Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

  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.