Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

  Or Lot’s, or Death’s, Asphaltite,

  Or Asafœtida; all these

  Being names indeed with which they gyve

  That site of foul iniquities

  Abhorred.

  With wordless look intent,

  As if the scene confirmed some thought

  Which in heart’s lonelier hour was lent,

  Vine stood at gaze. The rest were wrought

  According unto kind. The Mount

  Of Olives, and, in distance there

  The charnel wave—who may recount?

  Hope’s hill descries the pit Despair:

  Flitted the thought; they nothing said;

  And down they drew. As ground they tread,

  Nehemiah met them: “Pleaseth ye,

  Fair stroll awaits; if all agree,

  Over the hill let us go on—

  Bethany is a pleasant town.

  I’ll lead, for well the way I know.”

  He gazed expectant: Would they go?

  Before that simpleness so true

  Vine showed embarrassed (Clarel too)

  Yet thanked him with a grateful look

  Benign; and Rolfe the import took,

  And whispered him in softened key,

  “Some other day.”

  And might it be

  Such influence their spirits knew

  From all the tower had given to view,

  Untuned they felt for Bethany?

  37. A SKETCH

  Not knowing them in very heart,

  Nor why to join him they were loth,

  He, disappointed, moved apart,

  With sad pace creeping, dull, as doth

  Along the bough the nerveless sloth.

  For ease upon the ground they sit;

  And Rolfe, with eye still following

  Where Nehemiah slow footed it,

  Asked Clarel: “Know you anything

  Of this man’s prior life at all?”

  “Nothing,” said Clarel.—“I recall,”

  Said Rolfe, “a mariner like him.”

  “A mariner?”—“Yes; one whom grim

  Disaster made as meek as he

  There plodding.” Vine here showed the zest

  Of a deep human interest:

  “We crave of you his history.”

  And Rolfe began: “Scarce would I tell

  Of what this mariner befell—

  So much is it with cloud o’ercast—

  Were he not now gone home at last

  Into the green land of the dead,

  Where he encamps and peace is shed.

  Hardy he was, sanguine and bold,

  The master of a ship. His mind

  In night-watch frequent he unrolled—

  As seamen sometimes are inclined—

  On serious topics, to his mate,

  A man to creed austere resigned.

  The master ever spurned at fate,

  Calvin’s or Zeno’s. Always still

  Man-like he stood by man’s free will

  And power to effect each thing he would,

  Did reason but pronounce it good.

  The subaltern held in humble way

  That still heaven’s over-rulings sway

  Will and event.

  “On waters far,

  Where map-man never made survey,

  Gliding along in easy plight,

  The strong one brake the lull of night

  Emphatic in his willful war—

  But staggered, for there came a jar

  With fell arrest to keel and speech:

  A hidden rock. The pound—the grind—

  Collapsing sails o’er deck declined—

  Sleek billows curling in the breach,

  And nature with her neutral mind.

  A wreck. ’Twas in the former days,

  Those waters then obscure; a maze;

  The isles were dreaded—every chain;

  Better to brave the immense of sea,

  And venture for the Spanish Main,

  Beating and rowing against the trades,

  Than float to valleys ’neath the lee,

  Nor far removed, and palmy shades.

  So deemed he, strongly erring there.

  To boats they take; the weather fair—

  Never the sky a cloudlet knew;

  A temperate wind unvarying blew

  Week after week; yet came despair;

  The bread tho’ doled, and water stored,

  Ran low and lower—ceased. They burn—

  They agonize till crime abhorred

  Lawful might be. O trade-wind, turn!

  “Well may some items sleep unrolled—

  Never by the one survivor told.

  Him they picked up, where, cuddled down,

  They saw the jacketed skeleton,

  Lone in the only boat that lived—

  His signal frittered to a shred.

  “‘Strong need’st thou be,’ the rescuers said,

  ‘Who has such trial sole survived.’

  ‘I willed it,’ gasped he. And the man,

  Renewed ashore, pushed off again.

  How bravely sailed the pennoned ship

  Bound outward on her sealing trip

  Antarctic. Yes; but who returns

  Too soon, regaining port by land

  Who left it by the bay? What spurns

  Were his that so could countermand?

  Nor mutineer, nor rock, nor gale

  Nor leak had foiled him. No; a whale

  Of purpose aiming, stove the bow:

  They foundered. To the master now

  Owners and neighbors all impute

  An inauspiciousness. His wife—

  Gentle, but unheroic—she,

  Poor thing, at heart knew bitter strife

  Between her love and her simplicity:

  A Jonah is he?—And men bruit

  The story. None will give him place

  In a third venture. Came the day

  Dire need constrained the man to pace

  A night patrolman on the quay

  Watching the bales till morning hour

  Through fair and foul. Never he smiled;

  Call him, and he would come; not sour

  In spirit, but meek and reconciled;

  Patient he was, he none withstood;

  Oft on some secret thing would brood.

  He ate what came, though but a crust;

  In Calvin’s creed he put his trust;

  Praised heaven, and said that God was good,

  And his calamity but just.

  So Silvio Pellico from cell-door

  Forth tottering, after dungeoned years,

  Crippled and bleached, and dead his peers:

  ‘Grateful, I thank the Emperor.’ ”

  There ceasing, after pause Rolfe drew

  Regard to Nehemiah in view:

  “Look, the changed master, roams he there?

  I mean, is such the guise, the air?”

  The speaker sat between mute Vine

  And Clarel. From the mystic sea

  Laocoon’s serpent, sleek and fine,

  In loop on loop seemed here to twine

  His clammy coils about the three.

  Then unto them the wannish man

  Draws nigh; but absently they scan;

  A phantom seems he, and from zone

  Where naught is real tho’ the winds aye moan.

  38. THE SPARROW

  After the hint by Rolfe bestowed,

  Redoub
led import, one may ween,

  Had Nehemiah’s submissive mien

  For Clarel. Nay, his poor abode—

  And thither now the twain repair—

  A new significance might bear.

  Thin grasses, such as sprout in sand,

  Clarel observes in crannies old

  Along the cornice. Not his hand

  The mower fills with such, nor arms

  Of him that binds the sheaf, enfold.

  Now mid the quiet which becharms

  That mural wilderness remote,

  Querulous came the little note

  Of bird familiar—one of them

  So numerous in Jerusalem,

  Still snared for market, it is told,

  And two were for a farthing sold—

  The sparrow. But this single one

  Plaining upon a terrace nigh,

  Was like the Psalmist’s making moan

  For loss of mate—forsaken quite,

  Which on the house-top doth alight

  And watches, and her lonely cry

  No answer gets.—In sunny hight

  Like dotting bees against the sky

  What twitterers o’er the temple fly!

  But now the arch and stair they gain,

  And in the chamber sit the twain.

  Clarel in previous time secure,

  From Nehemiah had sought to lure

  Some mention of his life, but failed.

  Rolfe’s hintful story so prevailed,

  Anew he thought to venture it.

  But while in so much else aside

  Subject to senile lapse of tide,

  In this hid matter of his past

  The saint evinced a guardful wit;

  His waning energies seemed massed

  Here, and but here, to keep the door.

  At present his reserve of brow

  Reproach in such sort did avow,

  That Clarel never pressed him more.

  Nay, fearing lest he trespass might

  Even in tarrying longer now,

  He parted. As he slow withdrew,

  Well pleased he noted in review

  The hermitage improved in plight.

  Some one had done a friendly thing:

  Who? Small was Clarel’s wondering.

  39. CLAREL AND RUTH

  In northern clime how tender show

  The meads beneath heaven’s humid Bow

  When showers draw off and dew-drops cling

  To sunset’s skirt, and robins sing

  Though night be near. So did the light

  Of love redeem in Ruth the trace

  Of grief, though scarce might it efface.

  From wider rambles which excite

  The thought, or study’s lone repose,

  Daily did Clarel win the close.

  With interest feminine and true

  The matron watched that love which grew;

  She hailed it, since a hope was there

  Made brighter for the grief’s degree:

  How shines the gull ye watch in air

  White, white, against the cloud at sea.

  Clarel, bereft while still but young,

  Mother or sister had not known;

  To him now first in life was shown,

  In Agar’s frank demeanor kind,

  What charm to woman may belong

  When by a natural bent inclined

  To goodness in domestic play:

  On earth no better thing than this—

  It canonizes very clay:

  Madonna, hence thy worship is.

  But Ruth: since Love had signed with Fate

  The bond, and the first kiss had sealed,

  Both for her own and Agar’s state

  Much of her exile-grief seemed healed:

  New vistas opened; and if still

  Forebodings might not be forgot

  As to her sire’s eventual lot,

  Yet hope, which is of youth, could thrill.

  That frame to foster and defend,

  Clarel, when in her presence, strove

  The unrest to hide which still could blend

  With all the endearings of their love.

  Ruth part divined the lurking care,

  But more the curb, and motive too:

  It made him but love’s richer heir;

  So much the more attachment grew.

  She could not think but all would prove

  Subject in end to mighty Love.

  That cloud which in the present reigned,

  By flushful hope’s aurora stained,

  At times redeemed itself in hues

  Of shell, and humming-bird, and flower.

  Could heaven two loyal hearts abuse?

  The death-moth, let him keep his bower.

  40. THE MOUNDS

  Ere twilight and the shadow fall

  On Zion hill without the wall

  In place where Latins set the bier

  Borne from the gate—who lingers here,

  Where, typing faith exempt from loss,

  By sodless mound is seen a cross?

  Clarel it is, at Celio’s grave.

  For him, the pale one, ere yet cold,

  Assiduous to win and save,

  The friars had claimed as of their fold;

  Lit by the light of ritual wicks,

  Had held to unprotesting lips

  In mistimed zeal the crucifix;

  And last, among the fellowships

  Of Rome’s legitimate dead, laid one

  Not saved through faith, nor Papal Rome’s true son.

  Life’s flickering hour they made command

  Faith’s candle in Doubt’s dying hand.

  So some, who other forms did hold,

  Rumored, or criticised, or told

  The tale.

  Not this did Clarel win

  To visit the hermit of the mound.

  Nay, but he felt the appeal begin—

  The poor petition from the ground:

  Remember me! for all life’s din

  Let not my memory be drowned.

  And thought was Clarel’s even for one

  Of tribe not his—to him unknown

  Through vocal word or vital cheer:

  A stranger, but less strange made here,

  Less distant. Whom life held apart—

  Life, whose cross-purposes make shy—

  Death yields without reserve of heart

  To meditation.

  With a sigh

  Turning, he slow pursued the steep

  Until he won that leveled spot,

  Terraced and elevated plot

  Over Gihon, where yet others keep

  Death’s tryst—afar from kindred lie:

  Protestants, which in Salem die.

  There, fixed before a founded stone

  With Bible mottoes part bestrown,

  Stood one communing with the bier.

  ’Twas Rolfe. “Him, him I knew,” said he,

  Down pointing; “but ’twas far from here—

  How far from here!” A pause. “But see,

  Job’s text in wreath, what trust it giveth;

  ‘I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVETH.’

  Poor Ethelward! Thou didst but grope;

  I knew thee, and thou hadst small hope.

  But if at this spent man’s death-bed

  Some kind soul kneeled and chapter read—

  Ah, own! to moderns death is drear,

  So drear: we die, we make no sign,

  W
e acquiesce in any cheer—

  No rite we seek, no rite decline.

  Is’t nonchalance of languid sense,

  Or the last, last indifference?

  With some, no doubt, ’tis peace within;

  In others, may be, care for kin:

  Exemplary thro’ life, as well

  Dying they’d be so, nor repel.”

  He let his eyes half absent move

  About the mound: “One’s thoughts will rove:

  This minds me that in like content,

  Other forms were kept without dissent

  By one who hardly owned their spell.

  He, in fulfillment of pledged work,

  Among Turks having passed for Turk,

  Sickened among them. On death-bed

  Silent he heard the Koran read:

  They shrilled the Islam wail for him,

  They shawled him in his burial trim;

  And now, on brinks of Egypt’s waste,

  Where the buried Sultans’ chapels rise,

  Consistently toward Mecca faced,

  The blameless simulator lies:

  The turbaned Swiss, Sheik Ibrahim—

  Burckhardt.—But home the sparrow flees.

  Come, move we ere the gate they quit,

  And we be shut out here with these

  Who never shall re-enter it.”

  41. ON THE WALL

  They parted in the port. Near by,

  Long stone stairs win the battlement

  Of wall, aërial gallery;

  And thither now the student bent

  To muse abroad.

  The sun’s last rays

  Shed round a nearing train the haze

  Of mote and speck. Advanced in view

  And claiming chief regard, came two

  Dismounted, barefoot; one in dress

  Expressive of deep humbleness

  Of spirit, scarce of social state—

  His lineaments rebutted that,

  Tho’ all was overcast with pain—

  The visage of a doom-struck man

  Not idly seeking holy ground.

  Behind, his furnished horse did bound

  Checked by a groom in livery fair.

  The master paced in act of prayer

  Absorbed—went praying thro’ the gate.

  The attentive student, struck thereat,

  The wall crossed—from the inner arch,

  Viewed him emerging, while in starch

  Of prelate robes, some waiting Greeks

  Received him, kissed him on both cheeks,

  Showing that specializing love

  And deference grave, how far above