

  And, tho’ apart their lot she set,

  It was with solemn service yet,

  And forms judicial lent their tone:

  The sick-mass offered, next was shed

  Upon the afflicted human one

  The holy water. He was led

  Unto the house aloof, his home

  Thenceforth. And here, for type of doom,

  Some cemetery dust was thrown

  Over his head: “Die to the world:

  Her wings of hope and fear be furled:

  Brother, live now to God alone.”

  And from the people came the chant:

  “My soul is troubled, joy is curbed,

  All my bones they are disturbed;

  God, thy strength and mercy grant!”

  And next, in order due, the priest

  Each habit and utensil blessed—

  Hair-cloth and barrel, clapper, glove;

  And one by one as these were given,

  With law’s dread charge pronounced in love,

  So, link by link, life’s chain was riven—

  The leper faded in remove.

  The dell of isolation here

  To match, console, and (could man prove

  More than a man) in part endear,

  How well had come that smothered text

  Which Julian’s pagan mind hath vexed—

  And ah, for soul that finds it clear:

  “He lives forbid;

  From him our faces have we hid;

  No heart desires him, none redress,

  He hath nor form nor comeliness;

  For a transgressor he’s suspected,

  Behold, he is a thing infected,

  Smitten of God, by men rejected.”

  But otherwise the ordinance flows.

  For, moving toward the allotted cell,

  Beside the priest the leper goes:

  “I’ve chosen it, here will I dwell.”

  He’s left. At gate the priest puts up

  A cross, a can; therein doth drop

  The first small alms, which laymen swell.

  To aisles returned, the people kneel;

  Heart-piercing suppliance—appeal.

  But not the austere maternal care

  When closed the ritual, ended there

  With benediction. Yet to heal,

  Rome did not falter, could not faint;

  She prompted many a tender saint,

  Widow or virgin ministrant.

  But chiefly may Sybella here

  In chance citation fitly show,

  Countess who under Zion’s brow

  In house of St. John Almoner

  Tended the cripples many a year.

  Tho’ long from Europe’s clime be gone

  That pest which in the perished age

  Could tendance such in love engage,

  Still in the East the rot eats on.

  Natheless the Syrian leper goes

  Unfriended, save that man bestows

  (His eye averting) chanceful pence

  Then turns, and shares disgust of sense.

  Bonds sympathetic bind these three—

  Faith, Reverence, and Charity.

  If Faith once fail, the faltering mood

  Affects—needs must—the sisterhood.

  26. THE GATE OF ZION

  As Clarel entered with the guide,

  Beset they were by that sad crew—

  With inarticulate clamor plied;

  And faces, yet defacements too,

  Appealed to them; but could not give

  Expression. There, still sensitive,

  Our human nature, deep inurned

  In voiceless visagelessness, yearned.

  Behold, proud worm (if such can be),

  What yet may come, yea, even to thee.

  Who knoweth? canst forecast the fate

  In infinite ages? Probe thy state:

  Sinless art thou? Then these sinned not.

  These, these are men; and thou art—what?

  For Clarel, turning in affright,

  Fain would his eyes renounce the light.

  But Nehemiah held on his path

  Mild and unmoved—scarce seemed to heed

  The suitors, or deplore the scath—

  His soul pre-occupied and freed

  From actual objects thro’ the sway

  Of visionary scenes intense—

  The wonders of a mystic day

  And Zion’s old magnificence.

  Nor hither had he come to show

  The leper-huts, but only so

  To visit once again the hill

  And gate Davidic.

  In ascent

  They win the port’s high battlement,

  And thence in sweep they view at will

  That theatre of heights which hold

  As in a Coliseum’s fold

  The guarded Zion. They command

  The Mount of Solomon’s Offense,

  The Crag of Evil Council, and

  Is
cariot’s gallows-eminence.

  Pit too they mark where long ago

  Dull fires of refuse, shot below,

  The city’s litter, smouldering burned,

  Clouding the glen with smoke impure,

  And griming the foul shapes obscure

  Of dismal chain-gangs in their shame

  Raking the garbage thither spurned:

  Tophet the place—transferred, in name,

  To penal Hell.

  But shows there naught

  To win here a redeeming thought?

  Yes: welcome in its nearer seat

  The white Cœnaculum they greet,

  Where still an upper room is shown—

  In dream avouched the very one

  Wherein the Supper first was made

  And Christ those words of parting said,

  Those words of love by loved St. John

  So tenderly recorded. Ah,

  They be above us like a star,

  Those Paschal words.

  But they descend;

  And as within the wall they wend,

  A Horror hobbling on low crutch

  Draws near, but still refrains from touch.

  Before the saint in low estate

  He fawns, who with considerate

  Mild glance regards him. Clarel shrank:

  And he, is he of human rank?—

  “Knowest thou him?” he asked.— “Yea, yea,”

  And beamed on that disfeatured clay:

  “Toulib, to me? to Him are due

  These thanks—the God of me and you

  And all; to whom His own shall go

  In Paradise and be re-clad,

  Transfigured like the morning glad.—

  Yea, friend in Christ, this man I know,

  This fellow-man.” —And afterward

  The student from true sources heard

  How Nehemiah had proved his friend,

  Sole friend even of that trunk of woe,

  When sisters failed him in the end.

  27. MATRON AND MAID

  Days fleet. No vain enticements lure

  Clarel to Agar’s roof. Her tact

  Prevailed: the Rabbi might not act

  His will austere. And more and more

  A prey to one devouring whim,

  Nathan yet more absented him.

  Welcome the matron ever had

  For Clarel. Was the youth not one

  New from the clime she doated on?

  And if indeed an exile sad

  By daisy in a letter laid

  Reminded be of home-delight,

  Tho’ there first greeted by the sight

  Of that transmitted flower—how then