Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

  Trust ye His cradle shall be free?

  Heed one experienced, sirs.” His sword,

  Held cavalier by jingling chain,

  Dropping at whiles, would clank amain

  Upon the pave.

  “I pray ye now,”

  To him said Rolfe in accents low,

  “Have care; for see ye not ye jar

  These devotees? they turn—they cease

  (Hearing your clanging scimeter)

  Their suppliance to the Prince of Peace.”

  Like miners from the shaft, or tars

  From forth the hold, up from those spars

  And grottoes, by the stony stair

  They climb, emerge, and seek the air

  In open space.

  “Save me, what now?”

  Cried Derwent, foremost of the group—

  “The holy water!”

  Hanging low

  Outside, was fixed a scalloped stoup

  Or marble shell, to hold the wave

  Of Jordan, for true ones to lave

  The finger, and so make the sign,

  The Cross’s sign, ere in they slip

  And bend the knee. In this divine

  Recess, deliberately a lip

  Was lapping slow, with long-drawn pains,

  The liquid globules, last remains

  Of the full stone. Astray, alas,

  Athirst and lazed, it was—the ass;

  The friars, withdrawn for time, having left

  That court untended and bereft.

  “Was ever Saracen so bold!”

  “Well, things have come to pretty pass—

  The mysteries slobbered by an ass!”

  “Mere Nature do we here behold?”

  So they. But he, the earnest guide,

  Turning the truant there aside,

  Said, and in unaffected tone:

  “What should it know, this foolish one?

  It is an infidel we see:

  Ah, the poor brute’s stupidity!”

  “I hardly think so,” Derwent said;

  “For, look, it hangs the conscious head.”

  The friar no relish had for wit,

  No sense, perhaps, too rapt for it,

  Pre-occupied. So, having seen

  The ass led back, he bade adieu;

  But first, and with the kindliest mien:

  “Signori, would ye have fair view

  Of Bethlehem of Judæa, pray

  Ascend to roof: ye take yon stair.

  And now, heaven have ye in its care—

  Me save from sin, and all from error!

  Farewell.”—But Derwent: “Yet delay:

  Fain would we cherish when away:

  Thy name, then?” “Brother Salvaterra.”

  “’Tis a fair name. And, brother, we

  Are not insensible, conceive,

  To thy most Christian courtesy.—

  He goes. Sweet echo does he leave

  In Salvaterra: may it dwell!

  Silver in every syllable!”

  “And import too,” said Rolfe.

  They fare

  And win the designated stair,

  And climb; and, as they climb, in bell

  Of Derwent’s repetition, fell:

  “Me save from sin, and all from error!

  So prays good brother Salvaterra.”

  In paved flat roof, how ample there,

  They tread a goodly St. Mark’s Square

  Aloft. An elder brother lorn

  They meet, with shrunken cheek, and worn

  Like to a slab whereon may weep

  The unceasing water-drops. And deep

  Within his hollow gown-sleeves old

  His viewless hands he did enfold.

  He never spake, but moved away

  With shuffling pace of dragged infirm delay.

  “Seaward he gazed,” said Rolfe, “toward home:

  An empty longing!”

  “Cruel Rome!”

  Sighed Derwent; “See, though, good to greet

  The vale of eclogue, Boaz’ seat.

  Trips Ruth there, yonder?” thitherward

  Down pointing where the vineyards meet.

  At that dear name in Bethlehem heard,

  How Clarel starts. Not Agar’s child—

  Naomi’s! Then, unreconciled,

  And in reaction falling low,

  He saw the files Armenian go,

  The tapers round the virgin’s bier,

  And heard the boys’ light strophe free

  Overborne by the men’s antistrophe.

  Illusion! yet he knew a fear:

  “Fixed that this second night we bide

  In Bethlehem?” he asked aside.

  Yes, so ’twas planned. For moment there

  He thought to leave them and repair

  Alone forthwith to Salem. Nay,

  Doubt had unhinged so, that her sway,

  In minor things even, could retard

  The will and purpose. And, beyond,

  Prevailed the tacit pilgrim-bond—

  Of no slight force in his regard;

  Besides, a diffidence was sown:

  None knew his heart, nor might he own;

  And, last, feared he to prove the fear?

  With outward things he sought to clear

  His mind; and turned to list the tone

  Of Derwent, who to Rolfe: “Here now

  One stands emancipated.”

  “How?”

  “The air—the air, the liberal air!

  Those witcheries of the cave ill fare

  Reviewed aloft. Ah, Salvaterra,

  So winning in thy dulcet error—

  How fervid thou! Nor less thy tone,

  So heartfelt in sincere effusion,

  Is hardly that more chastened one

  We Protestants feel. But the illusion!

  Those grottoes: yes, void now they seem

  As phantoms which accost in dream—

  Accost and fade. Hold you with me?”

  “Yes, partly: I in part agree.

  In Kedron too, thou mayst recall,

  The monkish night of festival,

  And masque enacted—how it shrank

  When, afterward, in nature frank,

  Upon the terrace thrown at ease,

  Like magi of the old Chaldæa,

  Viewing Rigel and Betelguese,

  We breathed the balm-wind from Sabæa.

  All shows and forms in Kedron had—

  Nor hymn nor banner made them glad

  To me. And yet—why, who may know!

  These things come down from long ago.

  While so much else partakes decay,

  While states, tongues, manners pass away,

  How wonderful the Latin rite

  Surviving still like oak austere

  Over crops rotated year by year,

  Or Cæsar’s tower on London’s site.

  But, tell me: stands it true in fact

  That robe and ritual—every kind

  By Rome employed in ways exact—

  However strange to modern mind,

  Or even absurd (like cards Chinese

  In ceremonial usages),

  Not less of faith or need were born—

  Survive untampered with, unshorn;

  Date far back to a primal day,

  Obscure and hard to trace indeed—

  The springing of the planted seed

  In the church’s first organic sway?

  Still for a type, a type or use,

  Each decoration so profuse
<
br />   Budding and flowering? Tell me here.”

  “If but one could! To be sincere,

  Rome’s wide campania of old lore

  Ecclesiastic—that waste shore

  I’ve shunned: an instinct makes one fear

  Malarial places. But I’ll tell

  That at the mass this very morn

  I marked the broidered maniple

  Which by the ministrant was worn:

  How like a napkin does it show,

  Thought I, a napkin on the arm

  Of servitor. And hence we know

  Its origin. In the first days

  (And who denies their simple charm!)

  When the church’s were like household ways,

  Some served the flock in humble state—

  At Eucharist, passed cup or plate.

  The thing of simple use, you see,

  Tricked out—embellished—has become

  Theatric and a form. There’s Rome!

  Yet what of this, since happily

  Each superflux men now disown.”

  “Perchance!—’Tis an ambiguous time;

  And periods unforecast come on.

  Recurs to me a Persian rhyme:

  In Pera late an Asian man,

  With stately cap of Astracan,

  I knew in arbored coffee-house

  On bluff above the Bosphorus.

  Strange lore was his, and Saadi’s wit:

  Over pipe and Mocha long we’d sit

  Discussing themes which thrive in shade.

  In pause of talk a way he had

  Of humming a low air of his:

  I asked him once, What trills your bird?

  And he recited it in word,

  To pleasure me, and this it is:

  “Flamen, flamen, put away

  Robe and mitre glorious:

  Doubt undeifies the day!

  Look, in vapors odorous

  As the spice-king’s funeral-pyre,

  Dies the Zoroastrian fire

  On your altars in decay:

  The rule, the Magian rule is run,

  And Mythra abdicates the sun!”

  17. A TRANSITION

  “Fine, very fine,” said Derwent light;

  “But, look, yon rustics there in sight

  Crossing the slope; and are they not

  Those Arabs that we saw in grot?”

  “Why, who they be their garb bespeaks:

  Yes, ’tis those Arab Catholics.”

  “Catholic Arabs? Say not that!

  Some words don’t chime together, see.”

  “Oh, never mind the euphony:

  We saw them worship, and but late.

  Our Bethlehemites, the guard, they too

  Are Catholics. I talked with one,

  And much from his discourse I drew,

  Which the conventicles would shun:

  These be the children of the sun:

  They like not prosing—turn the lip

  From Luther’s jug—prefer to sip

  From that tall chalice brimmed with wine

  Which Rome hath graved, and made to shine

  For haughty West and barbarous East,

  To win all people to her feast.”

  “So, so! But, glamoured in that school

  Of taking shows and charmful rites,

  What ween they of Christ’s genuine rule,

  These credulous poor neophytes?

  Alas for such disciples! No,

  At mass before the altar, own,

  The celebrant in mystic gown

  To them is but a Prospero,

  A prince of magic. I deplore

  That zeal in such conversions seeks

  Less Christians than good Catholics:

  And here one might append much more.

  But drop.—Yon vineyards they are fair.

  For hill-side scenery—for curve

  Of beauty in a meek reserve—

  ’Tis Bethlehem the bell may bear!”

  Longer he gazed, then turned aside.

  Clarel was left with Rolfe. In view

  Leaned Ungar, watching there the guide

  Below, who passed on errand new.

  “Your judgment of him let me crave—

  Him there,” here lowly Rolfe.

  “I would

  I were his mate,” in earnest mood

  Clarel rejoined; “such faith to have,

  I’d take the rest, even Crib and Cave.”

  “Ah, you mistake me; him I mean,

  Our comrade, Ungar.”

  “He? at loss

  I am: at loss, for he’s most strange;

  Wild, too, adventurous in range;

  And suffers; so that one might glean

  An added import from the word

  The Tuscan spake: You bear a cross,

  Referring to the straight-hilt sword.”

  “I know. And when the Arnaut ran,

  But yesterday, with arms how bright

  (Like wheeling Phœbus flashing light),

  Superb about this sombrous man—

  A soldier too with vouching tinge;

  Methought, O War, thy bullion fringe

  Never shall gladsome make thy pall.

  Ungar is Mars in funeral

  Of reminiscence—not in pledge

  And glory of brave equipage

  And manifesto. But some keen

  Side-talk I had with him yestreen:

  Brave soldier and stout thinker both;

  In this regard, and in degree,

  An Ethan Allen, by my troth,

  Or Herbert lord of Cherbury,

  Dusked over. ’Tis an iron glove,

  An armed man in the Druid grove.”

  18. THE HILL-SIDE

  Pertaining unto nations three—

  Or, rather, each unto its clan—

  Greek, Latin, and Armenian,

  About the fane three convents be.

  Confederate on the mountain fair,

  Blunt buttressed huge with masonry,

  They mass an Ehrenbreitstein there.

  In these, and in the Empress’ fane

  Enough they gather to detain

  Or occupy till afternoon;

  When some of them the ridge went down

  To view that legendary grot

  Whose milky chalkiness of vest

  Derived is (so the hinds allot)

  From droppings of Madonna’s breast:

  A fairy tale: yet, grant it, due

  To that creative love alone

  Wherefrom the faun and cherub grew,

  With genii good and Oberon.

  Returning, part way up the hight,

  Ungar they met; and Vine in sight.

  Here all repose them.

  “Look away,”

  Cried Derwent, westward pointing; “see,

  How glorified yon vapors be!

  It is the dying of the day;

  A hopeful death-bed: yes, need own

  There is a morrow for the sun.”

  So, mild they sat in pleased delay.

  Vine turned—what seemed a random word

  Shyly let fall; and they were stirred

  Thereby to broach anew the theme—

  How wrought the sites of Bethlehem

  On Western natures. Here some speech

  Was had; and then: “For me,” Rolfe said,

  “From Bethlehem here my musings reach

  Yes—frankly—to Tahiti’s beach.”

  “Tahiti?” Derwent; “you ha
ve sped!”

  “Ay, truant humor. But to me

  That vine-wreathed urn of Ver, in sea

  Of halcyons, where no tides do flow

  Or ebb, but waves bide peacefully

  At brim, by beach where palm trees grow

  That sheltered Omai’s olive race—

  Tahiti should have been the place

  For Christ in advent.”

  “Deem ye so?

  Or on the topic’s budding bough

  But lights your fancy’s robin?”

  “Nay,”

  Said Ungar, “err one if he say

  The God’s design was, part, to broach

  Rebuke of man’s factitious life;

  So, for his first point of approach,

  Came thereunto where that was rife,

  The land of Pharisees and scorn—

  Judæa, with customs hard as horn.”

  This, chief, to Rolfe and Derwent twain.

  But Derwent, if no grudge he knew,

  Still felt some twinges of the pain

  (Vibrations of the residue)

  That morning in the dale incurred;

  Wherefore, at present he abstained,

  When Ungar spake, from any word

  Receptive. Rolfe reply maintained;

  And much here followed, though of kind

  Scarce welcome to the priest. Resigned

  He heard; till, at a hint, the Cave

  He named:

  “If on the first review

  Its shrines seemed each a gilded grave;

  Yet, reconsidered, they renew

  The spell of the transmitted story—

  The grace, the innocence, the glory:

  Shepherds, the Manger, and the CHILD:

  What wonder that it has beguiled

  So many generations! Ah,

  Though much we knew in desert late,

  Beneath no kind auspicious star,

  Of lifted minds in poised debate—

  ’Twas of the brain. Consult the heart!

  Spouse to the brain—can coax or thwart:

  Does she renounce the trust divine?

  Hide it she may, but scarce resign;

  Like to a casket buried deep

  Which, in a fine and fibrous throng,

  The rootlets of the forest keep—

  ’Tis tangled in her meshes strong.”

  “Yes, yes,” cried Rolfe; “that tone delights;

  But oh, these legends, relics, sites!

  Of yore, you know, Greeks showed the place

  Where Argo landed, and the stone

  That served to anchor Argo; yes,

  And Agamemnon’s scepter, throne;

  Mars’ spear; and so on. More to please,

  Where the goddess suckled Hercules—