Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

  His spirits through Creole cross derived

  The light and effervescent foam;

  And youth in years mature survived.

  At saddle-bow a book was laid

  Convenient—tinted in the page

  Which did urbanely disengage

  Sadness and doubt from all things sad

  And dubious deemed. Confirmed he read:

  A priest o’ the club—a taking man,

  And rather more than Lutheran.

  A cloth cape, light in air afloat,

  And easy set of cleric coat,

  Seemed emblems of that facile wit,

  Which suits the age—a happy fit.

  Behind this good man’s stirrups, rode

  A solid stolid Elder, shod

  With formidable boots. He went

  Like Talus in a foundry cast;

  Furrowed his face, with wrinkles massed.

  He claimed no indirect descent

  From Grampian kirk and covenant.

  But recent sallying from home,

  Late he assigned three days to Rome.

  He saw the host go by. The crowd,

  Made up from many a tribe and place

  Of Christendom, kept seemly face:

  Took off the hat, or kneeled, or bowed;

  But he the helm rammed down apace:

  Discourteous to the host, agree,

  Tho’ to a parting soul it went;

  Nor deemed that, were it mummery,

  ’Twas pathos too. This hard dissent—

  Transferred to Salem in remove,—

  Led him to carp, and try disprove

  Legend and site by square and line:

  Aside time’s violet mist he’d shove—

  Quite disenchant the Land Divine.

  So fierce he hurled zeal’s javelin home,

  It drove beyond the mark—pierced Rome,

  And plunged beyond, thro’ enemy

  To friend. Scarce natural piety

  Might live, abiding such a doom.

  Traditions beautiful and old

  Which with maternal arms enfold

  Millions, else orphaned and made poor,

  No plea could lure him to endure.

  Concerned, meek Christian ill might bear

  To mark this worthy brother rash,

  Deeming he served religion there,

  Work up the fag end of Voltaire,

  And help along faith’s final crash—

  If that impend.

  His fingers pressed

  A ferule of black thorn: he bore

  A pruning-knife in belt; in vest

  A measuring-tape wound round a core;

  And field-glass slung athwart the chest;

  While peeped from holsters old and brown,

  Horse-pistols—and they were his own.

  A hale one followed, good to see,

  English and Greek in pedigree;

  Of middle-age; a ripe gallant,

  A banker of the rich Levant;

  In florid opulence preserved

  Like peach in syrup. Ne’er he swerved

  From morning bath, and dinner boon,

  And velvet nap in afternoon,

  And lounge in garden with cigar.

  His home was Thessalonica,

  Which views Olympus. But, may be,

  Little he weened of Jove and gods

  In synod mid those brave abodes;

  Nor, haply, read or weighed Paul’s plea

  Addressed from Athens o’er the sea

  Unto the Thessalonians old:

  His bonds he scanned, and weighed his gold.

  Parisian was his garb, and gay.

  Upon his saddle-pommel lay

  A rich Angora rug, for shawl

  Or pillow, just as need might fall;

  Not the Brazilian leopard’s hair

  Or toucan’s plume may show more fair;

  Yet, serving light convenience mere,

  Proved but his heedless affluent cheer.

  Chief exercise this sleek one took

  Was toying with a tissue book

  At intervals, and leaf by leaf

  Gently reducing it. In brief,

  With tempered yet Capuan zest,

  Of cigarettes he smoked the best.

  This wight did Lady Fortune love:

  Day followed day in treasure-trove.

  Nor only so, but he did run

  In unmistrustful reveries bright

  Beyond his own career to one

  Who should continue it in light

  Of lineal good times.

  High walled,

  An Eden owned he nigh his town,

  Which locked in leafy emerald

  A frescoed lodge. There Nubians armed,

  Tall eunuchs virtuous in zeal,

  In shining robes, with glittering steel,

  Patrolled about his daughter charmed,

  Inmost inclosed in nest of bowers,

  By gorgons served, the dread she-powers,

  Duennas: maiden more than fair:

  How fairer in his rich conceit—

  An Argive face, and English hair

  Sunny as May in morning sweet:

  A damsel for Apollo meet;

  And yet a mortal’s destined bride—

  Bespoken, yes, affianced late

  To one who by the senior’s side

  Rode rakishly deliberate—

  A sprig of Smyrna, Glaucon he.

  His father (such ere long to be)

  Well loved him, nor that sole he felt

  That fortune here had kindly dealt

  Another court-card into hand—

  The youth with gold at free command;—

  No, but he also liked his clan,

  His kinsmen, and his happy way;

  And over wine would pleased repay

  His parasites: Well may ye say

  The boy’s the bravest gentleman!—

  From Beyrout late had come the pair

  To further schemes of finance hid,

  And for a pasha’s favor bid

  And grave connivance. That affair

  Yet lingered. So, dull time to kill,

  They wandered, anywhere, at will.

  Scarce through self-knowledge or self-love

  They ventured Judah’s wilds to rove,

  As time, ere long, and place, may prove.

  Came next in file three sumpter mules

  With all things needful for the tent,

  And panniers which the Greek o’errules;

  For there, with store of nourishment,

  Rosoglio pink and wine of gold

  Slumbered as in the smugglers’ hold.

  Viewing those Levantines in way

  Of the snared lion, which from grate

  Marks the light throngs on holiday,

  Nor e’er relaxes in his state

  Of rigorous gloom; rode one whose air

  Revealed—but, for the nonce, forbear.

  Mortmain his name, or so in whim

  Some moral wit had christened him.

  Upon that creature men traduce

  For patience under their abuse;

  For whose requital there’s assigned

  No heaven; that thing of dreamful kind—

  The ass—elected for the ease,

  Good Nehemiah followed these;

  His Bible under arm, and leaves

  Of tracts still fluttering in sheaves.

  In pure good will he bent his view

  To right and left. The ass, pearl-gray,

  Matched well the rider’s ga
rb in hue,

  And sorted with the ashy way;

  Upon her shoulders’ jointed play

  The white cross gleamed, which the untrue

  Yet innocent fair legends say,

  Memorializes Christ our Lord

  When Him with palms the throngs adored

  Upon the foal. Many a year

  The wanderer’s heart had longed to view

  Green banks of Jordan dipped in dew;

  Oft had he watched with starting tear

  Pack-mule and camel, horse and spear,

  Monks, soldiers, pilgrims, helm and hood,

  The variegated annual train

  In vernal Easter caravan,

  Bound unto Gilgal’s neighborhood.

  Nor less belief his heart confessed

  Not die he should till knees had pressed

  The Palmers’ Beach. Which trust proved true:

  ’Twas charity gave faith her due:

  Without publicity or din

  It was the student moved herein.

  He, Clarel, with the earnest face

  Which fitful took a hectic dye,

  Kept near the saint. With equal pace

  Came Rolfe in saddle pommeled high,

  Yet e’en behind that peaked redoubt

  Sat Indian-like, in pliant way,

  As if he were an Osage scout,

  Or Gaucho of the Paraguay.

  Lagging in rear of all the train

  As hardly he pertained thereto

  Or his right place therein scarce knew,

  Rode one who frequent turned again

  To pore behind. He seemed to be

  In reminiscence folded ever,

  Or some deep moral fantasy;

  At whiles in face a dusk and shiver,

  As if in heart he heard amazed

  The sighing of Ravenna’s wood

  Of pines, and saw the phantom knight

  (Boccaccio’s) with the dagger raised

  Still hunt the lady in her flight

  From solitude to solitude.

  ’Twas Vine. Nor less for day dream, still

  The rein he held with lurking will.

  So filed the muster whose array

  Threaded the Dolorosa’s way.

  2. THE SKULL-CAP

  “See him in his uncheerful head-piece!

  Libertad’s on the Mexic coin

  Would better suit me for a shade-piece:

  Ah, had I known he was to join!”—

  So chid the Greek, the banker one

  Perceiving Mortmain there at hand,

  And in allusion to a dun

  Skull-cap he wore. Derwent light reined

  The steed; and thus: “Beg pardon now,

  It looks a little queer, concede;

  Nor less the cap fits well-shaped brow;

  It yet may prove the wishing-cap

  Of Fortunatus.”

  “No indeed,

  No, no, for that had velvet nap

  Of violet with silver tassel—

  Much like my smoking-cap, you see,”

  Light laughed the Smyrniote, that vassal

  Of health and young vivacity.

  “Glaucon, be still,” the senior said

  (And yet he liked to hear him too);

  “I say it doth but ill bestead

  To have a black cap in our crew.”

  “Pink, pink,” cried Glaucon, “pink’s the hue:—

  “Pink cap and ribbons of the pearl,

  A Paradise of bodice,

  The Queen of Sheba’s laundry girl—

  “Hallo, what now? They come to halt

  Down here in glen! Well, well, we’ll vault.”

  His song arrested, so he spake

  And light dismounted, wide awake.—

  “A sprightly comrade have you here,”

  Said Derwent in the senior’s ear.

  The banker turned him: “Folly, folly—

  But good against the melancholy.”

  3. BY THE GARDEN

  Sheep-tracks they’d look, at distance seen,

  Did any herbage border them,

  Those slender foot-paths slanting lean

  Down or along waste slopes which hem

  The high-lodged, walled Jerusalem.

  Slipped from Bethesda’s Pool leads one

  Which by an arch across is thrown

  Kedron the brook. The Virgin’s Tomb

  (Whence the near gate the Latins name—

  St. Stephen’s, as the Lutherans claim—

  Hard by the place of martyrdom),

  Time-worn in sculpture dim, is set

  Humbly inearthed by Olivet.

  ’Tis hereabout now halt the band,

  And by Gethsemane at hand,

  For few omitted trifles wait

  And guardsman whom adieus belate.

  Some light dismount.

  But hardly here,

  Where on the verge they might foretaste

  Or guess the flavor of the waste,

  Greek sire and son took festive cheer.

  Glaucon not less a topic found

  At venture. One old tree becharmed

  Leaned its decrepit trunk deformed

  Over the garden’s wayside bound:

  “See now: this yellow olive wood

  They carve in trinkets—rosary—rood:

  Of these we must provide some few

  For travel-gifts, ere we for good

  Set out for home. And why not too

  Some of those gems the nuns revere—

  In hands of veteran venders here,

  Wrought from the Kedron’s saffron block

  In the Monk’s Glen, Mar Saba’s rock;

  And cameos of the Dead Sea stone?”

  “Buy what ye will, be it Esau’s flock,”

  The other said: “but for that stone—

  Avoid, nor name!”

  “That stone? what one?”

  And cast a look of grieved surprise

  Marking the senior’s ruffled guise;

  “Those cameos of Death’s Sea—”

  “Have done,

  I beg! Unless all joy you’d cripple,

  Both noun omit and participle.”

  “Dear sir, what noun? strange grammar’s this.”

  “Have I expressed myself amiss?

  Oh, don’t you think it is but spleen:

  A well-bred man counts it unclean

  This name of—boy, and can’t you guess?

  Last bankruptcy without redress!”

  “For heaven’s sake!”

  “With that ill word

  Whose first is D and last is H,

  No matter what be in regard,

  Let none of mine ere crape his speech,

  But shun it, ay, and shun the knell

  Of each derivative.”

  “Oh, well—­

  I see, I see; with all my heart!

  Each conjugation will I curb,

  All moods and tenses of the verb;

  And, for the noun, to save from errors

  I’ll use instead—the ‘King of Terrors.’”

  “Sir, change the topic.—Would ’twere done,

  This scheme of ours, and we clean gone

  From out this same dull land so holy

  Which breeds but blues and melancholy.

  To while our waiting I thought good

  To join these travelers on their road;

  But there’s a bird in saucy glee

  Trills—Fool, retreat; ’tis not for thee.<
br />
  Had I fair pretext now, I’d turn.

  But yonder—he don’t show concern,”

  Glancing toward Derwent, lounging there

  Holding his horse with easy air

  Slack by the rein.

  With morning zest,

  In sound digestion unoppressed,

  The clergyman’s good spirits made

  A Tivoli of that grim glade.

  And turning now his cheery eyes

  Toward Salem’s towers in solemn guise

  Stretched dumb along the Mount of God,

  He cried to Clarel waiting near

  In saddle-seat and gazing drear:

  “A canter, lad, on steed clean-shod

  Didst ever take on English sod?

  The downs, the downs! Yet even here

  For a fair matin ride withal

  I like the run round yonder wall.

  Hight have you, outlook; and the view

  Varies as you the turn pursue.”—

  So he, thro’ inobservance, blind

  To that preoccupied young mind,

  In frame how different, in sooth—

  Pained and reverting still to Ruth

  Immured and parted from him there

  Behind those ramparts of despair.

  Mortmain, whose wannish eyes declared

  How ill thro’ night-hours he had fared,

  By chance overheard, and muttered—“Brass,

  A sounding brass and tinkling cymbal!

  Who he that with a tongue so nimble

  Affects light heart in such a pass?”

  And full his cloud on Derwent bent:

  “Yea, and but thou seem’st well content.

  But turn, another thing’s to see:

  Thy back’s upon Gethsemane.”

  The priest wheeled short: What kind of man

  Was this? The other re-began:

  “’Tis Terra Santa—Holy Land:

  Terra Damnata though’s at hand

  Within.”—“You mean where Judas stood?

  Yes, monks locate and name that ground;

  They’ve railed it off. Good, very good:

  It minds one of a vacant pound.—

  We tarry long: why lags our man?”

  And rose; anew glanced toward the hight.

  Here Mortmain from the words and plight

  Conjecture drew; and thus he ran:

  “Be some who with the god will sup,

  Happy to share his paschal wine.

  ’Tis well. But the ensuing cup,

  The bitter cup?”

  “Art a divine?”

  Asked Derwent, turning that aside;

  “Methinks, good friend, too much you chide.