Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

  His bridle turns, adjusts his seat

  And holsters where the pistols be,

  Nor taking leave like Christian sweet,

  (Quite mindless of Paul’s courtesy)

  With dumb indomitable chin

  Straight back he aims thro’ Adommin,

  Alone, nor blandly self-sustained—

  Robber and robber-glen disdained.

  As stiff he went, his humor dark

  From Vine provoked a vivid spark—

  Derisive comment, part restrained.

  He passes. Well, peace with him go.

  If truth have painted heart but grim,

  None here hard measure meant for him;

  Nay, Haytian airs around him blow,

  And woo and win to cast behind

  The harsher and inclement mind.

  But needs narrate what followed now.

  “Part from us,” Derwent cried, “that way?

  I fear we have offended. Nay,

  What other cause?”—

  “The desert, see:

  He and the desert don’t agree,”

  Said Rolfe; “or rather, let me say

  He can’t provoke a quarrel here

  With blank indifference so drear:

  Ever the desert waives dispute,

  Cares not to argue, bides but mute.

  Besides, no topographic cheer:

  Surveyor’s tape don’t come in play;

  The same with which upon a day

  He upon all fours soused did roam

  Measuring the sub-ducts of Siloam.

  Late asking him in casual way

  Something about the Tomb’s old fane,

  These words I got: ‘Sir, I don’t know;

  But once I dropped in—not again;

  ’Tis monkish, ’tis a raree-show—

  A raree-show. Saints, sites, and stuff.

  Had I my will I’d strip it, strip!’

  I knew ’twere vain to try rebuff;

  But asked, ‘Did Paul, embarked in ship

  With Castor and Pollux for a sign

  Deem it incumbent there to rip

  From stern and prow the name and shrine?’

  ‘Saint Paul, sir, had not zeal enough;

  I always thought so;’ and went on:

  ‘Where stands this fane, this Calvary one

  Alleged? why, sir, within the site

  Of Herod’s wall? Can that be right?’

  But why detail. Suffice, in few,

  Even Zion’s hill, he doubts that too;

  Nay, Sinai in his dry purview

  He’s dubious if, as placed, it meet

  Requirements.”

  “Why then do his feet

  Tread Judah? no good end is won;”

  Said Derwent.

  “Curs need have a bone

  To mumble, though but dry nor sweet.

  Nay, that’s too harsh and overdone.

  ’Tis still a vice these carpers brew—

  They try us—us set carping too.”

  “Ah well, quick then in thought we’ll shun him,

  And so foreclose all strictures on him.

  Howbeit, this confess off-hand:

  Amiss is robed in gown and band

  A disenchanter.—Friend, the wine!”

  The banker passed it without word.

  Sad looked he: Why, these fools are stirred

  About a nothing!—Plain to see

  Such comradeship did ill agree:

  Pedants, and poor! nor used to dine

  In ease of table-talk benign—

  Steeds, pictures, ladies, gold, Tokay,

  Gardens and baths, the English news,

  Stamboul, the market—gain or lose?

  He turned to where young Glaucon lay,

  Who now to startled speech was won:

  “Look, is he crazy? see him there!”

  The saint it was with busy care

  Flinging aside stone after stone,

  Yet feebly, nathless as he wrought

  In charge imposed though not unloved;

  While every stone that he removed

  Laid bare but more. The student sighed,

  So well he kenned his ways distraught

  At influx of his eldritch tide.

  But Derwent, hastening to the spot,

  Exclaimed, “How now? surely, ’tis not

  To mend the way?”

  With patient look,

  Poising a stone as ’twere a clod:

  “All things are possible with God;

  The humblest helper will he brook.”

  Derwent stood dumb; but quick in heart

  Conjecturing how it was, addressed

  Some friendly words, and slid apart;

  And, yet while by that scene impressed,

  Came, as it chanced, where unbecalmed

  Mortmain aloof sat all disarmed—

  Legs lengthwise crossed, head hanging low,

  The skull-cap pulled upon the brow,

  Hands groping toward the knees: “Then where?

  A Thug, the sword-fish roams the sea—

  The falcon’s pirate in the air;

  Betwixt the twain, where shalt thou flee,

  Poor flying-fish? whither repair?

  What other element for thee?

  Whales, mighty whales have felt the wound—

  Plunged bleeding thro’ the blue profound;

  But where their fangs the sand-sharks keep

  Be shallows worse than any deep.”—

  Hardly that chimed with Derwent’s bell:

  Him too he left.

  When it befell

  That new they started on their way;

  To turn the current or allay,

  He talked with Clarel, and first knew

  Nehemiah’s conceit about the Jew:

  The ways prepared, the tilth restored

  For the second coming of Our Lord.

  Rolfe overheard: “And shall we say

  That this is craze? or but, in brief,

  Simplicity of plain belief?

  The early Christians, how did they?

  For His return looked any day.”

  From dwelling on Rolfe’s thought, ere long

  On Rolfe himself the student broods:

  Surely I would not think a wrong;

  Nor less I’ve shrunk from him in moods.

  A bluntness is about him set:

  Truth’s is it? But he winneth yet

  Through taking qualities which join.

  Make these the character? the rest

  But rim? On Syracusan coin

  The barbarous letters shall invest

  The relievo’s infinite of charm.—

  I know not. Does he help, or harm?

  11. OF DESERTS

  Tho’ frequent in the Arabian waste

  The pilgrim, up ere dawn of day,

  Inhale thy wafted musk, Cathay;

  And Adam’s primal joy may taste,

  Beholding all the pomp of night

  Bee’d thick with stars in swarms how bright;

  And so, rides on alert and braced—

  Tho’ brisk at morn the pilgrim start,

  Ere long he’ll know in weary hour

  Small love of deserts, if their power

  Make to retreat upon the heart

  Their own forsakenness.

  Darwin quotes

  From Shelley, that forever floats

  Over all desert places known,

  Mysterious doubt—an awful one.

  He quotes, adopts it. Is it
true?

  Let instinct vouch; let poetry

  Science and instinct here agree,

  For truth requires strong retinue.

  Waste places are where yet is given

  A charm, a beauty from the heaven

  Above them, and clear air divine—

  Translucent æther opaline;

  And some in evening’s early dew

  Put on illusion of a guise

  Which Tantalus might tantalize

  Afresh; ironical unrolled

  Like Western counties all in grain

  Ripe for the sickleman and wain;

  Or, tawnier than the Guinea gold,

  More like a lion’s skin unfold:

  Attest the desert opening out

  Direct from Cairo by the Gate

  Of Victors, whence the annual rout

  To Mecca bound, precipitate

  Their turbaned frenzy.—

  Sands immense

  Impart the oceanic sense:

  The flying grit like scud is made:

  Pillars of sand which whirl about

  Or arc along in colonnade,

  True kin be to the water-spout.

  Yonder on the horizon, red

  With storm, see there the caravan

  Straggling long-drawn, dispirited;

  Mark how it labors like a fleet

  Dismasted, which the cross-winds fan

  In crippled disaster of retreat

  From battle.—

  Sinai had renown

  Ere thence was rolled the thundered Law;

  Ever a terror wrapped its crown;

  Never did shepherd dare to draw

  Too nigh (Josephus saith) for awe

  Of one, some ghost or god austere—

  Hermit unknown, dread mountaineer.—

  When comes the sun up over Nile

  In cloudlessness, what cloud is cast

  O’er Lybia? Thou shadow vast

  Of Cheops’ indissoluble pile,

  Typ’st thou the imperishable Past

  In empire posthumous and reaching sway

  Projected far across to time’s remotest day?

  But curb.—Such deserts in air-zone

  Or object lend suggestive tone,

  Redeeming them.

  For Judah here—

  Let Erebus her rival own:

  ’Tis horror absolute—severe,

  Dead, livid, honey-combed, dumb, fell—

  A caked depopulated hell;

  Yet so created, judged by sense,

  And visaged in significance

  Of settled anger terrible.

  Profoundly cloven through the scene

  Winds Kedron—word (the scholar saith)

  Importing anguish hard on death.

  And aptly may such named ravine

  Conduct unto Lot’s mortal Sea

  In cleavage from Gethsemane

  Where it begins.

  But why does man

  Regard religiously this tract

  Cadaverous and under ban

  Of blastment? Nay, recall the fact

  That in the pagan era old

  When bolts, deemed Jove’s, tore up the mound,

  Great stones the simple peasant rolled

  And built a wall about the gap

  Deemed hallowed by the thunder-clap.

  So here: men here adore this ground

  Which doom hath smitten. ’Tis a land

  Direful yet holy—blest tho’ banned.

  But to pure hearts it yields no fear;

  And John, he found wild honey here.

  12. THE BANKER

  Infer the wilds which next pertain.

  Though travel here be still a walk,

  Small heart was theirs for easy talk.

  Oblivious of the bridle-rein

  Rolfe fell to Lethe altogether,

  Bewitched by that uncanny weather

  Of sultry cloud. And home-sick grew

  The banker. In his reverie blue

  The cigarette, a summer friend,

  Went out between his teeth—could lend

  No solace, soothe him nor engage.

  And now disrelished he each word

  Of sprightly, harmless persiflage

  Wherewith young Glaucon here would fain

  Evince a jaunty disregard.

  But hush betimes o’ertook the twain—

  The more impressive, it may be,

  For that the senior, somewhat spent,

  Florid overmuch and corpulent,

  Labored in lungs, and audibly.

  Rolfe, noting that the sufferer’s steed

  Was far less easy than his own,

  Relieved him in his hour of need

  By changing with him; then in tone

  Aside, half musing, as alone,

  “Unwise he is to venture here,

  Poor fellow; ’tis but sorry cheer

  For Mammon. Ill would it accord

  If nabob with asthmatic breath

  Lighted on Holbein’s Dance of Death

  Sly slipped among his prints from Claude.

  Cosmetic-users scarce are bold

  To face a skull. That sachem old

  Whose wigwam is man’s heart within—

  How taciturn, and yet can speak,

  Imparting more than books can win;

  Not Pleasure’s darling cares to seek

  Such counselor: the worse he fares;

  Since—heedless, taken unawares—

  Arrest he finds.—Look: at yon ground

  How starts he now! So Abel’s hound,

  Snuffing his prostrate master wan,

  Shrank back from earth’s first murdered man.—

  But friend, how thrivest?” turning there

  To Derwent. He, with altered air,

  Made vague rejoinder, nor serene:

  His soul, if not cast down, was vexed

  By Nature in this dubious scene:

  His theory she harsh perplexed—

  The more so for wild Mortmain’s mien:

  And Nehemiah in eldritch cheer:

  “Lord, now Thou goest forth from Seir;

  Lord, now from Edom marchest Thou!”—

  Shunning the Swede—disturbed to know

  The saint in strange clairvoyance so,

  Clarel yet turned to meet the grace

  Of one who not infected dwelt—

  Yes, Vine, who shared his horse’s pace

  In level sameness, as both felt

  At home in dearth.

  But unconcern

  That never knew Vine’s thoughtful turn

  The venerable escort showed:

  True natives of the waste abode,

  They moved like insects of the leaf—

  Tint, tone adapted to the fief.

  13. FLIGHT OF THE GREEKS

  “King, who betwixt the cross and sword

  On ashes died in cowl and cord—

  In desert died; and, if thy heart

  Betrayed thee not, from life didst part

  A martyr for thy martyred Lord;

  Anointed one and undefiled—

  O warrior manful, tho’ a child

  In simple faith—St. Louis! rise,

  And teach us out of holy eyes

  Whence came thy trust.”

  So Rolfe, and shrank,

  Awed by that region dread and great;

  Thence led to take to heart the fate

  Of one who tried in such a blank,

  Believed—and died.
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  Lurching was seen

  An Arab tall, on camel lean,

  Up laboring from a glen’s remove,

  His long lance upright fixed above

  The gun across the knee in guard.

  So rocks in hollow trough of sea

  A wreck with one gaunt mast, and yard

  Displaced and slanting toward the lee.

  Closer he drew; with visage mute,

  Austere in passing made salute.

  Such courtesy may vikings lend

  Who through the dreary Hecla wend.

  Under gun, lance, and scabbard hacked

  Pressed Nehemiah; with ado

  High he reached up an Arab tract

  From the low ass—“Christ’s gift to you!”

  With clatter of the steel he bore

  The lofty nomad bent him o’er

  In grave regard. The camel too

  Her crane-like neck swerved round to view;

  Nor more to camel than to man

  Inscrutable the ciphers ran.

  But wonted unto arid cheer,

  The beast, misjudging, snapped it up,

  And would have munched, but let it drop;

  Her master, poling down his spear

  Transfixed the page and brought it near,

  Nor stayed his travel.

  On they went

  Through solitudes, till made intent

  By small sharp shots which stirred rebound

  In echo. Over upland drear

  On tract of less obstructed ground

  Came fairly into open sight

  A mounted train in tulip plight:

  Ten Turks, whereof advanced rode four,

  With leveled pistols, left and right

  Graceful diverging, as in plume

  Feather from feather. So brave room

  They make for turning toward each shore

  Ambiguous in nooks of blight,

  Discharging shots; then reunite,

  And, with obeisance bland, adore

  Their prince, a fair youth, who, behind—

  ’Tween favorites of equal age,

  Brilliant in paynim equipage—

  With Eastern dignity how sweet,

  Nods to their homage, pleased to mind

  Their gallant curvets. Still they meet,

  Salute and wheel, and him precede,

  As in a pleasure-park or mead.

  The escorts join; and some would take

  To parley, as is wont. The Druze,

  Howbeit, hardly seems to choose

  The first advances here to make;

  Nor does he shun. Alert is seen

  One in voluminous turban green,

  Beneath which in that barren place