‘Which is the humble publican?
Or do they but prostrate them there
To flout you Franks with Islam’s prayer?’ ”
“Doubtless: some shallow thing he’d say,
Poor fellow,” Derwent then; “but, nay,
Earnest they are; nor yet they’d part
(If pealed the hour) in street or mart,
From like observance.”
“If ’tis so”
The refugee, “let all avow
As openly faith’s loyal heart.
By Christians too was God confessed
How frankly! in those days that come
No more to misnamed Christendom!
Religion then was the good guest,
First served, and last, in every gate:
What mottoes upon wall and plate!
She every human venture shared:
The ship in manifest declared
That not disclaiming heaven she thrust
Her bowsprit into fog and storm:
Some current silver bore the palm
Of Christ, token of saint, or bust;
In line devout the pikemen kneeled—
To battle by the rite were sealed.
Men were not lettered, but had sense
Beyond the mean intelligence
That knows to read, and but to read—
Not think. ’Twas harder to mislead
The people then, whose smattering now
Does but the more their ignorance show—
Nay, them to peril more expose—
Is as the ring in the bull’s nose
Whereby a pert boy turns and winds
This monster of a million minds.
Men owned true masters; kings owned God—
Their master; Louis plied the rod
Upon himself. In high estate,
Not puffed up like a democrat
In office, how with Charlemagne?
Look up he did, look up in reign—
Humbly look up, who might look down:
His meekest thing was still his crown:
How meek on him; since, graven there,
Among the Apostles twelve—behold,
Stern Scriptural precepts were enrolled,
High admonitions, meet for kings.
The coronation was a prayer,
Which yet in ceremonial clings.
The church was like a bonfire warm:
All ranks were gathered round the charm.”
Derwent, who vainly had essayed
To impede the speaker, or blockade,
Snatched at the bridle here: “Ho, wait;
A word, impetuous laureate!
This bric-a-brac-ish style (outgrown
Almost, where first it gave the tone)
Of lauding the quaint ages old—
But nay, that’s satire; I withhold.
Grant your side of the shield part true:
What then? why, turn the other: view
The buckler in reverse. Don’t sages
Denominate those times Dark Ages?
Dark Middle Ages, time’s midnight!”
“If night, it was no starless one;
Art still admires what then was done:
A strength they showed which is of light.
Not more the Phidian marbles prove
The graces of the Grecian prime
And indicate what men they were,
Than the grand minsters in remove
Do intimate, if not declare
A magnanimity which our time
Would envy, were it great enough
To comprehend. Your counterbuff,
However, holds. Yes, frankly, yes,
Another side there is, admit.
Nor less the very worst of it
Reveals not such a shamelessness
Of evildoer and hypocrite,
And sordid mercenary sin
As these days vaunt and revel in.”
“No use, no use,” the priest aside;
“Patience! it is the maddest tide;”
And seated him.
And Ungar then:
“What’s overtaken ye pale men?
Shrewd are ye, the main chance ye heed:
Has God quite lost his throne indeed
That lukewarm now ye grow? Wilt own,
Council ye take with fossil-stone?
Your sects do nowadays create
Churches as worldly as the state.
And, for your more established forms—
Ah, once in York I viewed through storms
The Minster’s majesty of mien—
Towers, peaks, and pinnacles sublime—
Faith’s iceberg, stranded on a scene
How alien, and an alien time;
But now”—he checked himself, and stood.
Whence this strange bias of his mood
(Thought they) leaning to things corroded,
By many deemed for aye exploded?
But, truly, knowing not the man,
At fault they in conjecture ran.
But Ungar (as in fitter place
Set down) being sprung from Romish race,
Albeit himself had spared to feed
On any one elected creed
Or rite, though much he might recall
In annals bearing upon all;
And, in this land named of Behest,
A wandering Ishmael from the West;
Inherited the Latin mind,
Which late—blown by the adverse wind
Of harder fortunes that molest—
Kindled from ember into coal.
The priest, as one who keeps him whole,
Anew turns toward the kneeling twain:
“Your error’s slight, or, if a stain,
’Twill fade. Our Lord enjoins good deeds
Nor catechiseth in the creeds.”
A something in the voice or man,
Or in assumption of the turn
Which prior theme did so adjourn,
Pricked Ungar, and a look he ran
Toward Derwent—an electric light
Chastising in its fierce revolt;
Then settled into that still night
Of cloud which has discharged the bolt.
11. DISQUIET
At breakfast in refectory there
The priest—if Clarel not mistook—
The good priest wore the troubled air
Of honest heart striving to brook
Injury, which from words abstained,
And, hence, not readily arraigned;
Which to requite in its own sort
Is not allowed in heaven’s high court,
Or self-respect’s. Such would forget,
But for the teasing doubt or fret
Lest unto worldly witness mere
The injury none the less appear
To challenge notice at the least.
Ungar withdrew, leaving the priest
Less ill at ease; who now a thought
Threw out, as ’twere in sad concern
For one whose nature, sour or stern,
Still dealt in all unhandsome flings
At happy times and happy things:
“‘The bramble sayeth it is naught:’
Poor man!” But that; and quite forbore
To vent his grievance. Nor less sore
He felt it—Clarel so inferred,
Recalling here too Mortmain’s word
Of cutting censorship. How then?
While most who met him frank averred
/> That Derwent ranked with best of men,
The Swede and refugee unite
In one repugnance, yea, and slight.
How take, construe their ill-content?
A thing of vein and temperament?
Rolfe liked him; and if Vine said naught,
Yet even Vine seemed not uncheered
By fair address. Then stole the thought
Of how the priest had late appeared
In that one confidential hour,
Ambiguous on Saba’s tower.
There he dismissed it, let it fall:
To probe overmuch seems finical.
Nor less (for still the point did tease,
Nor would away and leave at ease),
Nor less, I wonder, if ere long
He’ll turn this off, not worth a song,
As lightly as of late he turned
Poor Mortmain’s sally when he burned?
12. OF POPE AND TURK
Marking the priest not all sedate,
Rolfe, that a friend might fret discard,
Turned his attention to debate
Between two strangers at the board.
In furtherance of his point or plea
One said:
“Late it was told to me,
And by the man himself concerned,
A merchant Frank on Syria’s coast,
That in a fire which traveled post,
His books and records being burned,
His Christian debtors held their peace;
The Islam ones disclaimed release,
And came with purses and accounts.”
“And duly rendered their amounts?
’Twas very kind. But oh, the greed,
Rapacity, and crime at need
In satraps which oppress the throng.”
“True. But with these ’tis, after all,
Wrong-doing purely personal—
Not legislated—not a wrong
Law-sanctioned. No: the Turk, admit,
In scheme of state, the scheme of it,
Upon the civil arm confers
A sway above the scimeter’s—
The civil power itself subjects
Unto that Koran which respects
Nor place nor person. Nay, adjourn
The jeer; for now aside we’ll turn.
Dismembered Poland and her throe
In Ninety-Five, all unredressed:
Did France, did England then protest?”
“England? I’m sure I do not know.
Come, I distrust your shifting so.
Pray, to what end now is this pressed?”
“Why, here armed Christendom looking on,
In protest the Sultan stood alone.”
“Indeed? But all this, seems to me,
Savors of Urquhart’s vanity.”
“The commentator on the East?”
“The same: that very inexact
Eccentric ideologist
Now obsolete.”
“And that’s your view?
He stands for God.”
“I stand by fact.”
“Well then, another fact or two;
When Poland’s place in Thirty-One
Was blotted out, the Turk again
Protested, with one other man,
The Pope; these, and but these alone;
And in the protest both avowed
’Twas made for justice’s sake and God.—
You smile.”
“Oh no: but very clear
The protest prompted was by fear
In Turk and Pope, that time might come
When spoliation should drive home
Upon themselves. Besides, you know
The Polish church was Catholic:
The Czar would wrest it to the Greek:
’Twas that touched Rome. But let it go.—
In pith, what is it you would show?
Are Turks our betters? Very strange
Heaven’s favor does not choicely range
Upon these Islam people good:
Bed-rid they are, behindhand all,
While Europe flowers in plenitude
Of wealth and commerce.”
“I recall
Nothing in Testament which saith
That worldliness shall not succeed
In that wherein it laboreth.
Howbeit, the Sultan’s coming on:
Fine lesson from ye has he won
Of late; apt pupil he indeed:
Ormus, that riches did confer,
Ormus is made a borrower:
Selim, who grandly turbaned sat,
Verges on bankruptcy and—hat.
But this don’t touch the rank and file;
At least, as yet. But preach and work:
You’ll civilize the barbarous Turk—
Nay, all the East may reconcile:
That done, let Mammon take the wings of even,
And mount and civilize the saints in heaven.”
“I laugh—I like a brave caprice!
And, sir——”
But here did Rolfe release
His ear, and Derwent too. A stir
In court was heard of man and steed—
Neighings and mountings, din indeed;
And Rolfe: “Come, come; our traveler.”
13. THE CHURCH OF THE STAR
They rise, and for a little space
In farewell Agath they detain,
Transferred here to a timelier train
Than theirs. A work-day, passive face
He turns to Derwent’s Luck to thee!
No slight he means—’tis far from that;
But, schooled by the inhuman sea,
He feels ’tis vain to wave the hat
In God-speed on this mortal strand;
Recalling all the sailing crews
Destined to sleep in ocean sand,
Cheered from the wharf with blithe adieus.
Nor less the heart’s farewell they say,
And bless the old man on his way.
Led by a slender monk and young,
With curls that ringed the shaven crown,
Courts now and shrines they trace. That thong
Ascetic which can life chastise
Down to her bleak necessities,
They mark in coarse serge of his gown,
And girdling rope, with cross of wood
For tag at end; and hut-like hood
Superfluous now behind him thrown;
And sandals which expose the skin
Transparent, and the blue vein thin
Meandering there: the feet, the face
Alike in lucid marble grace.
His simple manners self-possessed
Both saint and noble-born suggest;
Yet under quietude they mark
The slumbering of a vivid spark—
Excitable, if brought to test.
A Tuscan, he exchanged the charm
Val d’Arno yields, for this dull calm
Of desert. Was his youth self-given
In frank oblation unto heaven?
Or what inducement might disarm
This Isaac when too young to know?
Hereon they, pacing, muse—till, lo,
The temple opens in dusk glades
Of long-drawn double colonnades:
Monoliths two-score and eight.
Rolfe looked about him, pleased in state:
“But this is goodly! Here we rove
As down the deep Dodona
grove:
Years, years and years these boles have stood!—
Late by the spring in idle mood
My will I made (if ye recall),
Providing for the Inn of Trees:
But ah, to set out trunks like these
In harbor open unto all
For generations!” So in vein
Rolfe free descanted as through fane
They passed. But noting now the guide
In acquiescence by their side,
He checked himself: “Why prate I here?
This brother—I usurp his sphere.”
They came unto a silver star
In pavement set which none do mar
By treading. Here at pause remained
The monk; till, seeing Rolfe refrained,
And all, from words, he said: “The place,
Signori, where that shining grace
Which led the Magi, stood; below,
The Manger is.” They comment none;
Not voicing everything they know,
In cirque about that silver star
They quietly gaze thereupon.
But, turning now, one glanced afar
Along the columned aisles, and thought
Of Baldwin whom the mailed knights brought,
While Godfrey’s requiem did ring,
Hither to Bethlehem, and crowned
His temples helmet-worn, with round
Of gold and velvet—crowned him king—
King of Jerusalem, on floor
Of this same nave august, above
The Manger in its low remove
Where lay, a thousand years before,
The Child of awful worshiping,
Destined to prove all slights and scorns,
And a God’s coronation—thorns.
Not Derwent’s was that revery;
Another thing his heart possessed,
The clashing of the East and West,
Odd sense of incongruity;
He felt a secret impulse move
To start a humorous comment slant
Upon the monk, and sly reprove.
But no: I’ll curb the Protestant
And modern in me—at least here
For time I’ll curb it. Perish truth
If it but act the boor, in sooth,
Requiting courtesy with jeer;
For courteous is our guide, with grace
Of a pure heart.
Some little trace,
May be, of Derwent’s passing thought
The Tuscan from his aspect caught;
And turned him: “Pardon! but the crypt:
This way, signori—follow me.”
Down by a rock-hewn stair they slipped,
Herman Melville- Complete Poems Page 57
