Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

  Less credulous than Greeks to-day.

  Now worldlings in their worldliness

  Enjoin upon us, Never retract:

  With ignorant folk, think you, no less

  Of policy priestcraft may exact?

  But Luther’s clergy: though their deeds

  Take not imposture, yet ’tis seen

  That, in some matters more abstract,

  These, too, may be impeached herein.

  While, as each plain observer heeds,

  Some doctrines fall away from creeds,

  And therewith, hopes, which scarce again,

  In those same forms, shall solace men—

  Perchance, suspended and inert

  May hang, with few to controvert,

  For ages; does the Lutheran,

  To such disciples as may sit

  Receptive of his sanctioned wit,

  In candor own the dubious weather

  And lengthen out the cable’s tether?—

  You catch my drift?”

  “I do. But, nay,

  Some ease the cable.”

  “Derwent, pray?

  Ah, he—he is a generous wight,

  And lets it slip, yes, run out quite.

  Whether now in his priestly state

  He seek indeed to mediate

  ’Tween faith and science (which still slight

  Each truce deceptive) or discreet

  Would kindly cover faith’s retreat,

  Alike he labors vainly. Nay,

  And, since I think it, why not say—

  Things all diverse he would unite:

  His idol’s an hermaphrodite.”

  The student shrank. Again he knew

  Return for Rolfe of quick distaste;

  But mastered it; for still the hue

  Rolfe kept of candor undefaced,

  Quoting pure nature at his need,

  As ’twere the Venerable Bede:

  An Adam in his natural ways.

  But scrupulous lest any phrase

  Through inference might seem unjust

  Unto the friend they here discussed;

  Rolfe supplements: “Derwent but errs—

  No, buoyantly but overstates

  In much his genial heart avers:

  I cannot dream he simulates.

  For pulpiteers which make their mart—

  Who, in the Truth not for a day,

  Debarred from growth as from decay,

  Truth one forever, Scriptures say,

  Do yet the fine progressive part

  So jauntily maintain; these find

  (For sciolists abound) a kind

  And favoring audience. But none

  Exceed in flushed repute the one

  Who bold can harmonize for all

  Moses and Comte, Renan and Paul:

  ’Tis the robustious circus-man:

  With legs astride the dappled span

  Elate he drives white, black, before:

  The small apprentices adore.

  Astute ones be though, staid and grave

  Who in the wars of Faith and Science

  Remind one of old tactics brave—

  Imposing front of false defiance:

  The King a corpse in armor led

  On a live horse.—You turn your head:

  You hardly like that. Woe is me:

  What would you have? For one to hold

  That he must still trim down, and cold

  Dissemble—this were coxcombry!

  Indulgence should with frankness mate:

  Fraternal be: Ah, tolerate!”

  The modulated voice here won

  Ingress where scarce the plea alone

  Had entrance gained. But—to forget

  Allusions which no welcome met

  In him who heard—Rolfe thus went on:

  “Never I’ve seen it; but they claim

  That the Greek prelate’s artifice

  Comes as a tragic after-piece

  To farce, or rather prank and game;

  Racers and tumblers round the Tomb:

  Sports such as might the mound confront,

  The funeral mound, by Hellespont,

  Of slain Patroclus. Linger still

  Such games beneath some groves of bloom

  In mid Pacific, where life’s thrill

  Is primal—Pagan; and fauns deck

  Green theatres for that tattooed Greek

  The Polynesian.—Who will say

  These Syrians are more wise than they,

  Or more humane? not those, believe,

  Who may the narrative receive

  Of lbrahim the conqueror, borne

  Dead-faint, by soldiers red with gore

  Over slippery corses heaped forlorn

  Out from splashed Calvary through the door

  Into heaven’s light. Urged to ordain

  That nevermore the frenzying ray

  Should issue—‘That would but sustain

  The cry of persecution; nay,

  Let Allah, if he will, remand

  These sects to reason. Let it stand.’—

  Cynical Moslem! but didst err,

  Arch-Captain of the Sepulcher?”—

  He stayed: and Clarel knew decline

  Of all his spirits, as may one

  Who hears some story of his line

  Which shows him half his house undone.

  Revulsion came: with lifted brows

  He gazed on Rolfe: Is this the man

  Whom Jordan heard in part espouse

  The appeal of that Dominican

  And Rome? and here, all sects, behold,

  All creeds involving in one fold

  Of doubt? Better a partisan!

  Earnest he seems: can union be

  ’Twixt earnestness and levity?

  Or need at last in Rolfe confess

  Thy hollow, Manysidedness!

  But, timely, here diversion fell.

  Dawn broke; and from each cliff-hung cell

  ’Twas hailed with hymns—confusion sweet

  As of some aviary’s seat:

  Commemorative matin din:

  ’Tis Saba’s festival they usher in.

  17. A CHANT

  That day, though to the convent brood

  A holiday, was kept in mood

  Of serious sort, yet took the tone

  And livery of legend grown

  Poetical if grave. The fane

  Was garnished, and it heard a strain

  Reserved for festa. And befell

  That now and then at interval

  Some, gathered on the cliffs around,

  Would sing Saint Cosmas’ canticle;

  Some read aloud from book embrowned

  While others listened; some prefer

  A chant in Scripture character,

  Or monkish sort of melodrame.

  Upon one group the pilgrims came

  In gallery of slender space,

  Locked in the echoing embrace

  Of crags: a choir of seemly men

  Reposed in cirque, nor wanting grace,

  Whose tones went eddying down the glen:

  First Voice

  No more the princes flout the word—

  Jeremiah’s in dungeon cast:

  The siege is up, the walls give way:

  This desolation is the last.

  The Chaldee army, pouring in,

  Fiercer grown for disarray,

  Hunt Zedekiah that fleeth out:

  Baal and Assyria win:

  Israel’s last ki
ng is shamed in rout,

  Taken and blinded, chains put on,

  And captive dragged to Babylon.

  Second Voice

  O daughter of Jerusalem,

  Cast up the ashes on the brow!

  Nergal and Samgar, Sarsechim

  Break down thy towers, abase thee now.

  Third Voice

  Oh, now each lover leaveth!

  Fourth Voice

  None comfort me, she saith:

  First Voice

  Abroad the sword bereaveth:

  Second Voice

  At home there is as death.

  The Four

  Behold, behold! the days foretold begin:

  A sword without—the pestilence within.

  First and Second Voices

  But thou that pull’st the city down,

  Ah, vauntest thou thy glory so?

  Second and Third Voices

  God is against thee, haughty one;

  His archers roundabout thee go:

  The Four

  Earth shall be moved, the nations groan

  At the jar of Bel and Babylon

  In din of overthrow.

  First Voice

  But Zion shall be built again!

  Third and Fourth Voices

  Nor shepherd from the flock shall sever;

  For lo, his mercy doth remain,

  His tender mercy—

  Second Voice

  And forever!

  The Four

  Forever and forever!

  Choral

  Forever and forever

  His mercy shall remain:

  In rivers flow forever,

  Forever fall in rain!

  18. THE MINSTER

  Huge be the buttresses enmassed

  Which shoulder up, like Titan men,

  Against the precipices vast

  The ancient minster of the glen.

  One holds the library four-square,

  A study, but with students few:

  Books, manuscripts, and—cobwebs too.

  Within, the church were rich and rare

  But for the time-stain which ye see:

  Gilded with venerable gold,

  It shows in magnified degree

  Much like some tarnished casket old

  Which in the dusty place ye view

  Through window of the broker Jew.

  But Asiatic pomp adheres

  To ministry and ministers

  Of Basil’s Church; that night ’twas seen

  In all that festival confers:

  Plate of Byzantium, stones and spars,

  Urim and Thummim, gold and green;

  Music like cymbals clashed in wars

  Of great Semiramis the queen.

  And texts sonorous they intone

  From parchment, not plebeian print;

  From old and golden parchment brown

  They voice the old Septuagint,

  And Gospels, and Epistles, all

  In the same tongue employed by Paul.

  Flags, beatific flags they view:

  Ascetics which the hair-cloth knew

  And wooden pillow, here were seen

  Pictured on satin soft—serene

  In fair translation. But advanced

  Above the others, and enhanced

  About the staff with ring and boss,

  They mark the standard of the Cross.

  That emblem, here, in Eastern form,

  For Derwent seemed to have a charm.

  “I like this Greek cross, it has grace;”

  He whispered Rolfe: “the Greeks eschew

  The long limb; beauty must have place—

  Attic! I like it. And do you?”

  “Better I’d like it, were it true.”

  “What mean you there?”

  “I do but mean

  ’Tis not the cross of Calvary’s scene.

  The Latin cross (by that name known)

  Holds the true semblance; that’s the one

  Was lifted up and knew the nail;

  ’Tis realistic—can avail!”

  Breathed Derwent then, “These arches quite

  Set off and aggrandize the rite:

  A goodly fane. The incense, though,

  Somehow it drugs, makes sleepy so.

  They purpose down there in ravine

  Having an auto, act, or scene,

  Or something. Come, pray, let us go.”

  19. THE MASQUE

  ’Tis night, with silence, save low moan

  Of winds. By torches red in glen

  A muffled man upon a stone

  Sits desolate sole denizen.

  Pilgrims and friars on ledge above

  Repose. A figure in remove

  This prologue renders: “He in view

  Is that Cartaphilus, the Jew

  Who wanders ever; in low state,

  Behold him in Jehoshaphat

  The valley, underneath the hem

  And towers of gray Jerusalem:

  This must ye feign. With quick conceit

  Ingenuous, attuned in heart,

  Help out the actor in his part,

  And gracious be;” and made retreat.

  Then slouching rose the muffled man;

  Gazed toward the turrets, and began:

  “O city yonder,

  Exposed in penalty and wonder,

  Again thou seest me! Hither I

  Still drawn am by the guilty tie

  Between us; all the load I bear

  Only thou know’st, for thou dost share.

  As round my heart the phantoms throng

  Of tribe and era perished long,

  So thou art haunted, sister in wrong!

  While ghosts from mounds of recent date

  Invest and knock at every gate—

  Specters of thirty sieges old

  Your outer line of trenches hold:

  Egyptian, Mede, Greek, Arab, Turk,

  Roman, and Frank, beleaguering lurk.—

  “Jerusalem!

  Not solely for that bond of doom

  Between us, do I frequent come

  Hither, and make profound resort

  In Shaveh’s dale, in Joel’s court;

  But hungering also for the day

  Whose dawn these weary feet shall stay,

  When Michael’s trump the call shall spread

  Through all your warrens of the dead.

  “Time, never may I know the calm

  Till then? my lull the world’s alarm?

  But many mortal fears and feelings

  In me, in me here stand reversed:

  The unappeased judicial pealings

  Wrench me, not wither me, accursed.

  ‘Just let him live, just let him rove,’

  (Pronounced the voice estranged from love)

  ‘Live—live and rove the sea and land;

  Long live, rove far, and understand

  And sum all knowledge for his dower;

  For he forbid is, he is banned;

  His brain shall tingle, but his hand

  Shall palsied be in power:

  Ruthless, he meriteth no ruth,

  On him I imprecate the truth.’ ”

  He quailed; then, after little truce,

  Moaned querulous:

  “My fate!

  Cut off I am, made separate;

  For man’s embrace I strive no more;

  For, would I be

  Friendly with one, the mystery

 
He guesses of that dreadful lore

  Which Eld accumulates in me:

  He fleeth me.

  My face begetteth superstition:

  In dungeons of Spain’s Inquisition

  Thrice languished I for sorcery,

  An Elymas. In Venice, long

  Immured beneath the wave I lay

  For a conspirator. Some wrong

  On me is heaped, go where I may,

  Among mankind. Hence solitude

  Elect I; in waste places brood

  More lonely than an only god;

  For, human still, I yearn, I yearn,

  Yea, after a millennium, turn

  Back to my wife, my wife and boy;

  Yet ever I shun the dear abode

  Or site thereof, of homely joy.

  I fold ye in the watch of night,

  Esther! then start. And hast thou been?

  And I for ages in this plight?

  Caitiff I am; but there’s no sin

  Conjecturable, possible,

  No crime they expiate in hell

  Justly whereto such pangs belong:

  The wrongdoer he endureth wrong.

  Yea, now the Jew, inhuman erst,

  With penal sympathy is cursed—

  The burden shares of every crime,

  And throttled miseries undirged,

  Unchronicled, and guilt submerged

  Each moment in the flood of time.

  Go mad I can not: I maintain

  The perilous outpost of the sane.

  Memory could I mitigate,

  Or would the long years vary any!

  But no, ’tis fate repeating fate:

  Banquet and war, bridal and hate,

  And tumults of the people many;

  And wind, and dust soon laid again:

  Vanity, vanity’s endless reign!—

  What’s there?”

  He paused, and all was hush

  Save a wild screech, and hurtling rush

  Of wings. An owl—the hermit true

  Of grot the eremite once knew

  Up in the cleft—alarmed by ray

  Of shifted flambeau, burst from cave

  On bushy wing, and brushed away

  Down the long Kedron gorge and grave.

  “It flees, but it will be at rest