Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

  Of cord-girt gowns. He looks again:

  Yes, ’tis the Terra Santa’s train.

  Nearer they come. The warden goes,

  And other faces Celio knows.

  Upon an office these are bound

  Consolatory, which may stem

  The affliction, or relieve the wound

  Of those which mute accompany them

  In mourners’ garb.

  Aside he shrunk

  Until had passed the rearmost monk;

  Then, cloaked, he followed them in glade

  Where fell the shadow deeper made.

  Kedron they cross. Much so might move—

  If legend hold, which none may prove,—

  The remnant of the Twelve which bore

  Down thro’ this glen in funeral plight

  The Mother of our Lord by night

  To sepulcher. Nay, just before

  Her tomb alleged, the monks and they

  Which mourn, pause and uplift a lay;

  Then rise, pass on, and bow the knee

  In dust beside Gethsemane.

  One named the Bitter Cup, and said:

  “Saviour, thou knowest: it was here

  The angels ministered, thy head

  Supported, kissed thy lidded eyes

  And pale swooned cheek till thou didst rise;

  Help these then, unto these come near!”

  Out sobbed the mourners, and the tear

  From Celio trickled; but he mused—

  Weak am I, by a myth abused.

  Up Olivet the torch-light train

  Filed slowly, yielding tribute-strain

  At every sacred place they won;

  Nor tarried long, but journeyed on

  To Bethany—thro’ stony lane

  Went down into the narrow house

  Or void cave named from Lazarus.

  The flambeaux redden the dark wall,

  Their shadows on that redness fall.

  To make the attestation rife,

  The resurrection and the life

  Through Him the lord of miracle—

  The warden from the page doth bruit

  The story of the man that died

  And lived again—bound hand and foot

  With grave-clothes, rose—electrified;

  Whom then they loosed, let go; even he

  Whom many people came to see,

  The village hinds and farm-house maids,

  Afterward, at the supper given

  To Jesus in the balmy even,

  Who raised him vital from the shades.

  The lesson over, well they sang

  “O death, where is thy sting? O grave,

  Where is thy victory?” It rang,

  And ceased. And from the outward cave

  These tones were heard: “But died he twice?

  He comes not back from Paradise

  Or Hades now. A vacant tomb

  By Golgotha they show—a cell,

  A void cell here. And is it well?

  Raiser and raised divide one doom;

  Both vanished now.”

  No thrills forewarn

  Of fish that leaps from midnight tarn;

  The very wave from which it springs

  Is startled and recoils in rings.

  So here with Celio and the word

  Which from his own rash lips he heard.

  He, hastening forth now all unseen,

  Recrossed the mountain and ravine,

  Nor paused till on a mound he sate

  Biding St. Stephen’s opening gate.

  Ere long in gently fanning flaws

  An odoriferous balmy air

  Foreruns the morning, then withdraws,

  Or—westward heralding—roves there.

  The startled East a tremor knows—

  Flushes—anon superb appears

  In state of housings, shawls and spears,

  Such as the Sultan’s vanguard shows.

  Preceded thus, in pomp the sun

  August from Persia draweth on,

  Waited by groups upon the wall

  Of Judah’s upland capital.

  15. UNDER THE MINARET

  “Lo, shoot the spikes above the hill:

  Now expectation grows and grows;

  Yet vain the pageant, idle still:

  When one would get at Nature’s will—

  To be put off by purfled shows!

  “He breaks. Behold, thou orb supreme,

  ’Tis Olivet which thou ascendest—

  The hill and legendary chapel;

  Yet how indifferent thy beam!

  Awe nor reverence pretendest:

  Dome and summit dost but dapple

  With gliding touch, a tinging gleam:

  Knowest thou the Christ? believest in the dream?”

  ’Twas Celio—seated there, as late,

  Upon the mound. But now the gate,

  Flung open, welcomes in the day,

  And lets out Clarel with the guide;

  These from the wall had hailed the ray;

  And Celio heard them there aside,

  And turning, rose. Was it to greet?

  But ere they might accost or meet,

  From minaret in grounds hard by

  Of Omar, the muezzin’s cry—

  Tardy, for Mustapha was old,

  And age a laggard is—was rolled,

  Announcing Islam’s early hour

  Of orison. Along the walls

  And that deep gulf over which these tower—

  Far down toward Rogel, hark, it calls!

  Can Siloa hear it, yet her wave

  So listless lap the hollow cave?

  Is Zion deaf? But, promptly still,

  Each turban at that summons shrill,

  Which should have called ere perfect light,

  Bowed—hands on chest, or arms upright;

  While over all those fields of loss

  Where now the Crescent rides the Cross,

  Sole at the marble mast-head stands

  The Islam herald, his two hands

  Upon the rail, and sightless eyes

  Turned upward reverent toward the skies.

  And none who share not this defect

  The rules to function here elect;

  Since, raised upon the lifted perch

  What leave for prying eyes to search

  Into the privacies that lurk

  In courts domestic of the Turk,

  Whose tenements in every town

  Guard well against the street alone.

  But what’s evoked in Clarel’s mien—

  What look, responsive look is seen

  In Celio, as together there

  They pause? Can these a climax share?

  Mutual in approach may glide

  Minds which from poles adverse have come,

  Belief and unbelief? may doom

  Of doubt make such to coincide—

  Upon one frontier brought to dwell

  Arrested by the Ezan high

  In summons as from out the sky

  To matins of the infidel?

  The God alleged, here in abode

  Ignored with such impunity,

  Scarce true is writ a jealous God.

  Think ye such thoughts? If so it be,

  Yet these may eyes transmit and give?

  Mere eyes? so quick, so sensitive?

  Howbeit Celio knew his mate:

  Again, as down in Gihon late,

  He hovered with his overture—

  An overture that scorned debat
e.

  But inexperienced, shy, unsure—

  Challenged abrupt, or yea or nay,

  Again did Clarel hesitate;

  When quick the proud one with a look

  Which might recoil of heart betray,

  And which the other scarce might brook

  In recollection, turned away.

  Ah, student, ill thy sort have sped:

  The instant proffer—it is fled!

  When, some days after, for redress

  Repentant Clarel sought access,

  He learned the name, with this alone—

  From convent Celio was gone,

  Nor knew they whither.

  Here in press

  To Clarel came a dreamy token:

  What speck is that so far away

  That wanes and wanes in waxing day?

  Is it the sail ye fain had spoken

  Last night when surges parted ye?

  But on, it is a boundless sea.

  16. THE WALL OF WAIL

  Beneath the toppled ruins old

  In series from Moriah rolled

  Slips Kedron furtive? underground

  Peasants avouch they hear the sound.

  In aisled lagunes and watery halls

  Under the temple, silent sleep

  What memories elder? Far and deep

  What ducts and chambered wells and walls

  And many deep substructions be

  Which so with doubt and gloom agree,

  To question one is borne along—

  Based these the Right? subserved the Wrong?

  ’Twas by an all-forgotten way,

  Whose mouth in outer glen forbid

  By heaps of rubbish long lay hid,

  Cloaca of remotest day;

  ’Twas by that unsuspected vault

  With outlet in mid city lone,

  A spot with ruin all bestrown—

  The peasants in sedition late

  Captured Jerusalem in strait,

  Took it by underground assault.

  Go wander, and within the walls,

  Among the glades of cactus trees

  Where no life harbors, peers or calls—

  Wild solitudes like shoals in seas

  Unsailed; or list at still sundown,

  List to the hand-mills as they drone,

  Domestic hand-mills in the court,

  And groups there in the dear resort,

  Mild matron pensive by her son,

  The little prattler at her knee:

  Under such scenes abysses be—

  Dark quarries where few care to pry,

  Whence came those many cities high—

  Great capitals successive reared,

  And which successive disappeared

  On this same site. To powder ground,

  Dispersed their dust blows round and round.

  No shallow gloss may much avail

  When these or kindred thoughts assail:

  Which Clarel proved, the more he went

  A rover in their element.

  For—trusting still that in some place

  Where pilgrims linger he anew

  The missing stranger yet would face

  And speak with—never he withdrew

  His wandering feet.

  In aimless sort

  Passing across the town amort,

  They came where, camped in corner waste,

  Some Edomites were at repast—

  Sojourners mere, and of a day—

  Dark-hued, nor unlike birds of prey

  Which on the stones of Tyre alight.

  While Clarel fed upon that sight—

  The saint repeating in his ear

  Meet text applying to the scene—

  As liberated from ravine,

  Voices in choral note they hear;

  And, strange as lilies in morass,

  At the same moment, lo, appear

  Emerging from a stony pass,

  A lane low-vaulted and unclean,

  Damsels in linen robes, heads bare,

  Enlinked with matrons pacing there,

  And elders gray; the maids with book:

  Companions would one page o’erlook;

  And vocal thus they wound along,

  No glad procession, spite the song.

  For truth to own, so downcast they—

  At least the men, in sordid dress

  And double file—the slim array,

  But for the maidens’ gentleness

  And voices which so bird-like sang,

  Had seemed much like a coffle gang.

  But Nehemiah a key supplied:

  “Alas, poor misled Jews,” he sighed,

  “Ye do but dirge among your dead.—

  The Hebrew quarter here we tread;

  And this is Friday; Wailing Day:

  These to the temple wend their way.

  And shall we follow?” Doing so

  They came upon a sunken yard

  Obscure, where dust and rubbish blow.

  Felonious place, and quite debarred

  From common travel. On one side

  A blind wall rose, stable and great—

  Massed up immense, an Ararat

  Founded on beveled blocks how wide,

  Reputed each a stone august

  Of Solomon’s fane (else fallen to dust)

  But now adopted for the wall

  To Islam’s courts. There, lord of all,

  The Turk permits the tribes to creep

  Abject in rear of those dumb stones,

  To lean or kneel, lament and weep;

  Sad mendicants shut out from gate

  Inexorable. Sighs and groans:

  To be restored! we wait, long wait!

  They call to count their pristine state

  On this same ground: the lifted rows

  Of peristyles; the porticoes

  Crown upon crown, where Levite trains

  In chimes of many a silver bell

  (Daintily small as pearls in chain)

  Hemming their mantles musical—

  Passed in procession up and down,

  Viewing the belt of guarding heights,

  And march of shadows there, and flights

  Of pigeon-pets, and palm leaves blown;

  Or heard the silver trumpets call—

  The priestly trumps, to festival.

  So happy they; such Judah’s prime.

  But we, the remnant, lo, we pale;

  Cast from the Temple, here we wail—

  Yea, perish ere come Shiloh’s time.

  Hard by that joyless crew which leant

  With brows against the adamant—

  Sad buttresses thereto—hard by—

  The student marks the Black Jew bowed;

  His voice he hears amid the crowd

  Which supplicate stern Shaddai.

  And earnest, too, he seeth there

  One scarcely Hebrew in his dress

  Rural, and hard cheek’s swarthiness,

  With nothing of an Eastern air.

  His eyes met Clarel’s unremoved—

  In end a countryman he proved,

  A strange apostate. On the twain

  Contrasted so—the white, the black—

  Man’s earliest breed and latest strain—

  Behind the master Moslem’s back

  Skulking, and in great Moses’ track—

  Gazed Clarel with the wonderment

  Of wight who feels the earth upheave

  Beneath him, and learns, ill-content,

  Tha
t terra firma can deceive.

  When now those Friday wails were done,

  Nehemiah, sidling with his book

  Unto a lorn decrepit one,

  Proferred a tract: “’Tis Hebrew, look,”

  Zealous he urged; “it points the way,

  Sole way, dear heart, whereby ye may

  Rebuild the Temple.” Answer none

  Gat he from Isaac’s pauper son,

  Who, turning, part as in disdain,

  Crept toward his squalid home. Again

  Enrapt stood Clarel, lost awhile:

  “Yon Jew has faith; can faith be vain?

  But is it faith? ay, faith ’s the word—

  What else? Faith then can thus beguile

  Her faithfulest. Hard, that is hard!”

  So doubts invaded, found him out.

  He strove with them; but they proved stout,

  Nor would they down.

  But turn regard.

  Among the maids those rites detained,

  One he perceived, as it befell,

  Whose air expressed such truth unfeigned,

  And harmonies inlinked which dwell

  In pledges born of record pure—

  She looked a legate to insure

  That Paradise is possible

  Now as hereafter. ’Twas the grace

  Of Nature’s dawn: an Eve-like face

  And Nereid eyes with virgin spell

  Candid as day, yet baffling quite

  Like day, through unreserve of light.

  A dove she seemed, a temple dove,

  Born in the temple or its grove,

  And nurtured there. But deeper viewed,

  What was it that looked part amiss?

  A bit impaired? what lack of peace?

  Enforced suppression of a mood,

  Regret with yearning intertwined,

  And secret protest of a virgin mind.

  Hebrew the profile, every line;

  But as in haven fringed with palm,

  Which Indian reefs embay from harm,

  Belulled as in the vase the wine—

  Red budded corals in remove,

  Peep coy through quietudes above;

  So through clear olive of the skin,

  And features finely Hagarene;

  Its way a tell-tale flush did win—

  A tint which unto Israel’s sand

  Blabbed of the June in some far clover land.

  Anon by chance the damsel’s eye

  Fell on Nehemiah, and the look

  A friendly recognition spoke,

  Returned in kind. When by-and-by

  The groups brake up and homeward bent;

  Then, nor unnoted by the youth,

  That maiden with the apostate went,

  Whose voice paternal called her—“Ruth!”

  “Tell, friend,” said Clarel eagerly,