Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

  Through Clarel a revulsion ran,

  Such as may seize debarking man

  First hearing on Coquimbo’s ground

  That subterranean sullen sound

  Which dull foreruns the shock. His heart,

  In augury fair arrested here,

  Upbraided him: Fool! and didst part

  From Ruth? Strangely a novel fear

  Obtruded—petty, and yet worse

  And more from reason too averse,

  Than that recurrent haunting bier

  Molesting him erewhile. And yet

  It was but irritation, fret—

  Misgiving that the lines he writ

  Upon the eve before the start

  For Siddim, failed, or were unfit—

  Came short of the occasion’s tone:

  To leave her, leave her in grief’s smart:

  To leave her—her, the stricken one:

  Now first to feel full force of it!

  Away! to be but there, but there!

  Vain goadings: yet of love true part.

  But then the pledge with letter sent,

  Though but a trifle, still might bear

  A token in dumb argument

  Expressive more than words.

  With knee

  Straining against the saddle-brace,

  He urges on; till, near the place

  Of Hebrew graves, a light they see

  Moving, and figures dimly trace:

  Some furtive strange society.

  Yet nearer as they ride, the light

  Shuts down. “Abide!” enjoined the Druze;

  “Waylayers these are none, but Jews,

  Or I mistake, who here by night

  Have stolen to do grave-digger’s work.

  During late outbreak in the town

  The bigot in the baser Turk

  Was so inflamed, some Hebrews dread

  Assault, even here among their dead.

  Abide a space; let me ride on.”

  Up pushed he, spake, allayed the fright

  Of them who had shut down the light

  At sound of comers.

  Close they draw—

  Advancing, lit by fan-shaped rays

  Shot from a small dark-lantern’s jaw

  Presented pistol-like. They saw

  Mattocks and men, in outline dim

  On either ominous side of him

  From whom went forth that point of blaze.

  Resting from labor, each one stays

  His implement on grave-stones old.

  New-dug, between these, they behold

  Two narrow pits: and (nor remote)

  Twin figures on the ground they note

  Folded in cloaks.

  “And who rest there?”

  Rolfe sidelong asked.

  “Our friends; have care!”

  Replied the one that held in view

  The lantern, slanting it a’shift,

  Plainer disclosing them, and, too,

  A broidered scarf, love’s first chance gift,

  The student’s (which how well he knew!)

  Binding one mantle’s slender span.

  With piercing cry, as one distraught,

  Down from his horse leaped Clarel—ran,

  And hold of that cloak instant caught,

  And bared the face. Then (like a man

  Shot through the heart, but who retains

  His posture) rigid he remains—

  The mantle’s border in his hand,

  His glazed eyes unremoved. The band

  Of Jews—the pilgrims—all look on

  Shocked or amazed.

  But speech he won:

  “No—yes: enchanted here!—her name?”

  “Ruth, Nathan’s daughter,” said a Jew

  Who kenned him now—the youth that came

  Oft to the close; “but, thou—forbear;

  The dawn’s at hand and haste is due:

  See, by her side, ’tis Agar there.”

  “Ruth? Agar?—art thou, God?—But ye—

  All swims, and I but blackness see.—

  How happed it? speak!”

  “The fever—grief:

  ’Twere hard to tell; was no relief.”

  “And ye—your tribe—’twas ye denied

  Me access to this virgin’s side

  In bitter trial: take my curse!—

  O blind, blind, barren universe!

  Now am I like a bough torn down,

  And I must wither, cloud or sun!—

  Had I been near, this had not been.

  Do spirits look down upon this scene?—

  The message? some last word was left?”

  “For thee? no, none; the life was reft

  Sudden from Ruth; and Agar died

  Babbling of gulls and ocean wide—

  Out of her mind.”

  “And here’s the furl

  Of Nathan’s faith: then perish faith—

  ’Tis perjured!—Take me, take me, Death!

  Where Ruth is gone, me thither whirl,

  Where’er it be!”

  “Ye do outgo

  Mad Korah. Boy, this is the Dale

  Of Doom, God’s last assizes; so,

  Curb thee; even if sharp grief assail,

  Respect these precincts lest thou know

  An ill.”

  “Give way, quit thou our dead!”

  Menaced another, striding out;

  “Art thou of us? turn thee about!”

  “Spurn—I’ll endure; all spirit’s fled

  When one fears nothing.—Bear with me,

  Yet bear!—Conviction is not gone

  Though faith’s gone: that which shall not be

  It ought to be!”

  But here came on,

  With heavy footing, hollow heard,

  Hebrews, which bare rude slabs, to place

  Athwart the bodies when interred,

  That earth should weigh not on the face;

  For coffin was there none; and all

  Was make-shift in this funeral.

  Uncouthly here a Jew began

  To re-adjust Ruth’s cloak. Amain

  Did Clarel push him; and, in hiss:

  “Not thou—for me!—Alone, alone

  In such bride-chamber to lie down!

  Nay, leave one hand out—like to this—

  That so the bridegroom may not miss

  To kiss it first, when soon he comes.—

  But ’tis not she!” and hid his face.

  They laid them in the under-glooms—

  Each pale one in her portioned place.

  The gravel, from the bank raked down,

  Dull sounded on those slabs of stone,

  Grave answering grave—dull and more dull,

  Each mass growing more, till either pit was full.

  As up from Kedron dumb they drew,

  Then first the shivering Clarel knew

  Night’s damp. The Martyr’s port is won—

  Stephen’s; harsh grates the bolt withdrawn;

  And, over Olivet, comes on

  Ash Wednesday in the gray of dawn.

  31. DIRGE

  Stay, Death. Not mine the Christus-wand

  Wherewith to charge thee and command:

  I plead. Most gently hold the hand

  Of her thou leadest far away;

  Fear thou to let her naked feet

  Tread ashes—but let mosses sweet

  Her footing tempt, where’er ye stray.

  Shun Orcus; win the moonlit land
/>   Belulled—the silent meadows lone,

  Where never any leaf is blown

  From lily-stem in Azrael’s hand.

  There, till her love rejoin her lowly

  (Pensive, a shade, but all her own)

  On honey feed her, wild and holy;

  Or trance her with thy choicest charm.

  And if, ere yet the lover’s free,

  Some added dusk thy rule decree—

  That shadow only let it be

  Thrown in the moon-glade by the palm.

  32. PASSION WEEK

  Day passed; and passed a second one,

  A third—fourth—fifth; and bound he sate

  In film of sorrow without moan—

  Abandoned, in the stony strait

  Of mutineer thrust on wild shore,

  Hearing, beyond the roller’s froth,

  The last dip of the parting oar.

  Alone, for all had left him so;

  Though Rolfe, Vine, Derwent—each was loth,

  How loth to leave him, or to go

  Be first. From Vine he caught new sense

  Developed through fate’s pertinence.

  Friendly they tarried—blameless went:

  Life, avaricious, still demands

  Her own, and more; the world is rent

  With partings.

  But, since all are gone,

  Why lingers he, the stricken one?

  Why linger where no hope can be?

  Ask grief, love ask—fidelity

  In dog that by the corse abides

  Of shepherd fallen—abides, abides

  Though autumn into winter glides,

  Till on the mountain all is chill

  And snow-bound, and the twain lie still.

  How oft through Lent the feet were led

  Of this chastised and fasting one

  To neutral silence of the dead

  In Kedron’s gulf. One morn he sate

  Down poring toward it from the gate

  Sealed and named Golden. There a tomb,

  Erected in time’s recent day,

  In block along the threshold lay

  Impassable. From Omar’s bloom

  Came birds which lit, nor dreamed of harm,

  On neighboring stones. His visage calm

  Seemed not the one which late showed play

  Of passion’s throe; but here divine

  No peace; ignition in the mine

  Announced is by the rush, the roar:

  These end; yet may the coal burn on—

  Still slumberous burn beneath the floor

  Of pastures where the sheep lie down.

  Ere long a cheerful choral strain

  He hears; ’tis an Armenian train

  Embowered in palms they bear, which (green,

  And shifting oft) reveal the mien

  Of flamens tall and singers young

  In festal robes: a rainbow throng,

  Like dolphins off Madeira seen

  Which quick the ship and shout dismay.

  With the blest anthem, censers sway,

  Whose opal vapor, spiral borne,

  Blends with the heavens’ own azure Morn

  Of Palms; for ’twas Palm Sunday bright,

  Though thereof he, oblivious quite,

  Knew nothing, nor that here they came

  In memory of the green acclaim

  Triumphal, and hosanna-roll

  Which hailed Him on the ass’s foal.

  But unto Clarel that bright view

  Into a dusk reminder grew:

  He saw the tapers—saw again

  The censers, singers, and the wreath

  And litter of the bride of death

  Pass through the Broken Fountain’s lane;

  In treble shrill and bass how deep

  The men and boys he heard again

  The undetermined contest keep

  About the bier—the bier Armenian.

  Yet dull, in torpor dim, he knew

  The futile omen in review.

  Yet three more days, and leadenly

  From over Mary’s port and arch,

  On Holy Thursday, he the march

  Of friars beheld, with litany

  Filing beneath his feet, and bent

  With crosses craped to sacrament

  Down in the glenned Gethsemane.

  Yes, Passion Week; the altars cower—

  Each shrine a dead dismantled bower.

  But when Good Friday dirged her gloom

  Ere brake the morning, and each light

  Round Calvary faded and the TOMB,

  What exhalations met his sight:—

  Illusion of grief’s wakeful doom:

  The dead walked. There, amid the train,

  Wan Nehemiah he saw again—

  With charnel beard; and Celio passed

  As in a dampened mirror glassed;

  Gleamed Mortmain, pallid as wolf-bone

  Which bleaches where no man hath gone;

  And Nathan in his murdered guise—

  Sullen, and Hades in his eyes;

  Poor Agar, with such wandering mien

  As in her last blank hour was seen.

  And each and all kept lonely state,

  Yea, man and wife passed separate.

  But Ruth—ah, how estranged in face!

  He knew her by no earthly grace:

  Nor might he reach to her in place.

  And languid vapors from them go

  Like thaw-fogs curled from dankish snow.

  Where, where now He who helpeth us,

  The Comforter?—Tell, Erebus!

  33. EASTER

  BUT ON THE THIRD DAY CHRIST AROSE;

  And, in the town He knew, the rite

  Commemorative eager goes

  Before the hour. Upon the night

  Between the week’s last day and first,

  No more the Stabat is dispersed

  Or Tenebræ. And when the day,

  The Easter, falls in calendar

  The same to Latin and the array

  Of all schismatics from afar—

  Armenians, Greeks from many a shore—

  Syrians, Copts—profusely pour

  The hymns: ’tis like the choric gush

  Of torrents Alpine when they rush

  To swell the anthem of the spring.

  That year was now. Throughout the fane,

  Floor, and arcades in double ring

  About the gala of THE TOMB,

  Blazing with lights, behung with bloom—

  What child-like thousands roll the strain,

  The hallelujah after pain,

  Which in all tongues of Christendom

  Still through the ages has rehearsed

  That Best, the outcome of the Worst.

  Nor blame them who by lavish rite

  Thus greet the pale victorious Son,

  Since Nature times the same delight,

  And rises with the Emerging One;

  Her passion-week, her winter mood

  She slips, with crape from off the Rood.

  In soft rich shadow under dome,

  With gems and robes repletely fine,

  The priests like birds Brazilian shine:

  And moving tapers charm the sight,

  Enkindling the curled incense-fume:

  A dancing ray, Auroral light.

  Burn on the hours, and meet the day.

  The morn invites; the suburbs call

  The concourse to come forth—this way!

 
Out from the gate by Stephen’s wall,

  They issue, dot the hills, and stray

  In bands, like sheep among the rocks;

  And the Good Shepherd in the heaven,

  To whom the charge of these is given,

  The Christ, ah! counts He there His flocks?

  But they, at each suburban shrine,

  Grateful adore that Friend benign;

  Though chapel now and cross divine

  Too frequent show neglected; nay,

  For charities of early rains

  Rim them about with vernal stains,

  Forerunners of maturer May,

  When those red flowers, which so can please,

  (Christ’s-Blood-Drops named—anemones),

  Spot Ephraim and the mountain-way.

  But heart bereft is unrepaid

  Though Thammuz’ spring in Thammuz’ glade

  Invite; then how in Joel’s glen?

  What if dyed shawl and bodice gay

  Make bright the black dell? what if they

  In distance clear diminished be

  To seeming cherries dropped on pall

  Borne graveward under laden tree?

  The cheer, so human, might not call

  The maiden up; Christ is arisen:

  But Ruth, may Ruth so burst the prison?

  The rite supreme being ended now,

  Their confluence here the nations part:

  Homeward the tides of pilgrims flow,

  By contrast making the walled town

  Like a depopulated mart;

  More like some kirk on week-day lone,

  On whose void benches broodeth still

  The brown light from November hill.

  But though the freshet quite be gone—

  Sluggish, life’s wonted stream flows on.

  34. VIA CRUCIS

  Some leading thoroughfares of man

  In wood-path, track, or trail began;

  Though threading heart of proudest town,

  They follow in controlling grade

  A hint or dictate, nature’s own,

  By man, as by the brute, obeyed.

  Within Jerusalem a lane,

  Narrow, nor less an artery main

  (Though little knoweth it of din),

  In part suggests such origin.

  The restoration or repair,

  Successive through long ages there,

  Of city upon city tumbled,

  Might scarce divert that thoroughfare,

  Whose hill abideth yet unhumbled

  Above the valley-side it meets.