Herman Melville- Complete Poems

by Herman Melville

  Besides inserting into the John Marr printer’s copy leaves containing printed sections of the newspaper copy of a previously published poem, Melville also inserted the last three leaves from the manuscript of an unpublished prose-and-verse piece, “Rammon,” which were inscribed with the lines of a poem he titled—apparently after extracting the leaves—“The Enviable Isles.” When he inserted the leaves into the John Marr manuscript, he inscribed new foliation numbers to match the John Marr foliation. These three leaves are now filed at Harvard as the last three leaves in Houghton folder 25 of the John Marr and Other Sailors manuscript, MS Am 188 (370). Besides printing “The Enviable Isles” as part ofJohn Marr in the NN Published Poems volume, the NN editors restored it to its original location at the end of “Rammon” in the final NN volume, “Billy Budd, Sailor” and Other Uncompleted Writings—in which two locations it is also printed in the present volume.

  Melville chose the Caxton Press as printer of Timoleon, which, like John Marr, he published privately, sometime from mid-May to mid-June 1891, just months before his death. As with John Marr, Melville’s name does not appear anywhere in the book. Unlike John Marr the front cover did not state the number of copies printed, but because first editions of both John Marr and Timoleon are equally scarce, the NN editors concluded that it was probably a similarly small number. The NN copy-text for Timoleon was Melville’s much-revised manuscript in Harvard MS Am 188 (387); the printer’s copy for the Caxton Press was a transcript of his manuscript—largely in his wife’s hand—also in Harvard MS Am 188 (387). No galley or page proofs are known to survive, but Melville’s extensive revisions in his manuscript, as well as revisions in his wife’s transcript, provided sources for emendation. At a late stage of his work on the volume, Melville inserted seven manuscript leaves that he had extracted from the manuscript of “An Afternoon in Naples in the Time of Bomba,” Harvard MS Am 188 (386.A.2 and 386.A.3). These seven leaves had constituted Canto 5 of the “Afternoon in Naples” poem and are now filed with the Timoleon manuscript as the last seven leaves in folder 17 of Harvard MS Am 188 (387). When relocating the leaves, Melville inserted a title and subtitle, “Pausilippo / In the Time of Bomba” at the top of the first leaf and refoliated the leaves to fit the Timoleon foliation scheme. Besides printing “Pausilippo” as part of Timoleon in the NN Published Poems volume, the NN editors restored those lines to their original location as Canto 5 of “An Afternoon in Naples in the Time of Bomba” in the final NN volume, “Billy Budd, Sailor” and Other Uncompleted Writings—in which two locations the lines are also printed in the present volume.

  The manuscripts of the verse and associated prose of Weeds and Wildings were among the uncompleted manuscripts that Melville left behind when he died on September 28, 1891. Manuscript evidence shows that at one time he considered using the title “Meadows & Seas” for the collection. The various title-page drafts and tables of contents, which he continued in the late 1880s to revise and arrange for the projected volume, and his insertion of “four years” when revising an allusion to his wedding day, August 4, 1847, in an 1887 draft of the dedicatory “To Winnefred” (the allusion finally read “the fourth day of a certain bridal month, now four years more than four times ten years ago”), suggest that in August 1891, just one month before he died, he was intent on publication. The NN editors arranged the contents of Weeds and Wildings on the basis of two draft title pages and six draft tables of contents. The 161 leaves of the Weeds and Wildings manuscripts are at Harvard in Houghton Library files designated MS Am 188 (369.1.1, 369.1.2, 369.1.5) and MS Am 188 (369.3).

  The two Parthenope poems and accompanying four prose pieces printed in the present volume reflect what the NN editors decided would have probably been the contents of Parthenope (so titled) if Melville had lived long enough to publish the volume: the fictional editor’s introductory essay, “House of the Tragic Poet”; the “Preface”; the dedicatory sketch of the speaker of the first poem, “To M. de Grandvin”; the poem, “At the Hostelry”; the dedicatory sketch of the speaker of the second poem, “To Major John Gentian”; and the poem “An Afternoon in Naples in the Time of Bomba.” Not printed in the present volume are five prose sketches that the NN editors labeled supplementary and five related fragments. With one exception (see below), the Parthenope manuscripts consist of 335 leaves that are in fourteen Houghton Library files designated MS Am 188 (386) A.1–3, B.1–8, and C.1–3. The one exception is the seven leaves that Melville extracted for publication as “Pausilippo” in Timoleon, which are now filed with the Timoleon manuscript (see above). The text of those seven leaves, as explained earlier, is printed in the NN edition (and thus in the present volume) both in Timoleon and in its original position in the Uncompleted Writings volume as Canto 5 of “An Afternoon in Naples in the Time of Bomba.”

  “Rammon” and “Under the Rose” are two prose-and-verse pieces included here in their entirety. Another one, Billy Budd, Sailor, is represented by its concluding poem, “Billy in the Darbies,” but without the prose text that precedes it because of the length of that text and its availability in another Library of America volume (the third Melville volume). Twenty leaves of the “Rammon” manuscript contain the introductory prose sketch and the five verse paragraphs that introduce the poem, “The Enviable Isles.” Melville extracted the three leaves of “The Enviable Isles” manuscript from the original twenty-three-leaf “Rammon” manuscript for publication in John Marr. The twenty-leaf “Rammon” manuscript is in Houghton folder MS Am 188 (382); the extracted three-leaf lyric manuscript is filed as the last three leaves in Houghton folder 25 of the John Marr and Other Sailors manuscript, MS Am 188 (370). The first twenty leaves of the “Rammon” manuscript clearly indicate at least two main stages of composition. The first eight leaves are a clean copy inscribed in ink with just a few pencil revisions; the next twelve leaves are inscribed almost entirely in pencil and are heavily revised with cancellations, interlineations, and pinned patches and clips. Melville also foliated the last twelve leaves several times, using subscripts for inserted pages. As explained above, the text of “The Enviable Isles” is printed in the NN edition (and thus in the present volume) both in John Marr and in its original position in the Uncompleted Writings volume at the end of “Rammon.” The twenty-seven-leaf manuscript of “Under the Rose,” the second of the two prose-and-verse pieces included in the present volume, appears to be a fair copy inscribed in ink, though Melville did make a few revisions using pencil, ink, clips, and a patch. The manuscript is in Houghton Library folder MS Am 188 (369.4.2). Melville used the earliest version of “Billy in the Darbies” as a verse conclusion to a short headnote—similar to the introductory headnotes and concluding poems or sections of verse he included in John Marr and Other Sailors. During the last years of his life, Melville revised and expanded the headnote and ballad, which, combined, comprise the text of the nearly completed Billy Budd, Sailor. Three leaves of the earliest known version of “Billy in the Darbies” survive only because Melville used their versos when composing the “Story of Daniel Orme”—the pencil-inscribed versos of sheets 4, 16, and 17 of the “Orme” manuscript, filed in Houghton Library folder MS Am 188 (369.4.1). The latest version of the ballad is inscribed in ink on sheets 348–351 of the Billy Budd manuscript, filed in Houghton Library folder MS Am 188 (363).

  We know the years in which Melville composed two of the thirty-eight uncollected poems printed in this volume. The well-documented provenances of both “Inscription For the Dead At Fredericksburgh” (1864) and “To Daniel Shepherd” (1859) include information about the exact year in which each was composed. Internal evidence within the other thirty-six poems, together with biographical conjecture and inference, might be used to approximate the years in which some of them may have been composed.

  The Civil War subject of the uncollected poem “Inscription For the Dead At Fredericksburgh” links it to Battle-Pieces, but it was not published in that volume. In early 1864 Melville contributed an au
tograph of a poem at the request of Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Bliss for inclusion in a volume to benefit the U.S. Sanitary Commission: Autograph Leaves of Our Country’s Authors (comp. Alexander Bliss and John Pendleton Kennedy; Baltimore: Cushings & Bailey, 1864). Shortly after sending the poem, titled “Inscription For the Slain At Fredericksburgh,” Melville composed a second autograph version of the poem, titled “Inscription For the Dead At Fredericksburgh,” and sent it with a letter on 22 March 1864 asking Bliss to “suppress” the first version and publish the second instead. Bliss was not able to publish Melville’s preferred second version, but he did change the title in the table of contents to nearly match that of the second version (“Inscription to the dead at Fredericksburgh”). The copy-text for this poem, which the NN editors did not emend, is the autograph manuscript of the second, revised version of the poem that Melville sent to Bliss to replace the first version. The revised version differs from the first in the use of “Dead” instead of “Slain” in the title, the insertion of “dreadful” before “glory” in the first line, and “Strewn” instead of “Strown” in the last line. Melville later adapted the poem for the last stanza of a Battle-Pieces poem, “Chattanooga.” The manuscript of the early version of the poem is now in the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin; the manuscript of the revised version is in the Bancroft-Bliss Collection at the Library of Congress.

  The four-leaf manuscript of the uncollected poem “To Daniel Shepherd” is a fair copy inscribed in ink by Melville and is now located in the Melville Family Letters and Papers collection at the Berkshire Athenaeum. The poem is a verse-epistle addressed to the law partner of Melville’s brother, Allan, dated July 6, 1859. It is printed in the NN Correspondence volume, as well as in Hershel Parker’s “Historical Note” in the NN Uncompleted Writings volume. It is possible that the poem was never sent, or, if it was, Allan, who lived until 1872, kept it among his own papers in memory of his friend and law partner who died in 1870, for it was found among the papers inherited by Allan Melville’s granddaughter, Agnes Morewood.

  With two exceptions, the manuscripts of the remaining thirty-six uncollected poems printed in the present volume are in the Herman Melville Papers collection at Houghton Library. The two exceptions are a manuscript of Part 1 of “Camoens,” which is in the Clifton Waller Barrett Library of American Literature at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia, and the manuscript of “In a nutshell,” which is in the Melville Family Letters and Papers collection at the Berkshire Athenaeum. Most of the other uncollected poetry manuscripts are in Houghton Folder MS Am 188 (369.1.5); but several others are located as follows: “Madam Mirror” in MS Am 188 (369.1.3 and 369.1.4), “The Wise Virgins to Madam Mirror” in MS Am 188 (369.1.4), “The New Ancient of Days” in MS Am 188 (369.1.2 and 369.1.3), “A Reasonable Constitution” in MS Am 188 (383), and “To Tom” in MS Am 188 (388).

  By adopting the texts of the Northwestern-Newberry edition, the present volume offers to the reader the results of the best scholarly efforts yet made to establish critical texts of the entire corpus of Melville’s poetry: both the poetry and related prose pieces that Melville published during his lifetime and the poetry and prose-and-verse writings he left unpublished at the time of his death.

  The present edition is concerned only with representing the texts of the Northwestern-Newberry edition; it does not attempt to reproduce features of the typographic design.

  Notes

  In the notes below, the reference numbers denote page and line of the hardcover edition (the line count includes headings). Biblical quotations are keyed to the King James Version. Quotations from Shakespeare are keyed to The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974). For more detailed notes, references to other studies, and further biographical background than is provided in the Chronology, see the relevant volumes of the Northwestern-Newberry edition, Hershel Parker’s Herman Melville: A Biography, 1819–1851 and Herman Melville: A Biography, 1851–1891, 2 vols. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, 2002), and Parker’s Melville Biography: An Inside Narrative (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2012).

  BATTLE-PIECES AND ASPECTS OF THE WAR

  9.1 The Portent] John Brown and eighteen of his followers seized the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), on October 16, 1859, with the purpose of arming slaves and starting an insurrection. He was captured on October 18, convicted of treason, and hanged on December 2, 1859.

  9.10 hidden in the cap] A white muslin cap was over John Brown’s head as he was hanged, his thick long beard sticking out below it.

  10.1 The Conflict of Convictions] In the text of Battle-Pieces, superscript lowercase letters refer to Melville’s own notes, which are printed on pp. 134–42 of this volume.

  10.4 the long recall] A specific bugle call, like the “Boots and saddles” call mentioned later (see note 116.34).

  11.15 Iron Dome] The new dome of the Capitol, completed in 1866. The old wooden dome had been removed in 1856.

  12.1 Ancient of Days] God (Daniel 17:9).

  14.4 Sumter’s cannon roar] When Confederate artillery fired on Union soldiers garrisoned at Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina, on April 12, 1861, the Union garrison returned fire, marking the beginning of the Civil War.

  14.18 First Manassas] Fought in northern Virginia on July 21, 1861, the battle, also known as First Bull Run, ended in a Union rout. Expecting an easy Union victory, hundreds of civilians, including several congressmen, rode out from Washington to nearby Centerville, Virginia, to watch the battle, bringing picnic baskets and opera glasses.

  15.22 Lyon] Brigadier General Nathaniel Lyon (1818–1861) was killed while leading 5,400 Union troops against 11,000 Confederates in the battle of Wilson’s Creek (also known as Oak Hills), fought near Springfield, Missouri, on August 10, 1861. The battle ended in a Union retreat. Lyon was the first Union general to die in combat in the Civil War.

  17.6 Indians] A small number of Confederate Cherokees and Choctaws fought in the battle of Wilson’s Creek.

  18.1 Ball’s Bluff] A Union attack across the Potomac at Ball’s Bluff, near Leesburg, Virginia, on October 21, 1861, was repulsed with the loss of 900 men killed, wounded, or captured.

  18.19 sleep bereft] See John Keats, “Isabella; or, the Pot of Basil” (1818), line 323: “As when of healthful midnight sleep bereft.”

  18.25 Dupont’s Round Fight] On November 7, 1861, Captain Samuel Francis Du Pont (1803–1865), commander of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron, captured the Confederate fortifications at the entrance of Port Royal Sound, South Carolina, bringing a large part of the Sea Islands under Union control. Du Pont ordered his ships to steam in an elliptical formation during their bombardment of the Confederate forts.

  19.9 The Stone Fleet] The Union navy sank sixteen stone-laden ships, many of them old whaling vessels, off Charleston, South Carolina, on December 19–20, 1861, in an unsuccessful attempt to block the mouth of the harbor.

  19.28 escheat] Forfeited.

  20.17 Donelson] Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) laid siege to Fort Donelson, Tennessee, on February 12, 1862. After five days of fighting, more than 12,000 Confederates surrendered unconditionally on February 16, 1862.

  20.19–22 The bitter cup . . . wormwood in the mouth] An allusion to the Trent Affair. On November 8, 1861, the USS San Jacinto intercepted the British mail packet Trent off Cuba and removed Confederate diplomatic envoys James M. Mason and John Slidell, who were en route to England and France. The British government strongly protested the boarding of the Trent, and on December 26 the Lincoln administration decided to release the envoys in order to avoid a possible war with Great Britain.

  21.3 Marching from Henry overland] The Union expedition up the Tennessee River captured Fort Henry on February
6. Grant then marched his troops overland to Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River.

  24.35 Copperhead] Any Northerner who opposed the Civil War and advocated a negotiated settlement with the South.

  29.28 wafered square] Splattered with water drops.

  31.7 Lew Wallace] Brigadier General Lew Wallace (1827–1905), later governor of the New Mexico Territory (1878–1905) and the author of Ben-Hur (1880).

  33.17 The Cumberland] The wooden sloop-of-war USS Cumberland, rammed and sunk by the ironclad CSS Virginia at Hamptons Roads, Virginia, on March 8, 1862. The crew of the Cumberland refused to surrender even after the ship began to take on water.

  34.26 Worden] Lieutenant John Lorimer Worden (1818–1897), commander of the ironclad USS Monitor. On March 9, 1862, the Monitor engaged in an indecisive four-hour battle with the ironclad CSS Virginia at Hamptons Roads, Virginia, only a day after the latter had sunk the USS Cumberland and USS Congress. During the battle, Worden, stationed within the Monitor’s revolving gun turret, was seriously wounded.