Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

  Pushed deeper, so as e’en to get

  Closer in comradeship at ease.

  Arnaut and Spahi, in respect

  Of all adventures they had known,

  These chiefly did the priest affect:

  Adventures, such as duly shown

  Printed in books, seem passing strange

  To clerks which read them by the fire,

  Yet be the wonted common-place

  Of some who in the Orient range,

  Free-lances, spendthrifts of their hire,

  And who in end, when they retrace

  Their lives, see little to admire

  Or wonder at, so dull they be

  (Like fish mid marvels of the sea)

  To every thing that is not pent

  In self, or thereto ministrant.

  12. THE TIMONEER’S STORY

  But ere those Sinbads had begun

  Their Orient Decameron,

  Rolfe rose, to view the further hall.

  Here showed, set up against the wall,

  Heroic traditionary arms,

  Protecting tutelary charms

  (Like Godfrey’s sword and Baldwin’s spur

  In treasury of the Sepulcher,

  Wherewith they knighthood yet confer,

  The monks or their Superior)

  Sanctified heirlooms of old time;

  With trophies of the Paynim clime;

  These last with tarnish on the gilt,

  And jewels vanished from the hilt.

  Upon one serpent-curving blade

  Love-motto beamed from Antar’s rhyme

  In Arabic. A second said

  (A scimiter the Turk had made,

  And likely, it had clove a skull)

  IN NAME OF GOD THE MERCIFUL!

  A third was given suspended place,

  And as in salutation waved,

  And in old Greek was finely graved

  With this: HAIL, MARY, FULL OF GRACE!

  ’Tis a rare sheaf of arms be here,

  Thought Rolfe: “Who’s this?” and turned to peer

  At one who had but late come in,

  (A stranger) and, avoiding din

  Made by each distant reveler,

  Anchored beside him. His sea-gear

  Announced a pilgrim-timoneer.

  The weird and weather-beaten face,

  Bearded and pitted, and fine vexed

  With wrinkles of cabala text,

  Did yet reveal a twinge-like trace

  Of some late trial undergone:

  Nor less a beauty grave pertained

  To him, part such as is ordained

  To Eld, for each age hath its own,

  And even scars may share the tone.

  Bald was his head as any bell—

  Quite bald, except a silvery round

  Of small curled bud-like locks which bound

  His temples as with asphodel.

  Such he, who in nigh nook disturbed

  Upon his mat by late uncurbed

  Light revel, came with air subdued,

  And by the clustered arms here stood

  Regarding them with dullish eye

  Of some old reminiscence sad.

  On him Rolfe gazed: “And do ye sigh?

  Hardly they seem to cheer ye: why?”

  He pursed the mouth and shook the head.

  “But speak!” “’Tis but an old bewailing.”

  “No matter, tell.” “’Twere unavailing.”

  “Come, now.”

  “Since you entreat of me—

  ’Tis long ago—I’m aged, see:

  From Egypt sailing—hurrying too—

  For spite the sky there, always blue,

  And blue daubed seas so bland, the pest

  Was breaking out—the people quailing

  In houses hushed; from Egypt sailing,

  In ship, I say, which shunned the pest,

  Cargo half-stored, and—and—alack!

  One passenger of visage black,

  But whom a white robe did invest

  And linen turban, like the rest—

  A Moor he was, with but a chest;—

  A fugitive poor Wahabee—

  So ran his story—who by me

  Was smuggled aboard; and ah, a crew

  That did their wrangles still renew,

  Jabbing the poignard in the fray,

  And mutinous withal;—I say,

  From Egypt bound for Venice sailing—

  On Friday—well might heart forebode!

  In this same craft from Cadiz hailing,

  Christened by friar ‘The Peace of God,’

  (She laden now with rusted cannon

  Which long beneath the Crescent’s pennon

  On beach had laid, condemned and dead,

  Beneath a rampart, and from bed

  Were shipped off to be sold and smelted

  And into new artillery melted)

  I say that to The Peace of God

  (Your iron the salt seas corrode)

  I say there fell to her unblest

  A hap more baleful than the pest.

  Yea, from the first I knew a fear,

  So strangely did the needle veer.

  A gale came up, with frequent din

  Of cracking thunder out and in:

  Corposants on yard-arms did burn,

  Red lightning forked upon the stern:

  The needle like an imp did spin.

  Three gulls continual plied in wake,

  Which wriggled like a wounded snake,

  For I, the wretched timoneer,

  By fitful stars yet tried to steer

  ’Neath shortened sail. The needle flew

  (The glass thick blurred with damp and dew),

  And flew the ship we knew not where.

  Meantime the mutinous bad crew

  Got at the casks and drowned despair,

  Carousing, fighting. What to do?

  To all the saints I put up prayer,

  Seeing against the gloomy shades

  Breakers in ghastly palisades.

  Nevertheless she took the rocks;

  And dinning through the grinds and shocks,

  (Attend the solving of the riddle)

  I heard the clattering of blades

  Shaken within the Moor’s strong box

  In cabin underneath the needle.

  How screamed those three birds round the mast

  Slant going over. The keel was broken

  And heaved aboard us for death-token.

  To quit the wreck I was the last,

  Yet I sole wight that ’scaped the sea.”

  “But he, the Moor?”

  “O, sorcery!

  For him no heaven is, no atoner.

  He proved an armorer, the Jonah!

  And dealt in blades that poisoned were,

  A black lieutenant of Lucifer.

  I heard in Algiers, as befell

  Afterward, his crimes of hell.

  I’m far from superstitious, see;

  But arms in sheaf, somehow they trouble me.”

  “Ha, trouble, trouble? what’s that, pray?

  I’ve heard of it; bad thing, they say;

  “Bug there, lady bug, plumped in your wine?

  Only rose-leaves flutter by mine!”

  The gracioso man, ’twas he,

  Flagon in hand, held tiltingly.

  How peered at him that timoneer,

  With what a changed, still, merman-cheer,

  As much he could, but would not say:

  So murm
uring naught, he moved away.

  “Old, old,” the Lesbian dropped; “old—dry:

  Remainder biscuit; and alas,

  But recent ’scaped from luckless pass.”

  “Indeed? relate.”—“O, by-and-by.”

  But Rolfe would have it then. And so

  The incident narrated was

  Forthwith.

  Re-cast, it thus may flow:

  The shipmen of the Cyclades

  Being Greeks, even of St. Saba’s creed,

  Are frequent pilgrims. From the seas

  Greek convents welcome them, and feed.

  Agath, with hardy messmates ten,

  To Saba, and on foot, had fared

  From Joppa. Duly in the Glen

  His prayers he said; but rashly dared

  Afar to range without the wall.

  Upon him fell a robber-brood,

  Some Ammonites. Choking his call,

  They beat and stripped him, drawing blood,

  And left him prone. His mates made search

  With friars, and ere night found him so,

  And bore him moaning back to porch

  Of Saba’s refuge. Cure proved slow;

  The end his messmates might not wait;

  Therefore they left him unto love

  And charity—within that gate

  Not lacking. Mended now in main,

  Or convalescent, he would fain

  Back unto Joppa make remove

  With the first charitable train.

  His story told, the teller turned

  And seemed like one who instant yearned

  To rid him of intrusive sigh:

  “Yon happier pilgrim, by-the-by—

  I like him: his vocation, pray?

  Purveyor he? like me, purvey?”

  “Ay—for the conscience: he’s our priest.”

  “Priest? he’s a grape, judicious one—

  Keeps on the right side of the sun.

  But here’s a song I heard at feast.”

  13. SONG AND RECITATIVE

  “The chalice tall of beaten gold

  Is hung with bells about:

  The flamen serves in temple old,

  And weirdly are the tinklings rolled

  When he pours libation out.

  O Cybele, dread Cybele,

  Thy turrets nod, thy terrors be!

  “But service done, and vestment doffed,

  With cronies in a row

  Behind night’s violet velvet soft,

  The chalice drained he rings aloft

  To another tune, I trow.

  O Cybele, fine Cybele,

  Jolly thy bins and belfries be!”

  With action timing well the song,

  His flagon flourished up in air,

  The varlet of the isle so flung

  His mad-cap intimation—there

  Comic on Rolfe his eye retaining

  In mirth how full of roguish feigning.

  Ought I protest? (thought Rolfe) the man

  Nor malice has, nor faith: why ban

  This heart though of religion scant,

  A true child of the lax Levant,

  That polyglot and loose-laced mother?

  In such variety he’s lived

  Where creeds dovetail into each other;

  Such influences he’s received:

  Thrown among all—Medes, Elamites,

  Egyptians, Jews and proselytes,

  Strangers from Rome, and men of Crete—

  And parts of Lybia round Cyrene—

  Arabians, and the throngs ye meet

  On Smyrna’s quays, and all between

  Stamboul and Fez:—thrown among these,

  A caterer to revelries,

  He’s caught the tints of many a scene,

  And so become a harlequin

  Gay patchwork of all levities.

  Holding to now, swearing by here,

  His course conducting by no keen

  Observance of the stellar sphere—

  He coasteth under sail latteen:

  Then let him laugh, enjoy his dinner,

  He’s an excusable poor sinner.

  ’Twas Rolfe. But Clarel, what thought he?

  For he too heard the Lesbian’s song

  There by the casement where he hung:

  In heart of Saba’s mystery

  This mocker light!—

  But now in waltz

  The Pantaloon here Rolfe assaults;

  Then, keeping arm around his waist,

  Sees Rolfe’s reciprocally placed;

  ’Tis side-by-side entwined in ease

  Of Chang and Eng the Siamese

  When leaning mutually embraced;

  And so these improvised twin brothers

  Dance forward and salute the others,

  The Lesbian flourishing for sign

  His wine-cup, though it lacked the wine.

  They sit. With random scraps of song

  He whips the tandem hours along,

  Or moments, rather; in the end

  Calling on Derwent to unbend

  In lyric.

  “I?” said Derwent, “I?

  Well, if you like, I’ll even give

  A trifle in recitative—

  A something—nothing—anything—

  Since little does it signify

  In festive free contributing:

  “To Hafiz in grape-arbor comes

  Didymus, with book he thumbs:

  My lord Hafiz, priest of bowers—

  Flowers in such a world as ours?

  Who is the god of all these flowers?—

  “Signior Didymus, who knows?

  None the less I take repose—

  Believe, and worship here with wine

  In vaulted chapel of the vine

  Before the altar of the rose.

  “Ah, who sits here? a sailor meek?”

  It was that sea-appareled Greek.

  “Gray brother, here, partake our wine.”

  He shook his head, yes, did decline.

  “Or quaff or sing,” cried Derwent then,

  “For learn, we be hilarious men.

  Pray, now, you seamen know to sing.”

  “I’m old,” he breathed.—“So’s many a tree,

  Yet green the leaves and dance in glee.”

  The Arnaut made the scabbard ring:

  “Sing, man, and here’s the chorus—sing!”

  “Sing, sing!” the Islesman, “bear the bell;

  Sing, and the other songs excel.”

  “Ay, sing,” cried Rolfe, “here now’s a sample;

  ’Tis virtue teaches by example:

  “Jars of honey,

  Wine-skin, dates, and macaroni:

  Falling back upon the senses—

  O, the wrong—

  Need take up with recompenses:

  Song, a song!”

  They sang about him till he said:

  “Sing, sirs, I cannot: this I’ll do,

  Repeat a thing Methodius made,

  Good chaplain of The Apostles’ crew:

  “Priest in ship with saintly bow,

  War-ship named from Paul and Peter

  Grandly carved on castled prow;

  Gliding by the grouped Canaries

  Under liquid light of Mary’s

  Mellow star of eventide;

  Lulled by tinklings at the side,

  I, along the taffrail leaning,

  Yielding to the ship’s careening,

  Shared that peace the upland owns

 
Where the palm—the palm and pine

  Meeting on the frontier line

  Seal a truce between the zones.

  This be ever! (mused I lowly)

  Dear repose is this and holy;

  Like the Gospel it is gracious

  And prevailing.—There, audacious—

  Boom! the signal-gun it jarred me,

  Flash and boom together marred me,

  And I thought of horrid war;

  But never moved grand Paul and Peter,

  Never blenched Our Lady’s star!”

  14. THE REVEL CLOSED

  “Bless that good chaplain,” Derwent here;

  “All doves and halcyons round the sphere

  Defend him from war’s rude alarms!”

  Then (Oh, sweet impudence of wine)

  Then rising and approaching Vine

  In suppliant way: “I crave an alms:

  Since this gray guest, this serious one,

  Our wrinkled old Euroclydon,

  Since even he, with genial breath

  His quota here contributeth,

  Helping our gladness to prolong—

  Thou too! Nay, nay; as everywhere

  Water is found if one not spare

  To delve—tale, prithee now, or song!”

  Vine’s brow shot up with crimson lights

  As may the North on frosty nights

  Over Dilston Hall and his low state—

  The fair young Earl whose bloody end

  Those red rays do commemorate,

  And take his name.

  Now all did bend

  In chorus, crying, “Tale or song!”

  Investing him. Was no escape

  Beset by such a Bacchic throng.

  “Ambushed in leaves we spy your grape,”

  Cried Derwent; “black but juicy one—

  A song!”

  No way for Vine to shun:

  “Well, if you’ll let me here recline

  At ease the while, I’ll hum a word

  Which in his Florence loft I heard

  An artist trill one morning fine:—

  “What is beauty? ’tis a dream

  Dispensing still with gladness:

  The dolphin haunteth not the shoal,

  And deeps there be in sadness.

  “The rose-leaves, see, disbanded be—

  Blowing, about me blowing;

  But on the death-bed of the rose

  My amaranths are growing.

  “His amaranths: a fond conceit,

  Yes, last illusion of retreat!