Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

  Unworldly—hardly may confer

  Fitness for just interpreter

  Of Palestine. Forego the state

  Of local minds inveterate,

  Tied to one poor and casual form.

  To avoid the deep saves not from storm.

  “Those things he said, and added more;

  No clear authenticated lore

  I deemed. But now, need now confess

  My cultivated narrowness,

  Though scarce indeed of sort he meant?

  ’Tis the uprooting of content!”

  So he, the student. ’Twas a mind,

  Earnest by nature, long confined

  Apart like Vesta in a grove

  Collegiate, but let to rove

  At last abroad among mankind,

  And here in end confronted so

  By the true genius, friend or foe,

  And actual visage of a place

  Before but dreamed of in the glow

  Of fancy’s spiritual grace.

  Further his meditations aim,

  Reverting to his different frame

  Bygone. And then: “Can faith remove

  Her light, because of late no plea

  I’ve lifted to her source above?”

  Dropping thereat upon the knee,

  His lips he parted; but the word

  Against the utterance demurred

  And failed him. With infirm intent

  He sought the house-top. Set of sun:

  His feet upon the yet warm stone,

  He, Clarel, by the coping leant,

  In silent gaze. The mountain town,

  A walled and battlemented one,

  With houseless suburbs front and rear,

  And flanks built up from steeps severe,

  Saddles and turrets the ascent—

  Tower which rides the elephant.

  Hence large the view. There where he stood,

  Was Acra’s upper neighborhood.

  The circling hills he saw, with one

  Excelling, ample in its crown,

  Making the uplifted city low

  By contrast—Olivet. The flow

  Of eventide was at full brim;

  Overlooked, the houses sloped from him—

  Terraced or domed, unchimnied, gray,

  All stone—a moor of roofs. No play

  Of life; no smoke went up, no sound

  Except low hum, and that half drowned.

  The inn abutted on the pool

  Named Hezekiah’s, a sunken court

  Where silence and seclusion rule,

  Hemmed round by walls of nature’s sort,

  Base to stone structures seeming one

  E’en with the steeps they stand upon.

  As a three-decker’s stern-lights peer

  Down on the oily wake below,

  Upon the sleek dark waters here

  The inn’s small lattices bestow

  A rearward glance. And here and there

  In flaws the languid evening air

  Stirs the dull weeds adust, which trail

  In festoons from the crag, and veil

  The ancient fissures, overtopped

  By the tall convent of the Copt,

  Built like a light-house o’er the main.

  Blind arches showed in walls of wane,

  Sealed windows, portals masoned fast,

  And terraces where nothing passed

  By parapets all dumb. No tarn

  Among the Kaatskills, high above

  Farm-house and stack, last lichened barn

  And log-bridge rotting in remove—

  More lonesome looks than this dead pool

  In town where living creatures rule.

  Not here the spell might he undo;

  The strangeness haunted him and grew.

  But twilight closes. He descends

  And toward the inner court he wends.

  2. ABDON

  A lamp in archway hangs from key—

  A lamp whose sidelong rays are shed

  On a slim vial set in bed

  Of door-post all of masonry.

  That vial hath the Gentile vexed;

  Within it holds Talmudic text,

  Or charm. And there the Black Jew sits,

  Abdon the host. The lamp-light flits

  O’er reverend beard of saffron hue

  Sweeping his robe of Indian blue.

  Disturbed and troubled in estate,

  Longing for solacement of mate,

  Clarel in court there nearer drew,

  As yet unnoted, for the host

  In meditation seemed engrossed,

  Perchance upon some line late scanned

  In leathern scroll that drooped from hand.

  Ere long, without surprise expressed,

  The lone man marked his lonelier guest,

  And welcomed him. Discourse was bred;

  In end a turn it took, and led

  To grave recital. Here was one

  (If question of his word be none)

  Descended from those dubious men,

  The unreturning tribes, the Ten

  Whom shout and halloo wide have sought,

  Lost children in the wood of time.

  Yes, he, the Black Jew, stinting naught,

  Averred that ancient India’s clime

  Harbored the remnant of the Tribes,

  A people settled with their scribes

  In far Cochin. There was he born

  And nurtured, and there yet his kin,

  Never from true allegiance torn,

  Kept Moses’ law.

  Cochin, Cochin

  (Mused Clarel), I have heard indeed

  Of those Black Jews, their ancient creed

  And hoar tradition. Esdras saith

  The Ten Tribes built in Arsareth—

  Eastward, still eastward. That may be.

  But look, the scroll of goat-skin, see

  Wherein he reads, a wizard book;

  It is the Indian Pentateuch

  Whereof they tell. Whate’er the plea

  (And scholars various notions hold

  Touching these missing clans of old),

  This seems a deeper mystery;

  How Judah, Benjamin, live on—

  Unmixed into time’s swamping sea

  So far can urge their Amazon.

  He pondered. But again the host,

  Narrating part his life-time tossed,

  Told how, long since, with trade in view,

  He sailed from India with a Jew

  And merchant of the Portuguese

  For Lisbon. More he roved the seas

  And marts, till in the last event

  He pitched in Amsterdam his tent.

  “There had I lived my life,” he said,

  “Among my kind, for good they were;

  But loss came—loss, and I was led

  To long for Judah—only her.

  But see.” He rose, and took the light

  And led within: “There ye espy

  What prospect’s left to such as I—

  Yonder!”—a dark slab stood upright

  Against the wall; a rude grave-stone

  Sculptured, with Hebrew ciphers strown.

  “Under Moriah it shall lie—

  No distant date, for very soon,

  Ere yet a little, and I die.

  From Ind to Zion have I come,

  But less to live, than end at home.

  One other last remove!” he sighed,

  And meditated on the stone,
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  Lamp held aloft. That magnified

  The hush throughout the dim unknown

  Of night—night in a land how dead!

  Thro’ Clarel’s heart the old man’s strain

  Dusky meandered in a vein

  One with the revery it bred;

  His eyes still dwelling on the Jew

  In added dream—so strange his shade

  Of swartness like a born Hindoo,

  And wizened visage which betrayed

  The Hebrew cast. And subtile yet

  In ebon frame an amulet

  Which on his robe the patriarch wore—

  And scroll, and vial in the door,

  These too contributed in kind.

  They parted. Clarel sought his cell

  Or tomb-like chamber, and—with mind

  To break or intermit the spell,

  At least perplex it and impede—

  Lighted the lamp of olive oil,

  And, brushing from a trunk the soil—

  ’Twas one late purchased at his need—

  Opened, and strove to busy him

  With small adjustments. Bootless cheer!

  While wavering now, in chanceful skim

  His eyes fell on the word JUDÆA

  In paper lining of the tray,

  For all was trimmed, in cheaper way,

  With printed matter. Curious then

  To know this faded denizen,

  He read, and found a piece complete,

  Briefly comprised in one poor sheet:

  “The World accosts—

  “Last one out of Holy Land,

  What gift bring’st thou? Sychem grapes?

  Tabor, which the Eden drapes,

  Yieldeth garlands. I demand

  Something cheery at thy hand.

  Come, if Solomon’s Song thou singest,

  Haply Sharon’s rose thou bringest.”

  “The Palmer replies:

  “Nay, naught thou nam’st thy servant brings,

  Only Judæa my feet did roam;

  And mainly there the pilgrim clings

  About the precincts of Christ’s tomb.

  These palms I bring—from dust not free,

  Since dust and ashes both were trod by me.”

  O’er true thy gift (thought Clarel). Well,

  Scarce might the world accept, ’twould seem.

  But I, shall I my feet impel

  Through road like thine and naught redeem?

  Rather thro’ brakes, lone brakes, I wind:

  As I advance they close behind.—

  Thought’s burden! on the couch he throws

  Himself and it—rises, and goes

  To peer from casement. ’Twas moonlight,

  With stars, the Olive Hill in sight,

  Distinct, yet dreamy in repose,

  As of Katahdin in hot noon,

  Lonely, with all his pines in swoon.

  The nature and evangel clashed,

  Rather, a double mystery flashed.

  Olivet, Olivet do I see?

  The ideal upland, trod by Thee?

  Up or reclined, he felt the soul

  Afflicted by that noiseless calm,

  Till sleep, the good nurse, deftly stole

  The bed beside, and for a charm

  Took the pale hand within her own,

  Nor left him till the night was gone.

  3. THE SEPULCHRE

  In Crete they claimed the tomb of Jove

  In glen over which his eagles soar;

  But thro’ a peopled town ye rove

  To Christ’s low urn, where, nigh the door,

  Settles the dove. So much the more

  The contrast stamps the human God

  Who dwelt among us, made abode

  With us, and was of woman born;

  Partook our bread, and thought no scorn

  To share the humblest, homeliest hearth,

  Shared all of man except the sin and mirth.

  Such, among thronging thoughts, may stir

  In pilgrim pressing thro’ the lane

  That dusty wins the reverend fane,

  Seat of the Holy Sepulchre,

  And naturally named therefrom.

  What altars old in cluster rare

  And grotto-shrines engird the Tomb:

  Caves and a crag; and more is there;

  And halls monastic join their gloom.

  To sum in comprehensive bounds

  The Passion’s drama with its grounds,

  Immense the temple winds and strays

  Finding each storied precinct out—

  Absorbs the sites all roundabout—

  Omnivorous, and a world of maze.

  And yet time was when all here stood

  Separate, and from rood to rood,

  Chapel to shrine, or tent to tent,

  Unsheltered still the pilgrim went

  Where now enroofed the whole coheres—

  Where now thro’ influence of years

  And spells by many a legend lent,

  A sort of nature reappears—

  Sombre or sad, and much in tone

  Perhaps with that which here was known

  Of yore, when from this Salem height,

  Then sylvan in primeval plight,

  Down came to Shaveh’s Dale, with wine

  And bread, after the four Kings’ check,

  The Druid priest Melchizedek,

  Abram to bless with rites divine.

  What rustlings here from shadowy spaces,

  Deep vistas where the votary paces,

  Will, strangely intermitting, creep

  Like steps in Indian forest deep.

  How bird-like steals the singer’s note

  Down from some rail or arch remote:

  While, glimmering where kneelers be,

  Small lamps, dispersed, with glow-worm light

  Mellow the vast nave’s azure night,

  And make a haze of mystery:

  The blur is spread of thousand years,

  And Calvary’s seen as through one’s tears.

  In cloistral walks the dome detains

  Hermits, which during public days

  Seclude them where the shadow stays,

  But issue when charmed midnight reigns,

  Unshod, with tapers lit, and roam,

  According as their hearts appoint,

  The purlieus of the central Tomb

  In round of altars; and anoint

  With fragrant oils each marble shelf;

  Or, all alone, strange solace find

  And oratory to their mind

  Lone locked within the Tomb itself.

  Cells note ye as in bower a nest

  Where some sedate rich devotee

  Or grave guest-monk from over sea

  Takes up through Lent his votive rest,

  Adoring from his saintly perch

  Golgotha and the guarded Urn,

  And mysteries everywhere expressed;

  Until his soul, in rapt sojourn,

  Add one more chapel to the Church.

  The friars in turn which tend the Fane,

  Dress it and keep, a home make there,

  Nor pass for weeks the gate. Again

  Each morning they ascend the stair

  Of Calvary, with cloth and broom,

  For dust thereon will settle down,

  And gather, too, upon the Tomb

  And places of the Passion’s moan.

  Tradition, not device and fraud

  Here rules—tradition old and broad.

&nb
sp; Transfixed in sites the drama’s shown—

  Each given spot assigned; ’tis here

  They scourged Him; soldiers yonder nailed

  The Victim to the tree; in jeer

  There stood the Jews; there Mary paled;

  The vesture was divided here.

  A miracle-play of haunted stone—

  A miracle-play, a phantom one,

  With power to give pause or subdue.

  So that whatever comment be—

  Serious, if to faith unknown—

  Not possible seems levity

  Or aught that may approach thereto.

  And, sooth, to think what numbers here,

  Age after age, have worn the stones

  In suppliance or judgment fear;

  What mourners—men and women’s moans,

  Ancestors of ourselves indeed;

  What souls whose penance of remorse

  Made poignant by the elder creed,

  Found honest language in the force

  Of chains entwined that ate the bone;

  How here a’Becket’s slayers clung

  Taking the contrite anguish on,

  And, in release from fast and thong,

  Buried upon Moriah sleep;

  With more, much more; such ties, so deep,

  Endear the spot, or false or true

  As an historic site. The wrong

  Of carpings never may undo

  The nerves that clasp about the plea

  Tingling with kinship through and through—

  Faith child-like and the tried humanity.

  But little here moves hearts of some;

  Rather repugnance grave, or scorn

  Or cynicism, to mark the dome

  Beset in court or yard forlorn

  By pedlars versed in wonted tricks,

  Venders of charm or crucifix;

  Or, on saint-days, to hark the din

  As during market day at inn,

  And polyglot of Asian tongues

  And island ones, in interchange

  Buzzed out by crowds in costumes strange

  Of nations divers. Are these throngs

  Merchants? Is this Cairo’s bazar

  And concourse? Nay, thy strictures bar.

  It is but simple nature, see;

  None mean irreverence, though free.

  Unvexed by Europe’s grieving doubt

  Which asks And can the Father be?

  Those children of the climes devout,

  On festival in fane installed,

  Happily ignorant, make glee

  Like orphans in the play-ground walled.

  Others the duskiness may find

  Imbued with more than nature’s gloom;

  These, loitering hard by the Tomb,