Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

Short measure ’tis.” “And yet enough,”

  Said Derwent; “’tis a hopeful song;

  Or, if part sad, not less adorning,

  Like purple in a royal mourning.

  We debtors be. Now come along

  To table, we’ll take no rebuff.”

  So Vine sat down among them then—

  Adept—shy prying into men.

  Derwent here wheeled him: “But for sake

  Of conscience, noble Arnaut, tell;

  When now I as from dream awake

  It just dawns on me: how is this?

  Wine-bibbing? No! that kind of bliss

  Your Koran bars. And Belex, man,

  Thou’st smoked before the sun low fell;

  And this month’s what? your Ramadan?

  May true believers thus rebel?”

  Good sooth, did neither know to tell,

  Or care to know, what time did fall

  The Islam fast; yet took it so

  As Derwent roguish prompted, though

  It was no Ramadan at all;

  ’Twas far ahead, a movable fast

  Of lunar month, which to forecast

  Needs reckoning.

  Ponderous pause

  The Anak made: “Mahone has laws,

  And Allah’s great—of course:—forefend!

  Ho, rouse a stave, and so an end:

  “The Bey, the Emir, and Mamalook lords

  Charged down on the field in a grove of swords:

  Hurrah! hurrah and hurrah

  For the grove of swords in the wind of war!

  “And the Bey to the Emir exclaimed, Who knows?

  In the shade of the scimiters Paradise shows!

  Hurrah! hurrah and hurrah

  For the grove of swords in the wind of war!”

  He sang; then settled down, a mate

  For Mars’ high pontiff—solemn sate,

  And on his long broad Bazra blade

  Deep ruminated. Less sedate,

  The Spahi now in escapade

  Vented some Turkish guard-room joke,

  But scarce thereby the other woke

  To laughter, for he never laughed,

  Into whatever mood he broke,

  Nor verbal levity vouchsafed,

  So leonine the man. But here

  The Spahi, with another cheer

  Into a vein of mockery ran,

  Toasting the feast of Ramadan,

  Laughing thereat, removed from fear.

  It was a deep-mouthed mastiff burst,

  Nor less, for all the jovial tone

  The echo startling import won—

  At least for Clarel, little versed

  In men, their levities and tides

  Unequal, and of much besides.

  There by a lattice open swung

  Over the Kedron’s gulf he hung,

  And pored and pondered: With what sweep

  Doubt plunges, and from maw to maw;

  Traditions none the nations keep—

  Old ties dissolve in one wide thaw;

  The Frank, the Turk, and e’en the Jew

  Share it; perchance the Brahmin too.

  Returns each thing that may withdraw?

  The schools of blue-fish years desert

  Our sounds and shores—but they revert;

  The ship returns on her long tack:

  The bones of Theseus are brought back:

  A comet shall resume its path

  Though three millenniums go. But faith?

  Ah, Nehemiah—and, Derwent, thou!

  ’Twas dust to dust: what is it now

  And here? Is life indeed a dream?

  Are these the pilgrims late that heard

  The wheeling desert vultures scream

  Above the Man and Book interred—

  Scream like the haglet and the gull

  Off Chiloe o’er the foundered hull?

  But hark: while here light fell the clink

  The five cups made touched brink to brink

  In fair bouquet of fellowship,

  And just as the gay Lesbian’s lip

  Was parted—jetting came a wail

  In litany from Kedron’s jail

  Profound, and belly of the whale:

  “Lord, have mercy.

  Christ, have mercy.

  Intercede for me,

  Angel of the Agony.

  Spare me, spare me!

  Merciful be—

  Lord, spare me—

  Spare and deliver me!”

  Arrested, those five revelers there,

  Fixed in light postures of their glee,

  Seemed problematic shapes ye see

  In linked caprice of festal air

  Graved round the Greek sarcophagi.

  15. IN MOONLIGHT

  The roller upon Borneo’s strand

  Halts not, but in recoiling throe

  Drags back the shells involved with sand,

  Shuffled and muffled in the flow

  And hollow of the wallowing undertow.

  In night Rolfe waked, and whelming felt

  That refluence of disquiet dealt

  In sequel to redundant joy.

  Around he gazed in vague annoy

  Upon his mates. The lamp-light dim

  Obscurely showed them, strangely thrown

  In sleep, nor heeding eye of him;

  Flung every way, with random limb—

  Like corses, when the battle’s done

  And stars come up. No sound but slight

  Calm breathing, or low elfin shriek

  In dream. But Mortmain, coiled in plight,

  Lay with one arm wedged under cheek,

  Mumbling by starts the other hand,

  As the wolf-hound the bone. Rolfe rose

  And shook him. Whereat, from his throes

  He started, glaring; then lapsed down:

  “Soft, soft and tender; feels so bland—

  Grind it! ’tis hers, Brinvilliers’ hand,

  My nurse.” From which mad dream anon

  He seemed his frame to re-command;

  And yet would give an animal moan.

  “God help thee, and may such ice make

  Except against some solid? nay—

  But thou who mark’st, get thee away,

  Nor in such coals of Tartarus rake.”

  So Rolfe; and wide a casement threw.

  Aroma! and is this Judæa?

  Down the long gorge of Kedron blew

  A balm beyond the sweet Sabæa—

  An air as from Elysian grass;

  Such freshening redolence divine

  As mariners upon the brine

  Inhale, when barren beach they pass

  By night; a musk of wafted spoil

  From Nature’s scent-bags in the soil,

  Not in her flowers; nor seems it known

  Even on the shores wherefrom ’tis blown.

  Clarel, he likewise wakeful grew,

  And rose, joined Rolfe, and both repaired

  Out to a railed-in ledge. In view

  Across the gulf a fox was scared

  Even by their quiet coming so,

  And noiseless fled along a line

  Of giddy cornice, till more slow

  He skulked out of the clear moonshine;

  For great part of that wall did show,

  To these beneath the shadowed hight,

  With arras hung of fair moon-light.

  The lime-stone mountain cloven asunder,

  With scars of many a plunge and shock

 
Tremendous of the rifted rock;

  So hushed now after all the thunder,

  Begat a pain of troubled wonder.

  The student felt it; for redress

  He turned him—anywhere—to find

  Some simple thing to ease the mind

  Dejected in her littleness.

  Rolfe read him; and in quiet way

  Would interpose, lead off, allay.

  “Look,” whispered he, “yon object white—

  This side here, on the crag at brink—

  ’Tis touched, just touched by paler light;

  Stood we in Finland, one might think

  An ermine there lay coiled. But no,

  A turban ’tis, Djalea’s, aloof

  Reclining, as he used to do

  In Lebanon upon proud roof—

  His sire’s. And, see, long pipe in state,

  He inhales the friendly fume sedate.

  Yon turban with the snowy folds

  Announces that my lord there holds

  The rank of Druze initiate—

  Not versed in portion mere, but total—

  Advanced in secrets sacerdotal;

  Though what these be, or high or low,

  Who dreams? Might Lady Esther learn?”

  “Who?”

  “Lady Esther. Don’t you know?

  Pitt’s sibyl-niece, who made sojourn

  In Libanus, and read the stars;

  Self-exiled lady, long ago

  She prophesied of wizard wars,

  And kept a saddled steed in stall

  Awaiting some Messiah’s call

  Who came not.—But yon Druze’s veil

  Of Sais may one lift, nor quail?

  We’ll try.”

  To courteous challenge sent,

  The Druze responded, not by word

  Indeed, but act: he came; content

  He leaned beside them in accord,

  Resting the pipe-bowl. His assent

  In joining them, nay, all his air

  Mute testimony seemed to bear

  That now night’s siren element,

  Stealing upon his inner frame,

  Pliant had made it and more tame.

  With welcome having greeted him,

  Rolfe led along by easy skim

  And won the topic: “Tell us here—

  Your Druze faith: are there not degrees,

  Orders, ascents of mysteries

  Therein? One would not pry and peer:

  Of course there’s no disclosing these;

  But what’s that working thought you win?

  The prelate-princes of your kin,

  They—they—doubtless they take their ease.”

  No ripple stirred the Emir’s son,

  He whiffed the vapor, kept him staid,

  Then from the lip the amber won:

  “No God there is but God,” he said,

  And tapped the ashes from the bowl,

  And stood. ’Twas passive self-control

  Of Pallas’ statue in sacked Rome

  Which bode till pushed from off the plinth;

  Then through the rocky labyrinth

  Betook him where cool sleep might come;

  But not before farewell sedate:—

  “Allah preserve ye, Allah great!”

  16. THE EASTER FIRE

  “There’s politesse! we’re left behind.

  And yet I like this Prince of Pith;

  Too pithy almost. Where’ll ye find

  Nobleman to keep silence with

  Better than Lord Djalea?—But you—

  It can not be this interview

  Has somehow—” “No,” said Clarel; “no,”

  And sighed; then, “How irreverent

  Was Belex in the wassail-flow:

  His Ramadan he links with Lent.”

  “No marvel: what else to infer?

  Toll-taker at the Sepulcher.

  To me he gave his history late,

  The which I sought.—You’ve marked the state

  Of warders shawled, on old divan,

  Sword, pipe, and coffee-cup at knee,

  Cross-legg’d within that portal’s span

  Which wins the Holy Tomb? Ay me,

  With what a bored dead apathy

  Faith’s eager pilgrims they let in!”

  “Guard of the Urn has Belex been?”

  Said Clarel, starting; “why then,—yes—”

  He checked himself.—

  “Nay, but confess,”

  Cried Rolfe; “I know the revery lurks:

  Frankly admit that for these Turks

  There’s nothing that can so entice

  To disbelieve, nay, Atheize—

  Nothing so baneful unto them

  As shrined El Cods, Jerusalem.

  For look now how it operates:

  To Christ the Turk as much as Frank

  Concedes a supernatural rank;

  Our Holy Places too he mates

  All but with Mecca’s own. But then

  If chance he mark the Cross profaned

  By violence of Christian men

  So called—his faith then needs be strained;

  The more, if he himself have done

  (Enforced thereto by harsh command)

  Irreverence unto Mary’s Son.”

  “How mean you?” and the speaker scanned.

  “Why not alone has Belex been

  An idling guard about The Tomb:

  Nay, but he knows another scene

  In fray beneath the self-same dome

  At festivals. What backs he’s scored

  When on the day by Greeks adored,

  St. Basil’s Easter, all the friars

  Schismatic, with the pilgrim tribes,

  Levantine, Russian, heave their tides

  Of uproar in among the shrines,

  Waiting the burst of fraudful fires

  From vent there in the Holy Tomb

  Which closeteth the mongers. Room!

  It jets! To quell the rush, the lines

  Of soldiers sway: crack falls the thong;

  And mid the press, some there, though strong,

  Are trampled, trodden, till they die.

  In transfer swift, igniting fly

  The magic flames, which, caught along

  By countless candles, multiply.

  Like seas phosphoric on calm nights,

  Blue shows the fane in fog of lights;

  But here ’tis hurricane and high:

  Zeal, furious zeal, and frenzying faith

  And ecstasy of Atys’ scath

  When up the Phrygian mount he rushed

  Bleeding, yet heeding not his shame,

  While round him frantic timbrels pushed

  In rites delirious to name.

  No: Dindymus’ nor Brahma’s crew

  Dream what these Christian fakirs do:

  Wrecked banners, crosses, ragged palms—

  Red wounds thro’ vestments white ye view;

  And priests who shout ferocious psalms

  And hoarse hosannas to their king,

  Even Christ; and naught may work a lull,

  Nor timely truce of reason bring;

  Not cutting lash, nor smiting sword,

  Nor yet—Oh! more than wonderful—

  The tomb, the pleading tomb where lay Our Lord.”

  “But who ordains the imposture? speak.”

  “The vivid, ever-inventive Greek.”

  “The Greek? But that is hard to think.

  Seemly the port, gentle the cheer

>   Of friars which lodge upon this brink

  Of Kedron, and do worship here

  With rites august, and keep the creed.”—

  “Ah, rites august;—this ancient sect,

  Stately upholstered and bedecked,

  Is but a catafalque, concede—

  Prolongs in sacerdotal way

  The Lower Empire’s bastard sway;

  It does not grow, it does but bide—

  An orthodoxy petrified.

  Or, if it grow, it grows but with

  Russia, and thence derives its pith.

  The Czar is its armed bishop. See,

  The Czar’s purse, so it comes to me,

  Contributes to this convent’s pride.

  But what’s that twinkling through the gloom

  Far down? the lights in chantry? Yes!

  Whence came the flame that lit? Confess,

  E’en from Jerusalem—the Tomb,

  Last Easter. Horseman from the porch

  Hither each Easter spurs with torch

  To re-ignite the flames extinct

  Upon Good-Friday. Thus, you see,

  Contagious is this cheatery;

  Nay, that’s unhandsome; guests we are;

  And hosts are sacred—house and all;

  And one may think, and scarcely mar

  The truth, that it may so befall

  That, as yon docile lamps receive

  The fraudful flame, yet honest burn,

  So, no collusive guile may cleave

  Unto these simple friars, who turn

  And take whate’er the forms dispense,

  Nor question, Wherefore? ask not, Whence?”

  Clarel, as if in search of aught

  To mitigate unwelcome thought,

  Appealed to turret, crag and star;

  But all was strange, withdrawn and far.

  “Yet need we grant,” Rolfe here resumed,

  “This trick its source had in a dream

  Artless, which few will disesteem—

  That angels verily illumed

  Those lamps at Easter, long ago;

  Though now indeed all come from prayer

  (As Greeks believe—at least avow)

  Of bishops in the Sepulcher.

  Be rumor just, which small birds sing,

  Greek churchmen would let drop this thing

  Of fraud, e’en let it cease. But no:

  ’Tis ancient, ’tis entangled so

  With vital things of needful sway,

  Scarce dare they deviate that way.

  The Latin in this spurious rite

  Joined with the Greek: but long ago,

  Long years since, he abjured it quite.

  Still, few Rome’s pilgrims here, and they