Or offspring of a lord undone
In Ibrahim’s time. Abrupt reverse
The princes in the East may know:
Lawgivers are outlaws at a blow,
And Crœsus dwindles in the purse.
Exiled, cut off, in friendless state,
The Druze maintained an air sedate;
Without the sacrifice of pride,
Sagacious still he earned his bread,
E’en managed to maintain the head,
Yes, lead men still, if but as guide
To pilgrims.
Here his dress to mark:
A simple woolen cloak, with dark
Vertical stripes; a vest to suit;
White turban like snow-wreath; a boot
Exempt from spur; a sash of fair
White linen, long-fringed at the ends:
The garb of Lebanon. His mare
In keeping showed: the saddle plain:
Head-stall untasseled, slender rein.
But nature made her rich amends
For art’s default: full eye of flame
Tempered in softness, which became
Womanly sometimes, in desire
To be caressed; ears fine to know
Least intimation, catch a hint
As tinder takes the spark from flint
And steel. Veil-like her clear attire
Of silvery hair, with speckled show
Of grayish spots, and ample flow
Of milky mane. Much like a child
The Druze she’d follow, more than mild.
Not less, at need, what power she’d don,
Clothed with the thunderbolt would run
As conscious of the Emir’s son
She bore; nor knew the hireling’s lash,
Red rowel, or rebuke as rash.
Courteous her treatment. But deem not
This tokened a luxurious lot:
Her diet spare; sole stable, earth;
Beneath the burning sun she’d lie
With mane disheveled, whence her eye
Would flash across the fiery dearth,
As watching for that other queen,
Her mate, a beauteous Palmyrene,
The pride of Tadmore’s tented scene.
Athwart the pommel-cloth coarse-spun
A long pipe lay, and longer gun,
With serviceable yataghan.
But prized above these arms of yore,
A new revolver bright he bore
Tucked in the belt, and oft would scan.
Accoutered thus, thro’ desert-blight
Whose lord is the Amalekite,
And proffering or peace or war,
The swart Druze rode his silvery Zar.
Behind him, jogging two and two,
Came troopers six of tawny hue,
Bewrinkled veterans, and grave
As Carmel’s prophets of the cave:
Old Arab Bethlehemites, with guns
And spears of grandsires old. Weird ones,
Their robes like palls funereal hung
Down from the shoulder, one fold flung
In mufflement about the head,
And kept there by a fillet’s braid.
Over this venerable troop
Went Belex doughty in command,
Erst of the Sultan’s saucy troop
Which into death he did disband—
Politic Mahmoud—when that clan
By fair pretence, in festive way,
He trapped within the Artmedan—
Of old, Byzantium’s circus gay.
But Belex a sultana saved—
His senior, though by love enslaved,
Who fed upon the stripling’s May—
Long since, for now his beard was gray;
Tho’ goodly yet the features fine,
Firm chin, true lip, nose aquiline—
Type of the pure Osmanli breed.
But ah, equipments gone to seed—
Ah, shabby fate! his vesture’s cloth
Hinted the Jew bazaar and moth:
The saddle, too, a cast-off one,
An Aga’s erst, and late was sown
With seed-pearl in the seat; but now
All that, with tag-work, all was gone—
The tag-work of wee bells in row
That made a small, snug, dulcet din
About the housings Damascene.
But mark the bay: his twenty years
Still showed him pawing with his peers.
Pure desert air, doled diet pure,
Sleek tendance, brave result insure.
Ample his chest; small head, large eye—
How interrogative with soul—
Responsive too, his master by:
Trim hoof, and pace in strong control.
Thy birth-day well they keep, thou Don,
And well thy birth-day ode they sing;
Nor ill they named thee Solomon,
Prolific sire. Long live the king.
8. ROLFE AND DERWENT
They journey. And, as heretofore,
Derwent invoked his spirits bright
Against the wilds expanding more:
“Do but regard yon Islamite
And horse: equipments be but lean,
Nor less the nature still is rife—
Mettle, you see, mettle and mien.
Methinks fair lesson here we glean:
The inherent vigor of man’s life
Transmitted from strong Adam down,
Takes no infirmity that’s won
By institutions—which, indeed,
Be as equipments of the breed.
God bless the marrow in the bone!
What’s Islam now? does Turkey thrive?
Yet Islamite and Turk they wive
And flourish, and the world goes on.”
“Ay. But all qualities of race
Which make renown—these yet may die,
While leaving unimpaired in grace
The virile power,” was Rolfe’s reply;
“For witness here I cite a Greek—
God bless him! who tricked me of late
In Argos. What a perfect beak
In contour,—oh, ’twas delicate;
And hero-symmetry of limb:
Clownish I looked by side of him.
Oh, but it does one’s ardor damp—
That splendid instrument, a scamp!
These Greeks indeed they wear the kilt
Bravely; they skim their lucid seas;
But, prithee, where is Pericles?
Plato is where? Simonides?
No, friend: much good wine has been spilt:
The rank world prospers; but, alack!
Eden nor Athens shall come back:—
And what’s become of Arcady?”
He paused; then in another key:
“Prone, prone are era, man and nation
To slide into a degradation?
With some, to age is that—but that.”
“Pathetic grow’st thou,” Derwent said:
And lightly, as in leafy glade,
Lightly he in the saddle sat.
9. THROUGH ADOMMIN
In order meet they take their way
Through Bahurim where David fled;
And Shimei like a beast of prey
Prowled on the side-cliff overhead,
And flung the stone, the stone and curse,
And called it just, the king’s reverse:
Still grieving grief, as demons may.
<
br /> In flanking parched ravine they won,
The student wondered at the bale
So arid, as of Acheron
Run dry. Alert showed Belex hale,
Uprising in the stirrup, clear
Of saddle, outlook so to gain,
Rattling his piece and scimeter.
“Dear me, I say,” appealing ran
From the sleek Thessalonian.
“Say on!” the Turk, with bearded grin;
“This is the glen named Adommin!”
Uneasy glance the banker threw,
Tho’ first now of such name he knew
Or place. Nor was his flutter stayed
When Belex, heading his brigade,
Drew sword, and with a summons cried:
“Ho, rout them!” and his cohort veered,
Scouring the dens on either side,
Then all together disappeared
Amid wild turns of ugly ground
Which well the sleuth-dog might confound.
The Druze, as if ’twere nothing new—
The Turk doing but as bid to do—
A higher stand-point would command.
But here across his shortened rein
And loosened, shrewd, keen yataghan,
Good Nehemiah laid a hand:
“Djalea, stay—not long I’ll be;
A word, one Christian word with ye.
I’ve just been reading in the place
How, on a time, carles far from grace
Left here half dead the faring man:
Those wicked thieves. But heaven befriends,
Still heaven at need a rescue lends:
Mind ye the Good Samaritan?”—
In patient self-control high-bred,
Half of one sense, an ear, the Druze
Inclined; the while his grave eye fed
Afar; his arms at hand for use.
“He,” said the meek one going on,
Naught heeding but the tale he spun,
“He, when he saw him in the snare,
He had compassion; and with care
Him gently wakened from the swound
And oil and wine poured in the wound;
Then set him on his own good beast,
And bare him to the nighest inn—
A man not of his town or kin—
And tended whom he thus released;
Up with him sat he all that night,
Put off he did his journey quite;
And on the morrow, ere he went,
For the mistrustful host he sent,
And taking out his careful purse,
He gave him pence; and thus did sue:
‘Beseech ye now that well ye nurse
This poor man whom I leave with you;
And whatsoe’er thou spendest more,
When I again come, I’ll restore.’—
Ye mind the chapter? Well, this day
Were some forlorn one here to bleed,
Aid would be meted to his need
By good soul traveling this way.
Speak I amiss? an answer, pray?”—
In deference the armed man,
O’er pistols, gun, and yataghan,
The turban bowed, but nothing said;
Then turned—resumed his purpose. Led
By old traditionary sense,
A liberal, fair reverence,
The Orientals homage pay,
And license yield in tacit way
To men demented, or so deemed.
Derwent meanwhile in saddle there
Heard all, but scarce at ease he seemed,
So ill the tale and time did pair.
Vine whispered to the saint aside:
“There was a Levite and a priest.”
“Whom God forgive,” he mild replied,
“As I forget;” and there he ceased.
Touching that trouble in advance,
Some here, much like to landsmen wise
At sea in hour which tackle tries,
The adventure’s issue left to chance.
In spent return the escort wind
Reporting they had put to flight
Some prowlers.—“Look!” one cried. Behind
A lesser ridge just glide from sight—
Though neither man nor horse appears—
Steel points and hair-tufts of five spears.
Like dorsal fins of sharks they show
When upright these divide the wave
And peer above, while down in grave
Of waters, slide the body lean
And charnel mouth.
With thoughtful mien
The student fared, nor might withstand
The something dubious in the Holy Land.
10. A HALT
In divers ways which vary it
Stones mention find in hallowed Writ:
Stones rolled from well-mouths, altar stones,
Idols of stone, memorial ones,
Sling-stones, stone tables; Bethel high
Saw Jacob, under starry sky,
On stones his head lay—desert bones;
Stones sealed the sepulchers—huge cones
Heaved there in bulk; death too by stones
The law decreed for crime; in spite
As well, for taunt, or type of ban,
The same at place were cast, or man;
Or piled upon the pits of fight
Reproached or even denounced the slain:
So in the wood of Ephraim, some
Laid the great heap over Absalom.
Convenient too at willful need,
Stones prompted many a ruffian deed
And ending oft in parting groans;
By stones died Naboth; stoned to death
Was Stephen meek: and Scripture saith,
Against even Christ they took up stones.
Moreover, as a thing profuse,
Suggestive still in every use,
On stones, still stones, the gospels dwell
In lesson meet or happier parable.
Attesting here the Holy Writ—
In brook, in glen, by tomb and town
In natural way avouching it—
Behold the stones! And never one
A lichen greens; and, turn them o’er—
No worm—no life; but, all the more,
Good witnesses.
The way now led
Where shoals of flints and stones lay dead.
The obstructed horses tripped and stumbled,
The Thessalonian groaned and grumbled.
But Glaucon cried: “Alack the stones!
Or be they pilgrims’ broken bones
Wherewith they pave the turnpikes here?
Is this your sort of world, Mynheer?
“Not on your knee—no no, no no;
But sit you so: verily and verily
Paris, are you true or no?
I’ll look down your eyes and see.
“Helen, look—and look and look;
Look me, Helen, through and through;
Make me out the only rake:
Set down one and carry two.”—
“Have done, sir,” roared the Elder out;
“Have done with this lewd balladry.”—
Amazed the singer turned about;
But when he saw that, past all doubt,
The Scot was in dead earnest, he,
“Oh now, monsieur—monsieur, monsieur!”
Appealing there so winningly—
Conceding, as it were, his age,
Station, and m
oral gravity,
And right to be morose indeed,
Nor less endeavoring to assuage
At least. But scarce did he succeed.
Rolfe likewise, if in other style,
Here sought that hard road to beguile;
“The stone was man’s first missile; yes,
Cain hurled it, or his sullen hand
Therewith made heavy. Cain, confess,
A savage was, although he planned
His altar. Altars such as Cain’s
Still find we on far island-chains
Deep mid the woods and hollows dark,
And set off like the shittim Ark.
Refrain from trespass; with black frown
Each votary straight takes up his stone—
As once against even me indeed:
I see them now start from their rocks
In malediction.”
“Yet concede,
They were but touchy in their creed,”
Said Derwent; “but did you succumb?
These irritable orthodox!”—
Thereat the Elder waxed more glum.
A halt being called now with design
Biscuit to bite and sip the wine,
The student saw the turbaned Druze
A courtesy peculiar use
In act of his accosting Vine,
Tho’ but in trifle—as to how
The saddle suited. And before,
In little things, he’d marked the show
Of like observance. How explore
The cause of this, and understand?
The pilgrims were an equal band:
Why this preferring way toward one?
But Rolfe explained in undertone:
“But few, believe, have nicer eye
For the cast of aristocracy
Than Orientals. Well now, own,
Despite at times a manner shy,
Shows not our countryman in mold
Of a romanced nobility?
His chary speech, his rich still air
Confirm them in conjecture there.
I make slim doubt these people hold
Vine for some lord who fain would go
For delicate cause, incognito.—
What means Sir Crab?”—
In smouldering ire
The Elder, not dismounting, views
The nearer prospect; ill content,
The distance next his glance pursues,
A land of Eblis burned with fire;
Recoils; then, with big eyebrows bent,
Lowers on the comrades—Derwent most,
With luncheon now and flask engrossed;
Herman Melville- Complete Poems Page 31
