Priests showed that spot, a sacred one.”
“Well then, Madonna’s but a dream,
The Manger and the Crib. So deem;
So be it; but undo it! Nay,
Little avails what sages say:
Tell Romeo that Juliet’s eyes
Are chemical; e’en analyze
The iris; show ’tis albumen—
Gluten—fish-jelly mere. What then?
To Romeo it is still love’s sky:
He loves: enough! Though Faith no doubt
Seem insubstantial as a sigh,
Never ween that ’tis a water-spout
Dissolving, dropping into dew
At pistol-shot. Besides, review
That comprehensive Christian scheme:
It catches man at each extreme:
Simple—august; strange as a dream,
Yet practical as plodding life:
Not use and sentiment at strife.”
They hearken: none aver dissent,
Nor one confirms him; while his look
Unwitting an expression took,
Scarce insincere, yet so it lent
Provocative to Ungar’s heart;
Who, bridling the embittered part,
Thus spake: “This yieldeth no content:
Your implication lacketh stay:
There is a callousness in clay.
Christ’s pastoral parables divine,
Breathing the sweet breath of sweet kine,
As wholesome too; how many feel?
Feel! rather put it—comprehend?
Not unto all does nature lend
The gift; at hight such love’s appeal
Is hard to know, as in her deep
Is hate; a prior love must steep
The spirit; head nor heart have marge
Commensurate in man at large.”
“Indulge me,” Derwent; “Grant it so
As you present it; ’tis most strange
How Christ could work his powerful change:
The world turned Christian long ago.”
“The world but joined the Creed Divine
With prosperous days and Constantine;
The world turned Christian, need confess,
But the world remained the world, no less:
The world turned Christian: where’s the odds?
Hearts change not in the change of gods.
Despite professions, outward shows—
So far as working practice goes,
More minds with shrewd Voltaire have part
Than now own Jesus in the heart.”
“Not rashly judge,” said Derwent grave;
“Prudence will here decision waive.”
“No: shift the test. How Buddha pined!
Pierced with the sense of all we bear,
Not only ills by fate assigned,
But misrule of our selfish mind,
Fain would the tender sage repair.
Well, Asia owns him. But the lives:
Buddha but in a name survives—
A name, a rite. Confucius, too:
Does China take his honest hue?
Some forms they keep, some forms of his;
But well we know them, the Chinese.
Ah, Moses, thy deterring dart!—
Etherial visitants of earth,
Foiled benefactors, proves your worth
But sundry texts, disowned in mart,
Light scratched, not graved on man’s hard heart?
’Tis penalty makes sinners start.”
19. A NEW-COMER
“Good echoes, echo it! Ho, chant,
’Tis penalty we sinners want:
By all means, penalty!”
What man
Thus struck in here so consonant?
They turn them, and a stranger scan.
As through the rigging of some port
Where cheek by jowl the ships resort—
The sea-beat hulls of briny oak—
Peereth the May-day’s jocund sun;
So through his inlaced wrinkles broke
A nature bright, a beaming one.
“Hidalgos, pardon! Strolling here
These fine old villa-sites to see,
I caught that good word penalty,
And could not otherwise than cheer.
Pray now, here be—two, four, six, eight—
Ten legs; I’ll add one more, by leave,
And eke an arm.”
In hobbling state
He came among them, with one sleeve
Loose flying, and one wooden limb,
A leg. All eyes the cripple skim;
Each rises, and his seat would give:
But Derwent in advance: “Why, Don—
My good Don Hannibal, I mean;
Señor Don Hannibal Rohon
Del Aquaviva—a good e’en!”
“Ha, thou, is’t thou?” the other cried,
And peered and stared not unamazed;
Then flung his one arm round him wide:
Then at arm’s length: “St. James be praised,
With all the calendar!”
“But, tell:
What wind wafts here Don Hannibal?
When last I left thee at ‘The Cock’
In Fleet Street, thou wert like a rock
For England—bent on anchoring there.”
“Oh, too much agitation; yes,
Too proletarian it proved.
I’ve stumped about since; no redress;
Norway’s too cold; Egypt’s all glare;
And everywhere that I removed
This cursed Progress still would greet.
Ah where (thought I) in Old World view
Some blest asylum from the New!
At last I steamed for Joppa’s seat,
Resolved on Asia for retreat.
Asia for me, Asia will do.
But just where to pitch tent—invest—
Ah, that’s the point; I’m still in quest,
Don Derwent.—Look, the sun falls low;
But lower the funds in Mexico
Whereto he’s sinking.”
“Gentlemen:”
Said Derwent, turning on them then;
“I introduce and do commend
To ye Don Hannibal Rohon;
He is my estimable friend
And well beloved. Great fame he’s won
In war. Those limbs—”
“St. James defend!”
Here cried Don Hannibal; “stop! stop!
Pulled down is Montezuma’s hall!—
Hidalgos, I am, as ye see,
Just a poor cripple—that is all;
A cripple, yet contrive to hop
Far off from Mexic liberty,
Thank God! I lost these limbs for that;
And would that they were mine again,
And all were back to former state—
I, Mexico, and poor Old Spain.
And for Don Derwent here, my friend—
You know his way. And so I end,
Poor penitent American:
Oh, ’tis the sorriest thing! In me
A reformado reformed ye see.”
Ungar, a very Indian here
Too serious far to take a jest,
Or rather, who no sense possessed
Of humor; he, for aye austere,
Took much in earnest; and a light
Of attestation over-bright
Shot from his eyes, though part suppressed.
“But penalties, these penalties,”
&
nbsp; Here cried the crippled one again;
“Proceed, hidalgo; name you these
Same capital good penalties:
They’re needed.”
“Hold, let me explain,”
Cried Derwent: “We, as meek as worms—
Oh, far from taking any pique
As if the kind but formed a clique—
Have late been hearing in round terms
The sore disparagement of man,
Don Hannibal.” “You think I’ll ban?
Disparage him with all my heart!
What villain takes the rascal’s part?
Advance the argument.”
“But stay:
’Tis too much odds now; it won’t do,
Such reinforcement come. Nay, nay,
I of the Old World, all alone
Maintaining hope and ground for cheer
’Gainst ye, the offspring of the New?
Ah, what reverses time can own!”
So Derwent light. But earnest here,
Ungar: “Old World? if age’s test
Be this—advanced experience,
Then, in the truer moral sense,
Ours is the Old World. You, at best,
In dreams of your advanced Reform,
Adopt the cast skin of our worm.”
“Hey, hey!” exclaimed Don Hannibal;
“Not cast yet quite; the snake is sick—
Would wriggle out. ’Tis pitiful!
But brave times for the empiric.—
You spake now of Reform. For me,
Among reformers in true way
There’s one—the imp of Semele;
Ay, and brave Raleigh too, we’ll say.
Wine and the weed! blest innovations,
How welcome to the weary nations!
But what’s in this Democracy?
Eternal hacking! Woe is me,
She lopped these limbs, Democracy.”
“Ah, now, Don Hannibal Rohon
Del Aquaviva!” Derwent cried;
“I knew it: two upon a side!”
But Ungar, earnest in his plea—
Intent, nor caring to have done;
And turning where suggestion led
At tangent: “Ay, Democracy
Lops, lops; but where’s her planted bed?
The future, what is that to her
Who vaunts she’s no inheritor?
’Tis in her mouth, not in her heart.
The Past she spurns, though ’tis the past
From which she gets her saving part—
That Good which lets her Evil last.
Behold her whom the panders crown,
Harlot on horseback, riding down
The very Ephesians who acclaim
This great Diana of ill fame!
Arch strumpet of an impious age,
Upstart from ranker villanage,
’Tis well she must restriction taste
Nor lay the world’s broad manor waste:
Asia shall stop her at the least,
That old inertness of the East.
She’s limited; lacking the free
And genial catholicity
Which in Christ’s pristine scheme unfurled
Grace to the city and the world.”
“By Cotopaxi, a brave vent!”
(And here he took a pinch of snuff,
Flapping the spill off with loose cuff)
“Good, excellenza—excellent!
But, pardon me,” in altered tone;
“I’m sorry, but I must away;”
And, setting crutch, he footing won;
“We’re just arrived in cloister there,
Our little party; and they stay
My coming for the convent-fare.
Adieu: we’ll meet anon—we’ll meet,
Don Derwent. Nay, now, never stir;
Not I would such a group unseat;
But happy the good rein and spur
That brought thee where once more we greet.
Good e’en, Don Derwent—not good-by;
And, cavaliers, the evil eye
Keep far from ye!” He limped away,
Rolling a wild ranchero lay:
“House your cattle and stall your steed:
Stand by, stand by for the great stampede!”
20. DERWENT AND UNGAR
“Not thou com’st in the still small voice,”
Said Derwent, “thou queer Mexican!”
And followed him with eyes: “This man,”
And turned here, “he likes not grave talk,
The settled undiluted tone;
It does his humorous nature balk.
’Twas ever too his sly rebuff,
While yet obstreperous in praise,
Taking that dusty pinch of snuff.
An oddity, he has his ways;
Yet trust not, friends, the half he says:
Not he would do a weasel harm;
A secret agent of Reform;
At least, that is my theory.”
“The quicksilver is quick to skim,”
Ungar remarked, with eye on him.
“Yes, nature has her levity,”
Dropped Derwent.
Nothing might disarm
The other; he: “Your word reform:
What meaning’s to that word assigned?
From Luther’s great initial down,
Through all the series following on,
The impetus augments—the blind
Precipitation: blind, for tell
Whitherward does the surge impel?
The end, the aim? ’Tis mystery.”
“Oh, no. Through all methinks I see
The object clear: belief revised,
Men liberated—equalized
In happiness. No mystery,
Just none at all; plain sailing.”
“Well,
Assume this: is it feasible?
Your methods? These are of the world:
Now the world cannot save the world;
And Christ renounces it. His faith,
Breaking with every mundane path,
Aims straight at heaven. To founded thrones
He says: Trust not to earthly stanchions;
And unto poor and houseless ones—
My Father’s house has many mansions.
Warning and solace be but this;
No thought to mend a world amiss.”
“Ah now, ah now!” plead Derwent.
“Nay,
Test further; take another way:
Go ask Aurelius Antonine—
A Cæsar wise, grave, just, benign,
Lord of the world—why, in the calm
Which through his reign the empire graced—
Why he, that most considerate heart
Superior, and at vantage placed,
Contrived no secular reform,
Though other he knew not, nor balm.”
“Alas,” cried Derwent (and, in part,
As vainly longing for retreat)
“Though good Aurelius was a man
Matchless in mind as sole in seat,
Yet pined he under numbing ban
Of virtue without Christian heat:
As much you intimated too,
Just saying that no balm he knew.
Howbeit, true reform goes on
By Nature; doing, never done.
Mark the advance: creeds drop the hate;
Events still liberalize the state.”
“But tell: do men now more cohere
In bonds of duty which sustain?
Cliffs crumble, and the parts regain
A liberal freedom, it is clear.
And for conventicles—I fear,
Much as a hard heart aged grown
Abates in rigor, losing tone;
So sects decrepit, at death’s door,
Dote into peace through loss of power.”
“You put it so,” said Derwent light:
“No more developments to cite?”
“Ay, quench the true, the mock sun fails
Therewith. Much so, Hypocrisy,
The false thing, wanes just in degree
That Faith, the true thing, wanes: each pales.
There’s one development; ’tis seen
In masters whom not low ye rate:
What lack, in some outgivings late,
Of the old Christian style toward men—
I do not mean the wicked ones,
But Pauperism’s unhappy sons
In cloud so blackly ominous,
Grimy in Mammon’s English pen—
Collaterals of his overplus:
How worse than them Immanuel fed
On hill-top—helped and comforted.
Thou, Poverty, erst free from shame,
Even sacred through the Savior’s claim,
Professed by saints, by sages prized—
A pariah now, and bastardized!
Reactions from the Christian plan
Bear others further. Quite they shun
A god to name, or cite a man
Save Greek, heroical, a Don:
’Tis Plato’s aristocratic tone.
All recognition they forego
Of Evil; supercilious skim
With spurious wing of seraphim
The last abyss. Freemen avow
Belief in right divine of Might,
Yet spurn at kings. This is the light—
Divine the darkness. Mark the way
The Revolution, whose first mode,
Ere yet the maniacs overrode,
Despite the passion of the dream
Evinced no disrespect for God;
Mark how, in our denuding day,
E’en with the masses, as would seem,
It tears the fig-leaf quite away.
Contrast these incidents: The mob,
The Paris mob of Eighty-nine,
Haggard and bleeding, with a throb
Burst the long Tuileries. In shrine
Of chapel there, they saw the Cross
And Him thereon. Ah, bleeding Man,
The people’s friend, thou bled’st for us
Who here bleed, too! Ragged they ran—
They took the crucifix; in van
They put it, marched with drum and psalm
And throned it in their Notre Dame.
Herman Melville- Complete Poems Page 60