Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

Athwart the way, and key in hand

  Noiseless applies it, enters so

  And vanishes. By dry airs fanned,

  The languid hyssop waveth slow,

  Dusty, on stones by ruin rent.

  ’Twould seem indeed the accomplishment

  Whereof the greater prophet tells

  In truth’s forecasting canticles

  Where voice of bridegroom, groom and bride

  Is hushed.

  Each silent wall and lane—

  The city’s towers in barren pride

  Which still a stifling air detain,

  So irked him, with his burden fraught,

  Timely the Jaffa Gate he sought,

  Thence issued, and at venture went

  Along a vague and houseless road

  Save narrow houses where abode

  The Turk in man’s last tenement

  Inearthed. But them he heeded not,

  Such trance his reveries begot:

  “Christ lived a Jew: and in Judæa

  May linger any breath of Him?

  If nay, yet surely it is here

  One best may learn if all be dim.”

  Sudden it came in random play

  “Here to Emmaus is the way;”

  And Luke’s narration straight recurred,

  How the two falterers’ hearts were stirred

  Meeting the Arisen (then unknown)

  And listening to his lucid word

  As here in place they traveled on.

  That scene, in Clarel’s temper, bred

  A novel sympathy, which said—

  I too, I too; could I but meet

  Some stranger of a lore replete,

  Who, marking how my looks betray

  The dumb thoughts clogging here my feet,

  Would question me, expound and prove,

  And make my heart to burn with love—

  Emmaus were no dream to-day!

  He lifts his eyes, and, outlined there,

  Saw, as in answer to the prayer,

  A man who silent came and slow

  Just over the intervening brow

  Of a nigh slope. Nearer he drew

  Revealed against clear skies of blue;

  And—in that Syrian air of charm—

  He seemed, illusion such was given,

  Emerging from the level heaven,

  And vested with its liquid calm.

  Scarce aged like time’s wrinkled sons,

  But touched by chastenings of Eld,

  Which halloweth life’s simpler ones;

  In wasted strength he seemed upheld

  Invisibly by faith serene—

  Paul’s evidence of things not seen.

  No staff he carried; but one hand

  A solitary Book retained.

  Meeting the student’s, his mild eyes

  Fair greeting gave, in faint surprise.

  But, noting that untranquil face,

  Concern and anxiousness found place

  Beyond the occasion and surmise:

  “Young friend in Christ, what thoughts molest

  That here ye droop so? Wanderest

  Without a guide where guide should be?

  Receive one, friend: the book—take ye.”

  From man to book in startled way

  The youth his eyes bent. Book how gray

  And weather-stained in woeful plight—

  Much like that scroll left bare to blight,

  Which poet pale, when hope was low,

  Bade one who into Libya went,

  Fling to the wasteful element,

  Yes, leave it there, let wither so.

  Ere Clarel ventured on reply

  Anew the stranger proffered it,

  And in such mode he might espy

  It was the page of—Holy Writ.

  Then unto him drew Clarel nigher:

  “Thou art?” “The sinner Nehemiah.”

  8. THE VOTARY

  Sinner?—So spake the saint, a man

  Long tarrying in Jewry’s court.

  With him the faith so well could sort

  His home he’d left, nor turned again,

  His home by Narraganset’s marge,

  Giving those years on death which verge

  Fondly to that enthusiast part

  Oft coming of a stricken heart

  Unselfish, which finds solace so.

  Though none in sooth might hope to know,

  And few surmise his forepast bane,

  Such needs have been; since seldom yet

  Lone liver was, or wanderer met,

  Except he closeted some pain

  Or memory thereof. But thence,

  May be, was given him deeper sense

  Of all that travail life can lend,

  Which man may scarce articulate

  Better than herds which share. What end?

  How hope? turn whither? where was gate

  For expectation, save the one

  Of beryl, pointed by St. John?

  That gate would open, yea, and Christ

  Thence issue, come unto His own,

  And earth be re-imparadised.

  Passages, presages he knew:

  Zion restore, convert the Jew,

  Reseat him here, the waste bedew;

  Then Christ returneth: so it ran.

  No founded mission chartered him;

  Single in person as in plan,

  Absorbed he ranged, in method dim,

  A flitting tract-dispensing man:

  Tracts in each text scribe ever proved

  In East which he of Tarsus roved.

  Though well such heart might sainthood claim,

  Unjust alloy to reverence came.

  In Smyrna’s mart (sojourning there

  Waiting a ship for Joppa’s stair)

  Pestered he passed thro’ Gentile throngs

  Teased by an eddying urchin host,

  His tracts all fluttering like tongues

  The fire-flakes of the Pentecost.

  Deep read he was in seers devout,

  The which forecast Christ’s second prime,

  And on his slate would cipher out

  The mystic days and dates sublime,

  And “Time and times and half a time”

  Expound he could; and more reveal;

  Yet frequent would he feebly steal

  Close to one’s side, asking, in way

  Of weary age—the hour of day.

  But how he lived, and what his fare,

  Ravens and angels, few beside,

  Dreamed or divined. His garments spare

  True marvel seemed, nor unallied

  To clothes worn by that wandering band

  Which ranged and ranged the desert sand

  With Moses; and for forty years,

  Which two-score times re-clad the spheres

  In green, and plumed the birds anew,

  One vesture wore. From home he brought

  The garb which still met sun and dew,

  Ashen in shade, by rustics wrought.

  Latin, Armenian, Greek, and Jew

  Full well the harmless vagrant kenned,

  The small meek face, the habit gray:

  In him they owned our human clay.

  The Turk went further: let him wend;

  Him Allah cares for, holy one:

  A Santon held him; and was none

  Bigot enough scorn’s shaft to send.

  For, say what cynic will or can,

  Man sinless is revered by man

  Thro’ all the forms
which creeds may lend.

  And so, secure, nor pointed at,

  Among brave Turbans freely roamed the Hat.

  9. SAINT AND STUDENT

  “Nay, take it, friend in Christ,” and held

  The book in proffer new; the while

  His absent eyes of dreamy Eld

  Some floating vision did beguile

  (Of heaven perchance the wafted hem),

  As if in place of earthly wight

  A haze of spirits met his sight,

  And Clarel were but one of them.

  “Consult it, heart; wayfarer you,

  And this a friendly guide, the best;

  No ground there is that faith would view

  But here ’tis rendered with the rest;

  The way to fields of Beulah dear

  And New Jerusalem is here.”

  “I know that guide,” said Clarel, “yes;”

  And mused awhile in bitterness;

  Then turned and studied him again,

  Doubting and marveling. A strain

  Of trouble seamed the elder brow:

  “A pilgrim art thou? pilgrim thou?”

  Words simple, which in Clarel bred

  More than the simple saint divined;

  And, thinking of vocation fled,

  Himself he asked: or do I rave,

  Or have I left now far behind

  The student of the sacred lore?

  Direct he then this answer gave:

  “I am a traveler—no more.”

  “Come then with me, in peace we’ll go;

  These ways of Salem well I know;

  Me let be guide whose guide is this,”

  And held the Book in witness so,

  As ’twere a guide that could not miss:

  “Heart, come with me; all times I roam,

  Yea, everywhere my work I ply,

  In Salem’s lanes, or down in gloom

  Of narrow glens which outer lie:

  Ever I find some passer-by.

  But thee I’m sent to; share and rove,

  With me divide the scrip of love.”

  Despite the old man’s shattered ray,

  Won by his mystic saintly way,

  Revering too his primal faith,

  And grateful for the human claim;

  And deeming he must know each path,

  And help him so in languid frame—

  The student gave assent, and caught

  Dim solacement to previous thought.

  10. RAMBLES

  Days fleet. They rove the storied ground—

  Tread many a site that rues the ban

  Where serial wrecks on wrecks confound

  Era and monument and man;

  Or rather, in stratifying way

  Bed and impact and overlay.

  The Hospitalers’ cloisters shamed

  Crumble in ruin unreclaimed

  On shivered Fatimite palaces

  Reared upon crash of Herod’s sway—

  In turn built on the Maccabees,

  And on King David’s glory, they;

  And David on antiquities

  Of Jebusites and Ornan’s floor,

  And hunters’ camps of ages long before.

  So Glenroy’s tiers of beaches be—

  Abandoned margins of the Glacial Sea.

  Amid that waste from joy debarred,

  How few the islets fresh and green;

  Yet on Moriah, tree and sward

  In Allah’s courts park-like were seen

  From roof near by; below, fierce ward

  Being kept by Mauritanian guard

  Of bigot blacks. But of the reign

  Of Christ did no memento live

  Save soil and ruin? Negative

  Seemed yielded in that crumbling fane,

  Erst gem to Baldwin’s sacred fief,

  The chapel of our Dame of Grief.

  But hard by Ophel’s winding base,

  Well watered by the runnel led,

  A spot they found, not lacking grace,

  Named Garden of King Solomon,

  Tho’ now a cauliflower-bed

  To serve the kitchens of the town.

  One day as here they came from far,

  The saint repeated with low breath,

  “Adonijah, Adonijah—

  The stumbling-stone of Zoheleth.”

  He wanders, Clarel thought—but no,

  For text and chapter did he show

  Narrating how the prince in glade,

  This very one, the banquet made,

  The plotters’ banquet, long ago,

  Even by the stone named Zoheleth;

  But startled by the trump that blew,

  Proclaiming Solomon, pale grew

  With all his guests.

  From lower glen

  They slanted up the steep, and there

  Attained a higher terraced den,

  Or small and silent field, quite bare.

  The mentor breathed: “Come early here

  A sign thou’lt see.” —Clarel drew near;

  “What sign?” he asked. Whereto with sighs:

  “Abashed by morning’s holy eyes

  This field will crimson, and for shame.”

  Struck by his fantasy and frame,

  Clarel regarded him for time,

  Then noted that dull reddish soil,

  And caught sight of a thing of grime

  Whose aspect made him to recoil—

  A rotting charnel-house forlorn

  Midway inearthed, caved in and torn.

  And Clarel knew—one scarce might err—

  The field of blood, the bad Aceldama.

  By Olivet in waning day

  The saint in fond illusion went,

  Dream mixed with legend and event;

  And as with reminiscence fraught,

  Narrated in his rambling way

  How here at eve was Christ’s resort,

  The last low sheep-bell tinkling lone—

  Christ and the dear disciple—John.

  Oft by the Golden Gate that looks

  On Shaveh down, and far across

  Toward Bethany’s secluded nooks—

  That gate which sculptures rare emboss

  In arches twin; the same where rode

  Christ entering with secret load—

  Same gate, or on or near the site—

  When palms were spread to left and right

  Before him, and with sweet acclaim

  Were waved by damsels under sway

  Of trees wherefrom those branches came—

  Over and under palms He went

  Unto that crown how different!

  The port walled up by Moslem hands

  In dread of that predicted day

  When pealing hymns, armed Christian bands—

  So Islam seers despondent vouch—

  Shall storm it, wreathed in Mary’s May:

  By that sealed gate, in languor’s slouch,

  How listless in the golden day,

  Clarel the mentor frequent heard

  The time for Christ’s return allot:

  A dream, and like a dream it blurred

  The sense—faded, and was forgot.

  Moved by some mystic impulse, far

  From motive known or regular,

  The saint would thus his lore unfold,

  Though inconclusive; yes, half told

  The theme he’d leave, then nod, droop, doze—

  Start up and prattle—sigh, and close.

 
11. LOWER GIHON

  Well for the student, might it last,

  This dreamful frame which Lethe bred:

  Events obtruded, and it passed.

  For on a time the twain were led

  From Gihon’s upper pool and glade

  Down to the deeper gulf. They strayed

  Along by many silent cells

  Cut in the rock, void citadels

  Of death. In porch of one was seen

  A mat of tender turf, faint green;

  And quiet standing on that sward

  A stranger whom they overheard

  Low murmuring—“Equivocal!

  Woo’st thou the weary to thee—tell,

  Thou tomb, so winsome in thy grace?

  To me no reassuring place.”

  He saw them not; and they, to shun

  Disturbing him, passed, and anon

  Met three demoniacs, sad three

  Ranging those wasteful limits o’er

  As in old time. That look they wore

  Which in the moody mad bids flee;

  ’Tis—What have I to do with thee?

  Two shunned approach. But one did sit

  Lost in some reminiscence sore

  Of private wrong outrageous. He,

  As at the larger orb of it,

  Looming through mists of mind, would bound,

  Or cease to pore upon the ground

  As late; and so be inly riven

  By arrows of indignant pain:

  Convulsed in face, he glared at heaven

  Then lapsed in sullenness again.

  Dire thoughts the pilgrim’s mind beset:

  “And did Christ come? in such a scene

  Encounter the poor Gadarene

  Long centuries ago? and yet—

  Behold!”

  But here came in review—

  Though of their nearness unaware—

  The stranger, downward wending there,

  Who marking Clarel, instant knew—

  At least so might his start declare—

  A brother that he well might own

  In tie of spirit. Young he was,

  With crescent forehead—but alas,

  Of frame mis-shaped. Word spake he none,

  But vaguely hovered, as may one

  Not first who would accost, but deep

  Under reserve the wish may keep.

  Ere Clarel, here embarrassed grown,

  Made recognition, the Unknown

  Compressed his lips, turned and was gone.

  Mutely for moment, face met face:

  But more perchance between the two

  Was interchanged than e’en may pass

  In many a worded interview.