Herman Melville- Complete Poems
Page 35
His henchman here, the Arab wight,
Bare solid texts from Bible old—
True Rock of Ages, he averred.
To read before a learned board,
When home regained should meet his sight,
A monograph he would indite—
The theme, that crag.
He went his way,
To win the tower. Little they say;
But Clarel started at the view
Which showed opposed the anchorite
Ascetical and—such a Jew.
20. UNDER THE MOUNTAIN
From Ur of the Chaldees roved the man—
Priest, shepherd, prince, and pioneer—
Swart Bedouin in time’s dusky van;
Even he which first, with mind austere,
Arrived in solitary tone
To think of God as One—alone;
The first which brake with hearth and home
For conscience’ sake; whom piety ruled,
Prosperity blest, longevity schooled,
And time in fullness brought to Mamre’s tomb
Arch founder of the solid base of Christendom.
Even this. For why disown the debt
When vouchers be? Yet, yet and yet
Our saving salt of grace is due
All to the East—nor least the Jew.
Perverse, if stigma then survive,
Elsewhere let such in satire thrive—
Not here. Quite other end is won
In picturing Margoth, fallen son
Of Judah. Him may Gabriel mend.
Little for love, or to unbend,
But swayed by tidings, hard to sift,
Of robbers by the river-drift
In force recruited; they suspend
Their going hence to Jordan’s trees.
Released from travel, in good hour
Nehemiah dozed within the tower.
Uplands they range, and woo the breeze
Where crumbled aqueducts and mounds
Override long slopes and terraces,
And shattered pottery abounds—
Or such would seem, yet may but be
The shards of tile-like brick dispersed
Binding the wall or bulwark erst,
Such as in Kent still serve that end
In Richborough castle by the sea—
A Roman hold. What breadth of doom
As of the worlds in strata penned—
So cosmic seems the wreck of Rome.
Not wholly proof to natural sway
Of serious hearts and manners mild,
Uncouthly Margoth shared the way.
He controverted all the wild,
And in especial, Sodom’s strand
Of marl and clinker: “Sirs, heed me:
This total tract,” and Esau’s hand
He waved; “the plain—the vale—Lot’s sea—
It needs we scientists remand
Back from old theologic myth
To geologic hammers. Pray,
Let me but give ye here the pith:
As the Phlegræan fields no more
Befool men as the spookish shore
Where Jove felled giants, but are known—
The Solfatara and each cone
Volcanic—to be but on a par
With all things natural; even so
Siddim shall likewise be set far
From fable.”
Part overhearing this,
Derwent, in rear with Rolfe: “Old clo’!
We’ve heard all that, and long ago:
Conceit of vacant emphasis:
Well, well!”—Here archly, Rolfe: “But own,
How graceful your concession—won
A score or two of years gone by.
Nor less therefrom at need ye’ll fly,
Allow. Scarce easy ’tis to hit
Each slippery turn of cleric wit.”
Derwent but laughed; then said—“But he:
Intelligence veneers his mien
Though rude: unprofitably keen:
Sterile, and with sterility
Self-satisfied.” “But this is odd!
Not often do we hear you rail:
The gown it seems does yet avail,
Since from the sleeve you draw the rod.
But look, they lounge.”
Yes, all recline,
And on the site where havoc clove
The last late palm of royal line,
Sad Montezuma of the grove.
The mountain of the Imp they see
Scowl at the freedom which they take
Relaxed beneath his very lee.
The bread of wisdom here to break,
Margoth holds forth: the gossip tells
Of things the prophets left unsaid—
With master-key unlocks the spells
And mysteries of the world unmade;
Then mentions Salem: “Stale is she!
Lay flat the walls, let in the air,
That folk no more may sicken there!
Wake up the dead; and let there be
Rails, wires, from Olivet to the sea,
With station in Gethsemane.”
The priest here flushed. Rolfe rose: and, “How—
You go too far!” “A long Dutch mile
Behind the genius of our time.”
“Explain that, pray.” “And don’t you know?
Mambrino’s helmet is sublime—
The barber’s basin may be vile:
Whether this basin is that helm
To vast debate has given rise—
Question profound for blinking eyes;
But common sense throughout her realm
Has settled it.”
There, like vain wight
His fine thing said, bidding friends good night,
He, to explore a rift they see,
Parted, bequeathing, as might be,
A glance which said—Again ye’ll pine
Left to yourselves here in decline,
Missing my brave vitality!
21. THE PRIEST AND ROLFE
Derwent fetched breath: “A healthy man:
His lungs are of the soundest leather.”
“Health’s insolence in a Saurian,”
Said Rolfe. With that they fell together
Probing the purport of the Jew
In last ambiguous words he threw.
But Derwent, and in lenient way,
Explained it.
“Let him have his say,”
Cried Rolfe; “for one I spare defiance
With such a kangaroo of science.”
“Yes; qualify though,” Derwent said,
“For science has her eagles too.”
Here musefully Rolfe hung the head;
Then lifted: “Eagles? ay; but few.
And search we in their æries lone
What find we, pray? perchance, a bone.”
“A very cheerful point of view!”
“’Tis as one takes it. Not unknown
That even in Physics much late lore
But drudges after Plato’s theme;
Or supplements—but little more—
Some Hindoo’s speculative dream
Of thousand years ago. And, own,
Darwin is but his grandsire’s son.”
“But Newton and his gravitation!”
“Think you that system’s strong persuasion
Is founded beyond shock? O’ermuch
’Twould seem for man, a clod, to clutch
Cipher all out, and formulate
The universe.” “You Pyrrhonist!
Why, now, perhaps you do not see—
Your mind has taken such a twist—
The claims of stellar chemistry.”
“What’s that?” “No matter. Time runs on
And much that’s useful, grant, is won.”
“Yes; but more’s claimed. Now first they tell
The human mind is free to range.
Enlargement—ay; but where’s the change?
We’re yet within the citadel—
May rove in bounds, and study out
The insuperable towers about.”
“Come; but there’s many a merry man:
How long since these sad times began?”
That steadied Rolfe: “Where’s no annoy
I too perchance can take a joy—
Yet scarce in solitude of thought:
Together cymbals need be brought
Ere mirth is made. The wight alone
Who laughs, is deemed a witless one.
And why? But that we’ll leave unsought.”
“By all means!—O ye frolic shapes:
Thou Dancing Faun, thou Faun with Grapes!
What think ye of them? tell us, pray.”
“Fine mellow marbles.”
“But their hint?”
“A mine as deep as rich the mint
Of cordial joy in Nature’s sway
Shared somewhere by anterior clay
When life was innocent and free:
Methinks ’tis this they hint to me.”
He paused, as one who makes review
Of gala days; then—warmly too—
“Whither hast fled, thou deity
So genial? In thy last and best,
Best avatar—so ripe in form—
Pure as the sleet—as roses warm—
Our earth’s unmerited fair guest—
A god with peasants went abreast:
Man clasped a deity’s offered hand;
And woman, ministrant, was then
How true, even in a Magdalen.
Him following through the wilding flowers
By lake and hill, or glad detained
In Cana—ever out of doors—
Ere yet the disenchantment gained
What dream they knew, that primal band
Of gipsy Christians! But it died;
Back rolled the world’s effacing tide:
The ‘world’—by Him denounced, defined—
Him first—set off and countersigned,
Once and for all, as opposite
To honest children of the light.
But worse came—creeds, wars, stakes. Oh, men
Made earth inhuman; yes, a den
Worse for Christ’s coming, since his love
(Perverted) did but venom prove.
In part that’s passed. But what remains
After fierce seethings? golden grains?
Nay, dubious dregs: be frank, and own.
Opinion eats; all crumbles down:
Where stretched an isthmus, rolls a strait:
Cut off, cut off! Can’st feel elate
While all the depths of Being moan,
Though luminous on every hand,
The breadths of shallow knowledge more expand?
Much as a light-ship keeper pines
Mid shoals immense, where dreary shines
His lamp, we toss beneath the ray
Of Science’ beacon. This to trim
Is now man’s barren office.—Nay,”
Starting abrupt, “this earnest way
I hate. Let doubt alone; best skim,
Not dive.”
“No, no,” cried Derwent gay,
Who late, upon acquaintance more,
Took no mislike to Rolfe at core,
And fain would make his knell a chime—
Being pledged to hold the palmy time
Of hope—at least, not to admit
That serious check might come to it:
“No, sun doubt’s root—’twill fade, ’twill fade!
And for thy picture of the Prime,
Green Christianity in glade—
Why, let it pass; ’tis good, in sooth:
Who summons poets to the truth?”
How Vine sidelong regarded him
As ’twere in envy of his gift
For light disposings: so to skim!
Clarel surmised the expression’s drift,
Thereby anew was led to sift
Good Derwent’s mind. For Rolfe’s discourse—
Prior recoil from Margoth’s jeer
Was less than startled shying here
At earnest comment’s random force.
He shrunk; but owned ’twas weakness mere.
Himself he chid: No more for me
The petty half-antipathy:
This pressure it need be endured:
Weakness to strength must get inured;
And Rolfe is sterling, though not less
At variance with that parlor-strain
Which counts each thought that borders pain
A social treason. Sterling—yes,
Despite illogical wild range
Of brain and heart’s impulsive counterchange.
22. CONCERNING HEBREW
As by the wood drifts thistle-down
And settles on soft mosses fair,
Stillness was wafted, dropped and sown;
Which stillness Vine, with timorous air
Of virgin tact, thus brake upon,
Nor with chance hint: “One can’t forbear
Thinking that Margoth is—a Jew.”
Hereat, as for response, they view
The priest.
“And, well, why me?” he cried;
“With one consent why turn to me?
Am I professional? Nay, free!
I grant that here by Judah’s side
Queerly it jars with frame implied
To list this geologic Jew
His way Jehovah’s world construe:
In Gentile ’twould not seem so odd.
But here may preconceptions thrall?
Be many Hebrews we recall
Whose contrast with the breastplate bright
Of Aaron flushed in altar-light,
And Horeb’s Moses, rock and rod,
Or closeted alone with God,
Quite equals Margoth’s in its way:
At home we meet them every day.
The Houndsditch clothesman scarce would seem
Akin to seers. For one, I deem
Jew banker, merchant, statesman—these,
With artist, actress known to fame,
All strenuous in each Gentile aim,
Are Nature’s off-hand witnesses
There’s nothing mystic in her reign:
Your Jew’s like wheat from Pharaoh’s tomb:
Sow it in England, what will come?
The weird old seed yields market grain.”
Pleased by his wit while some recline,
A smile uncertain lighted Vine,
But died away.
“Jews share the change,”
Derwent proceeded: “Range, they range—
In liberal sciences they roam;
They’re leavened, and it works, believe;
Signs are, and such as scarce deceive:
From Holland, that historic home
Of erudite Israel, many a tome
Talmudic, shi
pped is over sea
For antiquarian rubbish.”
“Rest!”
Cried Rolfe; “e’en that indeed may be,
Nor less the Jew keep fealty
To ancient rites. Aaron’s gemmed vest
Will long outlive Genevan cloth—
Nothing in Time’s old camphor-chest
So little subject to the moth.
But Rabbis have their troublers too.
Nay, if thro’ dusty stalls we look,
Haply we disinter to view
More than one bold freethinking Jew
That in his day with vigor shook
Faith’s leaning tower.”
“Which stood the throe,”
Here Derwent in appendix: “look,
Faith’s leaning tower was founded so:
Faith leaned from the beginning; yes,
If slant, she holds her steadfastness.”
“May be;” and paused: “but wherefore clog?—
Uriel Acosta, he was one
Who troubled much the synagogue—
Recanted then, and dropped undone:
A suicide. There’s Heine, too,
(In lineage crossed by blood of Jew,)
Pale jester, to whom life was yet
A tragic farce; whose wild death-rattle,
In which all voids and hollows met,
Desperately maintained the battle
Betwixt the dirge and castanet.
But him leave to his Paris stone
And rail, and friendly wreath thereon.
Recall those Hebrews, which of old
Sharing some doubts we moderns rue,
Would fain Eclectic comfort fold
By grafting slips from Plato’s palm
On Moses’ melancholy yew:
But did they sprout? So we seek balm
By kindred graftings. Is that true?”
“Why ask? But see: there lived a Jew—
No Alexandrine Greekish one—
You know him—Moses Mendelssohn.”
“Is’t him you cite? True spirit staid,
He, though his honest heart was scourged
By doubt Judaic, never laid
His burden at Christ’s door; he urged—
‘Admit the mounting flames enfold
My basement; wisely shall my feet
The attic win, for safe retreat?’ ”
“And he said that? Poor man, he’s cold.
But was not this that Mendelssohn
Whose Hebrew kinswoman’s Hebrew son,
Baptized to Christian, worthily won
The good name of Neander so?”
“If that link were, well might one urge
From such example, thy strange flow,
Conviction! Breaking habit’s tether,