Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

  From the blue battlements of air,

  Over saline vapors hovering there,

  A flag was flung out—curved in fold—

  Fiery, rosy, violet, green—

  And, lovelier growing, brighter, fairer,

  Transfigured all that evil scene;

  And Iris was the standard-bearer.

  None spake. As in a world made new,

  With upturned faces they review

  That oriflamme, the which no man

  Would look for in such clime of ban.

  ’Twas northern; and its home-like look

  Touched Nehemiah. He, late with book

  Gliding from Margoth’s dubious sway,

  Was standing by the ass apart;

  And when he caught that scarf of May

  How many a year ran back his heart:

  Scythes hang in orchard, hay-cocks loom

  After eve-showers, the mossed roofs gloom

  Greenly beneath the homestead trees;

  He tingles with these memories.

  For Vine, over him suffusive stole

  An efflorescence; all the soul

  Flowering in flush upon the brow.

  But ’twas ambiguously replaced

  In words addressed to Clarel now—

  “Yonder the arch dips in the waste;

  Thither! and win the pouch of gold.”

  Derwent reproached him: “ah, withhold!

  See, even death’s pool reflects the dyes—

  The rose upon the coffin lies!”

  “Brave words,” said Margoth, plodding near;

  “Brave words; but yonder bow’s forsworn.

  The covenant made on Noah’s morn,

  Was that well kept? why, hardly here,

  Where whelmed by fire and flood, they say,

  The townsfolk sank in after day,

  Yon sign in heaven should reappear.”

  They heard, but in such torpid gloom

  Scarcely they recked, for now the bloom

  Vanished from sight, and half the sea

  Died down to glazed monotony.

  Craved solace here would Clarel prove,

  Recalling Ruth, her glance of love.

  But nay; those eyes so frequent known

  To meet, and mellow on his own—

  Now, in his vision of them, swerved;

  While in perverse recurrence ran

  Dreams of the bier Armenian.

  Against their sway his soul he nerved:

  “Go, goblins; go, each funeral thought—

  Bewitchment from this Dead Sea caught!”

  Westward they move, and turn the shore

  Southward, till, where wild rocks are set,

  Dismounting, they would fain restore

  Ease to the limb. But haunts them yet

  A dumb dejection lately met.

  30. OF PETRA

  “The City Red in cloud-land lies

  Yonder,” said Derwent, quick to inter

  The ill, or light regard transfer:

  “But Petra must we leave unseen—

  Tell us”—to Rolfe—“there hast thou been.”

  “With dragons guarded roundabout

  ’Twas a new Jason found her out—

  Burckhardt, you know.” “But tell.” “The flume

  Or mountain corridor profound

  Whereby ye win the inner ground

  Petræan; this, from purple gloom

  Of cliffs—whose tops the suns illume

  Where oleanders wave the flag—

  Winds out upon the rosy stain,

  Warm color of the natural vein,

  Of porch and pediment in crag.

  One starts. In Esau’s waste are blent

  Ionian form, Venetian tint.

  Statues salute ye from that fane,

  The warders of the Horite lane.

  They welcome, seem to point ye on

  Where sequels which transcend them dwell;

  But tarry, for just here is won

  Happy suspension of the spell.”

  “But expectation’s raised.”

  “No more!

  ’Tis then when bluely blurred in shore,

  It looms through azure haze at sea—

  Then most ’tis Colchis charmeth ye.

  So ever, and with all! But, come,

  Imagine us now quite at home

  Taking the prospect from Mount Hor.

  Good. Eastward turn thee—skipping o’er

  The intervening craggy blight:

  Mark’st thou the face of yon slabbed hight

  Shouldered about by hights? what Door

  Is that, sculptured in elfin freak?

  The portal of the Prince o’ the Air?

  Thence will the god emerge, and speak?

  El Deir it is; and Petra’s there,

  Down in her cleft. Mid such a scene

  Of Nature’s terror, how serene

  That ordered form. Nor less ’tis cut

  Out of that terror—does abut

  Thereon: there’s Art.”

  “Dare say—no doubt;

  But, prithee, turn we now about

  And closer get thereto in mind;

  That portal lures me.”

  “Nay, forbear;

  A bootless journey. We should wind

  Along ravine by mountain-stair,—

  Down which in season torrents sweep—

  Up, slant by sepulchers in steep,

  Grotto and porch, and so get near

  Puck’s platform, and thereby El Deir.

  We’d knock. An echo. Knock again—

  Ay, knock forever: none requite:

  The live spring filters through cell, fane,

  And tomb: a dream the Edomite!”

  “And dreamers all who dream of him—

  Though Sinbad’s pleasant in the skim.

  Pæstum and Petra: good to use

  For sedative when one would muse.

  But look, our Emir.—Ay, Djalea,

  We guess why thou com’st mutely here

  And hintful stand’st before us so.”

  “Ay, ay,” said Rolfe; “stirrups, and go!”

  “But first,” the priest said, “let me creep

  And rouse our poor friend slumbering low

  Under yon rock—queer place to sleep.”

  “Queer?” muttered Rolfe as Derwent went;

  “Queer is the furthest he will go

  In phrase of a disparagement.

  But—ominous, with haggard rent—

  To me yon crag’s brow-beating brow

  Looks horrible—and I say so.”

  31. THE INSCRIPTION

  While yet Rolfe’s foot in stirrup stood,

  Ere the light vault that wins the seat,

  Derwent was heard: “What’s this we meet?

  A Cross? and—if one could but spell—

  Inscription Sinaitic? Well,

  Mortmain is nigh—his crazy freak;

  Whose else? A closer view I’ll seek;

  I’ll climb.”

  In moving there aside

  The rock’s turned brow he had espied;

  In rear this rock hung o’er the waste

  And Nehemiah in sleep embraced

  Below. The forepart gloomed Lot’s wave

  So nigh, the tide the base did lave.

  Above, the sea-face smooth was worn

  Through long attrition of that grit

  Which on the waste of winds is borne.

  And on the tablet high of it�
�

  Traced in dull chalk, such as is found

  Accessible in upper ground—

  Big there between two scrawls, below

  And over—a cross; three stars in row

  Upright, two more for thwarting limb

  Which drooped oblique.

  At Derwent’s cry

  The rest drew near; and every eye

  Marked the device.—Thy passion’s whim,

  Wild Swede, mused Vine in silent heart.

  “Looks like the Southern Cross to me,”

  Said Clarel; “so ’tis down in chart.”

  “And so,” said Rolfe, “’tis set in sky—

  Though error slight of place prevail

  In midmost star here chalked. At sea,

  Bound for Peru, when south ye sail,

  Startling that novel cluster strange

  Peers up from low; then as ye range

  Cape-ward still further, brightly higher

  And higher the stranger doth aspire,

  ’Till off the Horn, when at full hight

  Ye slack your gaze as chilly grows the night.

  But Derwent—see!”

  The priest having gained

  Convenient lodge the text below,

  They called: “What’s that in curve contained

  Above the stars? Read: we would know.”

  “Runs thus: By one who wails the loss,

  This altar to the Slanting Cross.”

  “Ha! under that?” “Some crow’s-foot scrawl.”

  “Decipher, quick! we’re waiting all.”

  “Patience: for ere one try rehearse,

  ’Twere well to make it out. ’Tis verse.”

  “Verse, say you? Read.” “’Tis mystical:

  “‘Emblazoned bleak in austral skies—

  A heaven remote, whose starry swarm

  Like Science lights but cannot warm—

  Translated Cross, hast thou withdrawn,

  Dim paling too at every dawn,

  With symbols vain once counted wise,

  And gods declined to heraldries?

  Estranged, estranged: can friend prove so?

  Aloft, aloof, a frigid sign:

  How far removed, thou Tree divine,

  Whose tender fruit did reach so low—

  Love apples of New-Paradise!

  About the wide Australian sea

  The planted nations yet to be—

  When, ages hence, they lift their eyes,

  Tell, what shall they retain of thee?

  But class thee with Orion’s sword?

  In constellations unadored,

  Christ and the Giant equal prize?

  The atheist cycles—must they be?

  Fomentors as forefathers we?’

  “Mad, mad enough,” the priest here cried,

  Down slipping by the shelving brinks;

  “But ’tis not Mortmain,” and he sighed.

  “Not Mortmain?” Rolfe exclaimed. “Methinks,”

  The priest, “’tis hardly in his vein.”

  “How? fraught with feeling is the strain?

  His heart’s not ballasted with stone—

  He’s crank.” “Well, well, e’en let us own

  That Mortmain, Mortmain is the man.

  We’ve then a pledge here at a glance

  Our comrade’s met with no mischance.

  Soon he’ll rejoin us.” “There, amen!”

  “But now to wake Nehemiah in den

  Behind here.—But kind Clarel goes.

  Strange how he naps nor trouble knows

  Under the crag’s impending block,

  Nor fears its fall, nor reeks of shock.”

  Anon they mount; and much advance

  Upon that chalked significance.

  The student harks, and weighs each word,

  Intent, he being newly stirred.

  But tarries Margoth? Yes, behind

  He lingers. He placards his mind:

  Scaling the crag he rudely scores

  With the same chalk (how here abused!)

  Left by the other, after used,

  A sledge or hammer huge as Thor’s;

  A legend lending—this, to wit:

  “I, Science, I whose gain’s thy loss,

  I slanted thee, thou Slanting Cross.”

  But sun and rain, and wind, with grit

  Driving, these haste to cancel it.

  32. THE ENCAMPMENT

  Southward they find a strip at need

  Between the mount and marge, and make,

  In expectation of the Swede,

  Encampment there, nor shun the Lake.

  ’Twas afternoon. With Arab zest

  The Bethlehemites their spears present,

  Whereon they lift and spread the tent

  And care for all.

  As Rolfe from rest

  Came out, toward early eventide,

  His comrades sat the shore beside,

  In shadow deep, which from the west

  The main Judæan mountains flung.

  That ridge they faced, and anxious hung

  Awaiting Mortmain, some having grown

  The more concerned, because from stone

  Inscribed, they had indulged a hope:

  But now in ill surmise they grope.

  Anew they question grave Djalea.

  But what knows he?

  Their hearts to cheer,

  “Trust,” Derwent said, “hope’s silver bell;

  Nor dream he’d do his life a wrong—

  No, never!”

  “Demons here which dwell,”

  Cried Rolfe, “riff-raff of Satan’s throng,

  May fetch him steel, rope, poison—well,

  He’d spurn them, hoot their scurvy hell:

  There’s nobler.—But what other knell

  Of hap—” He turned him toward the sea.

  Like leagues of ice which slumberous roll

  About the pivot of the pole—

  Vitreous—glass it seemed to be.

  Beyond, removed in air sublime,

  As ’twere some more than human clime,

  In flanking towers of Ætna hue

  The Ammonitish mounts they view

  Enkindled by the sunset cast

  Over Judah’s ridgy headlands massed

  Which blacken baseward. Ranging higher

  Where vague glens pierced the steeps of fire,

  Imagination time repealed—

  Restored there, and in fear revealed

  Lot and his daughters twain in flight,

  Three shadows flung on reflex light

  Of Sodom in her funeral pyre.

  Some fed upon the natural scene,

  Deriving many a wandering hint

  Such as will ofttimes intervene

  When on the slab ye view the print

  Of perished species.—Judge Rolfe’s start

  And quick revulsion, when, apart,

  Derwent he saw at ease reclined,

  With page before him, page refined

  And appetizing, which threw ope

  New parks, fresh walks for Signor Hope

  To saunter in.

  “And read you here?

  Scarce suits the ground with bookish cheer.

  Escaped from forms, enlarged at last,

  Pupils we be of wave and waste—

  Not books; nay, nay!”

  “Book–comment, though,”—

  Smiled Derwent—“were it ill to know?”

  “But how if nature vetoes all

  Her commentato
rs? Disenthrall

  Thy heart. Look round. Are not here met

  Books and that truth no type shall set?”—

  Then, to himself in refluent flow:

  “Earnest again!—well, let it go.”

  Derwent quick glanced from face to face,

  Lighting upon the student’s hue

  Of pale perplexity, with trace

  Almost of twinge at Rolfe: “Believe,

  Though here I random page review,

  Not books I let exclusive cleave

  And sway. Much too there is, I grant,

  Which well might Solomon’s wisdom daunt—

  Much that we mark. Nevertheless,

  Were it a paradox to confess

  A book’s a man? If this be so,

  Books be but part of nature. Oh,

  ’Tis studying nature, reading books:

  And ’tis through Nature each heart looks

  Up to a God, or whatsoe’er

  One images beyond our sphere.

  Moreover, Siddim’s not the world:

  There’s Naples. Why, yourself well know

  What breadths of beauty lie unfurled

  All round the bays where sailors go.

  So, prithee, do not be severe,

  But let me read.”

  Rolfe looked esteem:

  “You suave St. Francis! Him, I mean,

  Of Sales, not that soul whose dream

  Founded the bare-foot Order lean.

  Though wise as serpents, Sales proves

  The throbbings sweet of social doves.

  I like you.”

  Derwent laughed; then, “Ah,

  From each Saint Francis am I far!”

  And grave he grew.

  It was a scene

  Which Clarel in his memory scored:

  How reconcile Rolfe’s wizard chord

  And forks of esoteric fire,

  With common-place of laxer mien?

  May truth be such a spendthrift lord?

  Then Derwent: he reviewed in heart

  His tone with Margoth; his attire

  Of tolerance; the easy part

  He played. Could Derwent, having gained

  A certain slant in liberal thought,

  Think there to bide, like one detained

  Half-way adown the slippery glacier caught?

  Was honesty his, with lore and art

  Not to be fooled?—But if in vain

  One tries to comprehend a man,

  How think to sound God’s deeper heart!

  33. LOT’S SEA

  Roving along the winding verge