Herman Melville- Complete Poems

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Herman Melville- Complete Poems Page 55

by Herman Melville

Water he craves, where rain is none—

  Water within the parching zone,

  Where only dews of midnight fall

  And dribbling lodge in chinks of stone.

  For meat the bitter tree is all—

  The cactus, whose nipped fruit is shed

  On those bleached skull-like hulks below,

  Which, when by life inhabited,

  Crept hither in last journey slow

  After a hundred years of pain

  And pilgrimage here to and fro,

  For other hundred years to reign

  In hollow of white armor so—

  Then perish piecemeal. You advance:

  Instant, more rapid than a glance,

  Long neck and four legs are drawn in,

  Letting the shell down with report

  Upon the stone; so falls in court

  The clattering buckler with a din.

  There leave him, since for hours he’ll keep

  That feint of death.—But for the isle——

  Much seems it like this barren steep:

  As here, few there would think to smile.”

  So, paraphrased in lines sincere

  Which still similitude would win,

  The sketch ran of that timoneer.

  He ended, and how passive sate:

  Nature’s own look, which might recall

  Dumb patience of mere animal,

  Which better may abide life’s fate

  Than comprehend.

  What may man know?

  (Here pondered Clarel;) let him rule—

  Pull down, build up, creed, system, school,

  And reason’s endless battle wage,

  Make and remake his verbiage—

  But solve the world! Scarce that he’ll do:

  Too wild it is, too wonderful.

  Since this world, then, can baffle so—

  Our natural harbor—it were strange

  If that alleged, which is afar,

  Should not confound us when we range

  In revery where its problems are.—

  Such thoughts! and can they e’en be mine

  In fount? Did Derwent true divine

  Upon the tower of Saba—yes,

  Hinting I too much felt the stress

  Of Rolfe—or whom? Green and unsure,

  And in attendance on a mind

  Poised at self-center and mature,

  Do I but lacquey it behind?

  Yea, here in frame of thought and word

  But wear the cast clothes of my lord?

  4. AN INTRUDER

  Quiet Agath, with a start, just then

  Shrieked out, abhorrent or in fright.

  Disturbed in its pernicious den

  Amid dry flints and shards of blight,

  A crabbed scorpion, dingy brown,

  With nervous tail slant upward thrown

  (Like to a snake’s wroth neck and head

  Dilating when the coil’s unmade

  Before the poor affrighted clown

  Whose foot offends it unbeknown)

  Writhing, faint crackling, like wire spring,

  With anguish of the poisonous bile

  Inflaming the slim duct, the while

  In act of shooting toward the sting;

  This, the unblest, small, evil thing,

  ’Tis this they mark, wriggling in range,

  Fearless, and with ill menace, strange

  In such a minim.

  Derwent rose,

  And Clarel; Vine and Rolfe remained

  At gaze; the soldier too and Druze.

  Cried Rolfe, while thus they stood enchained:

  “O small epitome of devil,

  Wert thou an ox couldst thou thus sway?

  No, disproportionate is evil

  In influence. Evil do I say?

  But speak not evil of the evil:

  Evil and good they braided play

  Into one cord.”

  While they delay,

  The object vanished. Turning head

  Toward the salt one, Derwent said:

  “The thing’s not sweet; but why start so,

  My good man, you that frequent know

  The wonders of the deep?” He flushed,

  And in embarrassment kept dumb.

  But Rolfe here to the rescue pushed:

  “Men not deemed craven will succumb

  To such an apparition. Why,

  Soldiers, that into battle marching

  Elastic pace with instep arching—

  Sailors (and he’s a sailor nigh)

  Who out upon the jib-boom hie,

  At world’s end, in the midnight gale,

  And wrestle with the thrashing sail,

  The while the speared spar like a javelin flies

  Slant up from thundering seas to skies

  Electric:—these—l’ve known one start

  Seeing a spider run athwart!”

  In common-place here lightly blew

  Across them through the desert air

  A whiff from pipe that Belex smoked:

  The Druze his sleek mare smooth bestroked,

  Then gave a sign. One parting view

  At Zion blurred, and on they fare.

  5. OF THE STRANGER

  While Agath was his story telling

  (Ere yet the ill thing worked surprise)

  The officer with forest eyes

  Still kept them dwelling, somber dwelling

  On that mild merman gray. His mien

  In part was that of one who tries

  Something outside his own routine

  Of memories, all too profuse

  In personal pain monotonous.

  And yet derived he little here,

  As seemed, to soothe his mind—austere

  With deep impressions uneffaced.

  At chance allusion—at the hint

  That the dragged tortoise bore the print

  Of something mystic and debased,

  How glowed the comment in his eyes:

  No cynic fire sarcastic; nay,

  But deeper in the startled sway

  Of illustrations to surmise.

  Ever on him they turned the look,

  While yet the hearing not forsook

  The salt seer while narration ran.

  The desert march resumed, in thought

  They dwell, till Rolfe the Druze besought

  If he before had met this man—

  So distant, though a countryman

  By birth. Why, yes—had met him: see,

  Drilling some tawny infantry

  In shadow of a Memphian wall,

  White-robed young conscripts up the Nile;

  And, afterward, on Jaffa beach,

  With Turkish captains holding speech

  Over some cannon in a pile

  Late landed—with the conic ball.

  No more? No more the Druze let fall,

  If more he knew.

  Thought Rolfe: Ay me,

  Ay me, poor Freedom, can it be

  A countryman’s a refugee?

  What maketh him abroad to roam,

  Sharing with infidels a home?

  Is it the immense charred solitudes

  Once farms? and chimney-stacks that reign

  War-burnt upon the houseless plain

  Of hearthstones without neighborhoods?

  Is it the wilds whose memories own

  More specters than the woods bestrown

  With Varus’ legions mossy grown?

&nbs
p; Is’t misrule after strife? and dust

  From victor heels? Is it disgust

  For times when honor’s out of date

  And serveth but to alienate?

  The usurping altar doth he scout—

  The Parsee of a sun gone out?

  And this, may all this mar his state?

  His very virtues, in the blench

  And violence of fortune’s wrench,

  Alas, serve but to vitiate?

  Strong natures have a strong recoil

  Whose shock may wreck them or despoil.

  Oh, but it yields a thought that smarts,

  To note this man. Our New World bold

  Had fain improved upon the Old;

  But the hemispheres are counterparts.

  So inly Rolfe; and did incline

  In briefer question there to Vine,

  Who could but answer him with eyes

  Opulent in withheld replies.

  And here—without a thought to chide—

  Feeling the tremor of the ground—

  Reluctant touching on the wound

  Unhealed yet in our mother’s side;

  Behooveth it to hint in brief

  The rankling thing in Ungar’s grief;

  For bravest grieve.—That evil day,

  Black in the New World’s calendar—

  The dolorous winter ere the war;

  True Bridge of Sighs—so yet ’twill be

  Esteemed in riper history—

  Sad arch between contrasted eras;

  The span of fate; that evil day

  When the cadets from rival zones,

  Tradition’s generous adherers,

  Their country’s pick and flower of sons,

  Abrupt were called upon to act—

  For life or death, nor brook delay—

  Touching construction of a pact,

  A paper pact, with points abstruse

  As theologic ones—profuse

  In matter for an honest doubt;

  And which, in end, a stubborn knot

  Some cut but with the sword; that day

  With its decision, yet could sway

  Ungar, and plunging thoughts excite.

  Reading and revery imped his pain,

  Confirmed, and made it take a flight

  Beyond experience and the reign

  Of self; till, in a sort, the man

  Grew much like that Pamphylian

  Who, dying (as the fable goes)

  In walks of Hades met with those

  Which, though he was a sage of worth,

  Did such new pregnancies implant,

  Hadean lore, he did recant

  All science he had brought from earth.

  Herewith in Ungar, though, ensued

  A bias, bitterness—a strain

  Much like an Indian’s hopeless feud

  Under the white’s aggressive reign.

  Indian’s the word; nor it impeach

  For over-pointedness of speech;

  No, let the story rearward run

  And its propriety be shown:

  Up Chesapeake in days of old,

  By winding banks whose curves unfold

  Cape after cape in bright remove,

  Steered the ship Ark with her attendant Dove.

  From the non-conformists’ zeal or bile

  Which urged, inflamed the civil check

  Upon the dreaded Popish guile,

  The New World’s fairer flowers and dews

  Welcomed the English Catholic:

  Like sheltering arms the shores expand

  To embrace and take to heart the crews.

  Care-worn, sea-worn, and tempest-tanned,

  Devout they hail that harbor green;

  And, mindful of heaven’s gracious Queen

  And Britain’s princess, name it Mary-Land.

  It was from one of Calvert’s friends

  The exile of the verse descends;

  And gifts, brave gifts, and martial fame

  Won under Tilly’s great command

  That sire of after-sires might claim.

  But heedless, in the Indian glade

  He wedded with a wigwam maid,

  Transmitting through his line, far down,

  Along with touch in lineaments,

  A latent nature, which events

  Developed in this distant son,

  And overrode the genial part—

  An Anglo brain, but Indian heart.

  And yet not so but Ungar knew

  (In freak, his forest name alone

  Retained he now) that instinct true

  Which tempered him in years bygone,

  When, spite the prejudice of kin

  And custom, he with friends could be

  Outspoken in his heart’s belief

  That holding slaves was aye a grief—

  The system an iniquity

  In those who plant it and begin;

  While for inheritors—alas,

  Who knows? and let the problem pass.

  But now all that was over—gone;

  Now was he the self-exiled one.

  Too steadfast! Wherefore should be lent

  The profitless high sentiment?

  Renounce conviction in defeat:

  Pass over, share the spoiler’s seat

  And thrive. Behooves thee else turn cheek

  To fate with wisdom of the meek.

  Wilt not? Unblest then with the store

  Of heaven, and spurning worldly lore

  Astute, eat thou thy cake of pride,

  And henceforth live on unallied.—

  His passion, that—mused, never said;

  And his own pride did him upbraid.

  The habit of his mind, and tone

  Tenacious touching issues gone,

  Expression found, nor all amiss,

  In thing he’d murmur: it was this:

  “Who abideth by the dead

  Which ye hung before your Lord?

  Steadfast who, when all have fled

  Tree and corse abhorred?

  Who drives off the wolf, the kite—

  Bird by day, and beast by night,

  And keeps the hill through all?

  It is Rizpah: true is one

  Unto death; nor then will shun

  The Seven throttled and undone,

  To glut the foes of Saul.”

  That for the past; and for the surge

  Reactionary, which years urge:

  “Elating and elate,

  Do they mount them in their pride?

  Let them wait a little, wait,

  For the brimming of the flood

  Brings the turning of the tide.”

  His lyric. Yet in heart of hearts

  Perchance its vanity he knew,

  At least suspected. What to do?

  Time cares not to avenge your smarts,

  But presses on, impatient of review.

  6. BETHLEHEM

  Over uplands now toward eve they pass

  By higher uplands tinged with grass.

  Lower it crept as they went on—

  Grew in advance, and rugged the ground;

  Yea, seemed before these pilgrims thrown

  To carpet them to royal bound.

  Each rider here in saddle-seat

  Lounges relaxed, and glads his sight;

  Solomon whinnies; those small feet

  Of Zar tread lightly and more light:

  Even Agath’s ass the awakened head

  Turns for a nibble. So they sped,
<
br />   Till now Djalea turns short aside,

  Ascends, and by a happy brink

  Makes halt, and beckons them to ride

  And there with him at pleasure drink

  A prospect good.

  Below, serene

  In oliveyards and vineyards fair,

  They view a theater pale green

  Of terraces, which stair by stair

  Rise toward most venerable walls

  On summits twin, and one squared heap

  Of buttressed masonry based deep

  Adown the crag on lasting pedestals.

  Though on that mount but towers convene,

  And hamlet none nor cot they see,

  They cannot choose but know the scene;

  And Derwent’s eyes show humidly:

  “What other hill? We view it here:

  Blessed in story, and heart-cheer,

  Hail to thee, Bethlehem of Judæa!

  Oh, look: as if with conscious sense

  Here nature shows meet reverence:

  See, at the sacred mountain’s feet

  How kneels she with her fragrance sweet,

  And swathes them with her grasses fair:

  So Mary with the spikenard shed

  A lowly love, and bowed her head

  And made a napkin of her trailing hair.”

  He turned, but met no answering eyes;

  The animation of surprise

  Had vanished; strange, but they were dumb:

  What wayward afterthought had come?

  Those dim recurrings in the mind,

  Sad visitations ill defined,

  Which led the trio erst that met

  Upon the crown of Olivet

  Nehemiah’s proffer to decline

  When he invited them away

  To Bethany—might such things sway

  Even these by Bethlehem? The sign

  Derwent respected, and he said

  No more. And so, with spirits shrunk

  Over the placid hills they tread

  And win the stronghold of the monk.

  7. AT TABLE

  As shipwrecked men adrift, whose boat

  In war-time on the houseless seas

  Draws nigh to some embattled hull

  With pinnacles and traceries—

  Grim abbey on the wave afloat;

  And mark her bulwarks sorrowful

  With briny stains, and answering mien

  And cenobite dumb discipline,

  And homely uniform of crew

  Peering from ports where cannon lean,

  Or pacing in deep galleries far,

 

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