Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

  Now that is just the case here. The Marquis is the originator of At the Hostelry, and, for that matter, of An Afternoon in Naples as well; for Jack Gentian, its narrator is not only his friend, but his admiring disciple, getting all his inspiration from him, and no wise ashamed of avowing the fact, rejoicing in nothing more than when at any of his own sallies, a hearer exclaims—“Jack, that’s just like the Marquis!”

  In lieu of a further account, and until the Public demands something further, the above must suffice as to the twain here necessarily touched upon in advance.

  A word more, touching a point which peradventure may possibly occasion in one form or other, certain strictures from the inconsiderate. But one knows not how more happily to anticipate such strictures than by quoting an axiom, one of several amusing ones found in a little Primer lately issued for the benefit of his tyros by a Gothenburg Professor of Literary Criticism: It is not the purview of literature to purvey news. For news consult the Almanac de Gotha.

  To M. de Grandvin

  PARDON ME, Monsieur, if in the following sally I have endeavored to methodize into literary form, and make consecutive, upon one of your favorite themes, something at least of that desultory wit, gaiety, knowledge and invention, so singularly yours; qualities evinced at their happiest upon convivial occasions, among company wholly congenial, more especially the worshipful guild of poets and artists, the Confraternity of Asaph the Singer and the brethren of the guild of St. Luke, of which worshipful order, as you are aware, I am an acolyte member.

  It was not till the afflatus had left me, and I was calmly reviewing the inspired sheets that to my no small astonishment I perceived that so completely had your spirit possessed me that this possession in effect amounted to an impersonation of you. But since, peradventure, this may serve to vivify the work, you will let it pass, nor demur at my maintaining the fable in certain captions to the Parts.

  Adieu, Monsieur. I would not longer detain to myself a guest who being the life of every company he enters, is so largely in social demand on these shores; a signal instance of that cordial good-will which every American entertains for the countrymen of Lafayette and Bartholdi.

  Vive la France!

  At the Hostelry

  Be Borgia Pope, be Bomba King,

  The roses blow, the song-birds sing.

  I

  NOT wanting in the traditional suavity of his countrymen, the Marquis makes his salutation. Thereafter, with an ulterior design, entering upon a running retrospect touching Italian affairs.

  Candid eyes in open faces

  Clear, not keen, no narrowing line:

  Hither turn your favoring graces

  Now the cloth is drawn for wine.

  In best of worlds if all’s not bright,

  Allow, the shadow’s chaced by light,

  Though rest for neither yet may be.

  And beauty’s charm, where Nature reigns,

  Nor crimes nor codes may quite subdue,

  As witness Naples long in chains

  Exposed dishevelled by the sea—

  Ah, so much more her beauty drew,

  Till Savoy’s red-shirt Perseus flew

  And cut that fair Andromeda free.

  Then Fancy flies. Nor less the trite

  Matter-of-fact transcends her flight:

  A rail-way train took Naples’ town;

  But Garibaldi sped thereon:

  His movement’s rush sufficing there

  To rout King Fanny, Bomba’s heir,

  Already stuffing trunks and hampers,

  At news that from Sicilia passed—

  The banished Bullock from the Pampas

  Trampling the royal levies massed.

  And, later: He has swum the Strait,

  And in Calabria making head,

  Cheered by the peasants garlanded,

  Pushes for Naples’ nearest gate.

  From that red Taurus plunging on

  With lowered horns and forehead dun,

  Shall matadors save Bomba’s son?

  He fled. And her Redeemer’s banners

  Glad Naples greeted with strown flowers,

  Hurrahs and secular hosannas

  That fidgety made all tyrant Powers.

  Ye halls of history, arched by time,

  Founded in fate, enlarged by crime,

  How shines like phosphorus scratched in dark

  ’Gainst your grimed walls the luminous mark

  Of one who in no paladin age

  Was knightly—him who lends a page

  How signal in time’s recent story

  Where scarce in vogue are “Plutarch’s men,”

  And jobbers deal in popular glory.—

  But he the hero was a sword

  Whereto at whiles Cavour was guard.

  The point described a fiery arc,

  A swerve of wrist ordained the mark.

  Wise statesmanship, a ruling star,

  Made peace itself subserve the war.

  In forging into fact a dream—

  For dream it was, a dream for long—

  Italia disenthralled and one,

  Above her but the Alps—no thong

  High flourished, held by Don or Hun;

  Italia, how cut up, divided,

  Nigh paralyzed, by cowls misguided;

  Locked as in Chancery’s numbing hand,

  Fattening the predatory band

  Of shyster-princes, whose ill sway

  Still kept her a calamitous land;

  In ending this, spite cruel delay,

  And making, in the People’s name,

  Of Italy’s disunited frame,

  A unit and a telling State

  Participant in the world’s debate;

  Few deeds of arms, in fruitful end,

  The statecraft of Cavour transcend.

  What towns with alien guards that teemed

  Attest Art’s Holy Land redeemed.

  Slipt from the Grand Duke’s gouty tread,

  Florence, fair flower, up-lifts the head.

  Ancona, plucked from Peter’s Chair,

  With all the Papal fiefs in band,

  Her Arch Imperial now may wear

  For popular triumph and command.

  And Venice: there the Croatian horde

  Swagger no more with clattering sword

  Ruffling the doves that dot the Square.

  In Rome no furtive cloaked one now

  Scribbles his gibe on Pasquin’s brow,

  Since wag his tongue at Popes who may

  The Popedom needs endure his say.

  But (happier) feuds with princelings cease,

  The People federate a peace.

  Cremona fiddles, blithe to see

  Contentious cities comrades free.

  Sicilia,—Umbria,—muster in

  Their towns in squads, and hail Turin.

  One state, one flag, one sword, one crown,

  Till time build higher or Cade pull down.

  Counts this for much? Well, more is won.

  Brave public works are schemed or done.

  Swart Tiber, dredged, may rich repay—

  The Pontine Marsh, too, drained away.

  And, far along the Tuscan shore

  The weird Maremma reassume

  Her ancient tilth and wheaten plume.

  Ay, to reclaim Ausonia’s land

  The Spirit o’ the Age he’ll take a hand.

  He means to dust each bric-a-brac city,

  Pluck the feathers from all banditti;

  The Pope he’ll hat, and, yea or nay ye,

  Modernize even poor old Pompeii!

  Concede, accomplished aims un
ite

  With many a promise hopeful and as bright.

  II

  EFFECTING a counterturn, the Marquis evokes—and from the Shades, as would seem—an inconclusive debate as to the exact import of a current term significant of that one of the manifold aspects of life and nature which under various forms all artists strive to transmit to canvas. A term, be it added, whereof the lexicons give definitions more lexicographical than satisfactory.

  Ay, but the Picturesque, I wonder—

  The Picturesque and Old Romance!

  May these conform and share advance

  With Italy and the world’s career?

  At little suppers, where I’m one,

  My artist-friends this question ponder

  When ale goes round; but, in brave cheer

  The vineyards yield, they’ll beading run

  Like Arethusa burst from ground.

  Ay, and in lateral freaks of gamesome wit

  Moribund Old Romance irreverent twit.

  “Adieu, rosettes!” sighs Steen in way

  Of fun convivial, frankly gay,

  “Adieu, rosettes and point-de-vise!—

  All garnish strenuous time refuse;

  In peacocks’ tails put out the eyes!

  Utility reigns—Ah, well-a-way!—

  And bustles along in Bentham’s shoes.

  For the Picturesque—suffice, suffice

  The picture that fetches a picturesque price!”

  Less jovial ones propound at start

  “Your Picturesque in what inheres?

  In nature point, in life, in art

  Where the essential thing appears.

  First settle that, we’ll then take up

  Your prior question.”

  “Well, so be,”

  Says Frater Lippi, who but he—

  Exchanging late in changeable weather

  The cowl for the cap, a cap and feather;

  With wicked eye then twinkling fun,

  Suppressed in friendly decorous tone,

  “Here’s Spagnoletto. He, I trow,

  Can best avail here, and bestead.—

  Come then, hidalgo, what sayst thou?

  The Picturesque—an example yield.”

  The man invoked, a man of brawn

  Though stumpt in stature, raised his head

  From sombre musings, and revealed

  A brow by no blest angel sealed,

  And mouth at corners droopt and drawn;

  And, catching but the last words, said

  “The Picturesque?—Have ye not seen

  My Flaying of St. Bartholomew—

  My Laurence on the gridiron lean?

  There’s Picturesque; and done as well

  As old Giotto’s Damned in Hell

  At Pisa in the Campo Santo.”

  They turn hereat. In merriment

  Ironic jeers the juniors vent,

  “That’s modest now, one hates a vaunter.”

  But Lippi: “Why not Guido cite

  In Herod’s Massacre?” weening well

  The Little Spaniard’s envious spite

  Guido against, as gossips tell.

  The sombrous one igniting here

  And piercing Lippi’s mannered mien

  Flared up volcanic.—Ah, too clear,

  At odds are furious and serene.

  Misliking Lippi’s mischievous eye

  As much as Spagnoletto’s mood,

  And thinking to put unpleasantness by,

  Swanevelt spake, that Dutchman good:

  “Friends, but the Don errs not so wide.

  Like beauty strange with horror allied,—

  As shown in great Leonardo’s head

  Of snaky Medusa,—so as well

  Grace and the Picturesque may dwell

  With Terror. Vain here to divide—

  The Picturesque has many a side.

  For me, I take to Nature’s scene

  Some scene select, set off serene

  With any tranquil thing you please—

  A crumbling tower, a shepherd piping.

  My master, sure, with this agrees,”

  His turned appeal on Claude here lighting.

  But he, the mildest tempered swain

  And eke discreetest, too, may be,

  That ever came out from Lorraine

  To lose himself in Arcady

  (Sweet there to be lost, as some have been,

  And find oneself in losing e’en),

  To Claude no pastime, none, nor gain

  Wavering in theory’s wildering maze;

  Better he likes, though sunny he,

  To haunt the Arcadian woods in haze,

  Intent shy charms to win or ensnare,

  Beauty his Daphne, he the pursuer there.

  So naught he said, whate’er he felt,

  Yet friendly nodded to Swanevelt.

  III

  WITH all the ease of a Prince of the Blood gallantly testifying in behalf of an indiscreet lady, the Marquis incontinently fibs, laying the cornerstone of a Munchausen fable.

  But you, ye pleasant faces wise

  Saluted late, your candid eyes

  Methinks ye rub them in surprise:

  “What’s this? Jan Steen and Lippi? Claude?

  Long since they embarked for Far Abroad!

  Have met them, you?”

  “Indeed have I!

  Ma foi! The immortals never die;

  They are not so weak, they are not so craven;

  They keep time’s sea and skip the haven.—

  Well, letting minor memories go:

  With other illustrious ones in row

  I met them once at that brave tavern

  Founded by the first Delmonico,

  Forefather of a flourishing line!

  ’Twas all in off-hand easy way—

  Pour passer le temps, as loungers say.

  In upper chamber did we sit

  The stupids below never dreaming it.

  The cloth was drawn—we left alone,

  No solemn lackeys looking on.

  In wine’s meridian, halcyon noon,

  Beatitude excludes elation.”

  Thus for a while. Anon ensues

  All round their horizon, ruddying it,

  Such Lights Auroral, mirth and wit—

  Thy flashes, O Falernian Muse!

  IV

  AFTER a little bye-scene between Van Dyke, and Franz Hals of Mechlin, an old topic is by the company, here and there, discussed anew. In which rambling talk Adrian Brouwer, tickled undesignedly by two chance-words from a certain grandee of artists, and more waggish than polite in addressing Carlo Dolce and Rembrandt, whimsically delivers his mind.

  ’Twas Hals began. He to Vandyck,

  In whose well-polished gentle mien

  The practiced courtier of Kings was seen:

  “Van, how, pray, do these revels strike?

  Once you’d have me to England—there

  Riches to get at St. James’s. Nay—

  Patronage! ’Gainst that flattering snare,

  The more if it lure from hearth away,

  Old friends—old vintages carry the day!”

  Whereto Vandyck, in silken dress

  Not smoother than his courteousness,

  Smiled back, “Well, Franz, go thou thy ways;

  Thy pencil anywhere earns thee praise,

  If not heapt gold.—But hark the chat!”

  “’Tis gay” said Hals, not deaf to that,

  “And witty should be. Fro
m the lees o’ the cup,

  Wit rises in exhalation up!”

  And sympathetic viewed the scene.

  Then, turning, with yet livelier mien,

  “More candid than kings, less coy than the Graces,

  The pleasantness, Van, of these festival faces!—

  But what’s the theme?”

  The theme was bent—

  Be sure, in no dry argument—

  On the Picturesque, what ’tis,—its essence,

  Fibre and root, bud, efflorescence,

  Congenial soil, and where at best;

  Till, drawing attention from the rest,

  Some syllables dropt from Tintoretto,

  Negligent dropt; with limp lax air

  One long arm lolling over chair,

  Nor less evincing latent verve

  Potential lazing in reserve.

  For strong he was—the dyer’s son,

  A leonine strength, no strained falsetto—

  The Little Tinto, Tintoretto,

  Yes, Titan work by him was done.

  And now as one in Art’s degree

  Superior to his topic—he:

  “This Picturesque is scarce my care.

  But note it now in Nature’s work—

  A thatched hut settling, rotting trees

  Mossed over. Some decay must lurk:

  In florid things but small its share.

  You’ll find it in Rome’s squalid Ghetto,

  In Algiers at the lazzaretto,

  In many a grimy slimy lair.”

  “Well put!” cried Brouwer with ruddled face,

  His wine-stained vesture,—hardly new,—

  Buttoned with silver florins true;

  “Grime mark and slime!—Squirm not, Sweet Charles,”

  Slyly, in tone mellifluous

  Addressing Carlo Dolce thus,

  Fidgety in shy fellowship,

  Fastidious even to finger-tip,

  And dainty prim; “In Art the stye

  Is quite inodorous. Here am I:

  I do’nt paint smells, no no, no no,

  No more than Huysum here, whose touch