I know these precincts. Still, believe—
And let’s discard each idle trope—
Rightly considered, they can give
A hope to man, a cheerful hope.”
“Not for this world. The Christian plea—
What basis has it, but that here
Man is not happy, nor can be?
There it confirms philosophy:
The compensation of its cheer
Is reason why the grass survives
Of verdurous Christianity,
Ay, trampled, lives, tho’ hardly thrives
In these mad days.”—
Surprised at it,
Derwent intently viewed the man,
Marked the unsolaced aspect wan;
And fidgeted; yet matter fit
Had offered; but the other changed
In quick caprice, and willful ranged
In wild invective: “O abyss!
Here, upon what was erst the sod,
A man betrayed the yearning god;
A man, yet with a woman’s kiss.
’Twas human, that unanimous cry,
‘We’re fixed to hate him—crucify!’
The which they did. And hands, nailed down,
Might not avail to screen the face
From each head-wagging mocking one.
This day, with some of earthly race,
May passion similar go on?”—
Inferring, rightly or amiss,
Some personal peculiar cause
For such a poignant strain as this,
The priest disturbed not here the pause
Which sudden fell. The other turned,
And, with a strange transition, burned
Invokingly: “Ye trunks of moan—
Gethsemane olives, do ye hear
The trump of that vain-glorious land
Where human nature they enthrone
Displacing the divine?” His hand
He raised there—let it fall, and fell
Himself, with the last syllable,
To moody hush. Then, fierce: “Hired band
Of laureates of man’s fallen tribe—
Slaves are ye, slaves beyond the scribe
Of Nero; he, if flatterer blind,
Toadied not total human kind,
Which ye kerns do. But Bel shall bow
And Nebo stoop.”
“Ah, come, friend, come,”
Pleaded the charitable priest
Still bearing with him, anyhow,
By fate unbidden to joy’s feast:
“Thou’rt strong; yield then the weak some room.
Too earnest art thou;” and with eye
Of one who fain would mollify
All frowardness, he looked a smile.
But not that heart might he beguile:
“Man’s vicious: snaffle him with kings;
Or, if kings cease to curb, devise
Severer bit. This garden brings
Such lesson. Heed it, and be wise
In thoughts not new.”
“Thou’rt ill to-day,”
Here peering, but in cautious way,
“Nor solace find in valley wild.”
The other wheeled, nor more would say;
And soon the cavalcade defiled.
4. OF MORTMAIN
“Our friend there—he’s a little queer,”
To Rolfe said Derwent riding on;
“Beshrew me, there is in his tone
Naught of your new world’s chanticleer.
Who’s the eccentric? can you say?”
“Partly; but ’tis at second hand.
At the Black Jew’s I met with one
Who, in response to my demand,
Did in a strange disclosure run
Respecting him.”—“Repeat it, pray.”—
And Rolfe complied. But here receive
Less the details of narrative
Than what the drift and import may convey.
A Swede he was—illicit son
Of noble lady, after-wed,
Who, for a cause over which be thrown
Charity of oblivion dead,—
Bore little love, but rather hate,
Even practiced to ensnare his state.
His father, while not owning, yet
In part discharged the natural debt
Of duty; gave him liberal lore
And timely income; but no more.
Thus isolated, what to bind
But the vague bond of human kind?
The north he left, to Paris came—
Paris, the nurse of many a flame
Evil and good. This son of earth,
This Psalmanazer, made a hearth
In warm desires and schemes for man:
Even he was an Arcadian.
Peace and good will was his acclaim—
If not in words, yet in the aim:
Peace, peace on earth: that note he thrilled,
But scarce in way the cherubs trilled
To Bethlehem and the shepherd band.
Yet much his theory could tell;
And he expounded it so well,
Disciples came. He took his stand.
Europe was in a decade dim:
Upon the future’s trembling rim
The comet hovered. His a league
Of frank debate and close intrigue:
Plot, proselyte, appeal, denounce—
Conspirator, pamphleteer, at once,
And prophet. Wear and tear and jar
He met with coffee and cigar:
These kept awake the man and mood
And dream. That uncreated Good
He sought, whose absence is the cause
Of creeds and Atheists, mobs and laws.
Precocities of heart outran
The immaturities of brain.
Along with each superior mind
The vain, foolhardy, worthless, blind,
With Judases, are nothing loath
To clasp pledged hands and take the oath
Of aim, the which, if just, demands
Strong hearts, brows deep, and priestly hands.
Experience with her sharper touch
Stung Mortmain: Why, if men prove such,
Dote I? love theory overmuch?
Yea, also, whither will advance
This Revolution sprung in France
So many years ago? where end?
That current takes me. Whither tend?
Come, thou who makest such hot haste
To forge the future—weigh the past.
Such frame he knew. And timed event
Cogent a further question lent:
Wouldst meddle with the state? Well, mount
Thy guns; how many men dost count?
Besides, there’s more that here belongs:
Be many questionable wrongs:
By yet more questionable war,
Prophet of peace, these wouldst thou bar?
The world’s not new, nor new thy plea.
Tho’ even shouldst thou triumph, see,
Prose overtakes the victor’s songs:
Victorious right may need redress:
No failure like a harsh success.
Yea, ponder well the historic page:
Of all who, fired with noble rage,
Have warred for right without reprieve,
How many spanned the wings immense
Of Satan’s muster, or could cheat
His cunning tactics of retreat
And ambuscade? Oh, now dispense!
The world is portioned out, believe:
The good have but a patch at best,
The wise their corner; for the rest—
Malice divides with ignorance.
And what is stable? find one boon
That is not lackey to the moon
Of fate. The flood ebbs out—the ebb
Floods back; the incessant shuttle shifts
And flies, and weaves and tears the web.
Turn, turn thee to the proof that sifts:
What if the kings in Forty-eight
Fled like the gods? even as the gods
Shall do, return they made; and sate
And fortified their strong abodes;
And, to confirm them there in state,
Contrived new slogans, apt to please—
Pan and the tribal unities.
Behind all this still works some power
Unknowable, thou’lt yet adore.
That steers the world, not man. States drive;
The crazy rafts with billows strive.—
Go, go—absolve thee. Join that band
That wash them with the desert sand
For lack of water. In the dust
Of wisdom sit thee down, and rust.
So mused he—solitary pined.
Tho’ his apostolate had thrown
New prospects ope to Adam’s kind,
And fame had trumped him far and free—
Now drop he did—a clod unknown;
Nay, rather, he would not disown
Oblivion’s volunteer to be;
Like those new-world discoverers bold
Ending in stony convent cold,
Or dying hermits; as if they,
Chastised to Micah’s mind austere,
Remorseful felt that ampler sway
Their lead had given for old career
Of human nature.
But this man
No cloister sought. He, under ban
Of strange repentance and last dearth,
Roved the gray places of the earth.
And what seemed most his heart to wring
Was some unrenderable thing:
’Twas not his bastardy, nor bale
Medean in his mother pale,
Nor thwarted aims of high design;
But deeper—deep as nature’s mine.
Tho’ frequent among kind he sate
Tranquil enough to hold debate,
His moods he had, mad fitful ones,
Prolonged or brief, outbursts or moans;
And at such times would hiss or cry:
“Fair Circe—goddess of the sty!”
More frequent this: “Mock worse than wrong:
The Syren’s kiss—the Fury’s thong!”
Such he. Tho’ scarce as such portrayed
In full by Rolfe, yet Derwent said
At close: “There’s none so far astray,
Detached, abandoned, as might seem,
As to exclude the hope, the dream
Of fair redemption. One fine day
I saw at sea, by bit of deck—
Weedy—adrift from far away—
The dolphin in his gambol light
Through showery spray, arch into sight:
He flung a rainbow o’er that wreck.”
5. CLAREL AND GLAUCON
Now slanting toward the mountain’s head
They round its southern shoulder so;
That immemorial path they tread
Whereby to Bethany you go
From Salem over Kedron’s bed
And Olivet. Free change was made
Among the riders. Lightly strayed,
With overtures of friendly note,
To Clarel’s side the Smyrniote.
Wishful from every one to learn,
As well his giddy talk to turn,
Clarel—in simpleness that comes
To students versed more in their tomes
Than life—of Homer spake, a man
With Smyrna linked, born there, ’twas said.
But no, the light Ionian
Scarce knew that singing beggar dead,
Though wight he’d heard of with the name;
“Homer? yes, I remember me;
Saw note-of-hand once with his name:
A fig for him, fig-dealer he,
The veriest old nobody:”
Then lightly skimming on: “Did you
By Joppa come? I did, and rue
Three dumpish days, like Sundays dull
Such as in London late I knew;
The gardens tho’ are bountiful.
But Bethlehem—beyond compare!
Such roguish ladies! Tarried there?
You know it is a Christian town,
Decreed so under Ibrahim’s rule
The Turk.” E’en thus he rippled on,
Way giving to his spirits free,
Relieved from that disparity
Of years he with the banker felt,
Nor noted Clarel’s puzzled look,
Who, novice-like, at first mistook,
Doubting lest satire might be dealt.
Adjusting now the sporting gun
Slung to his back with pouch and all:
“Oh, but to sight a bird, just one,
An eagle say, and see him fall.”
And, chatting still, with giddy breath,
Of hunting feats over hill and dale:
“Fine shot was mine by Nazareth;
But birding’s best in Tempe’s Vale:
From Thessalonica, you know,
’Tis thither that we fowlers stray.
But you don’t talk, my friend.—Heigh-ho,
Next month I wed; yes, so they say.
To cheer one. Won’t? Must I?—Let’s see:
Song of poor-devil dandy: he:—
“She’s handsome as a jeweled priest
In ephod on the festa,
And each poor blade like me must needs
Idolize and detest her.
“With rain-beads on her odorous hair
From gardens after showers,
All bloom and dew she trips along,
Intent on selling flowers.
“She beams—the rainbow of the bridge;
But, ah, my blank abhorrence,
She buttonholes me with a rose,
This flower-girl of Florence.
“My friends stand by; and, ‘There!’ she says—
An angel arch, a sinner:
I grudge to pay, but pay I must,
Then—dine on half a dinner!—
“Heigh-ho, next month I marry: well!”
With that he turned aside, and went
Humming another air content.
And Derwent heard him as befell.
“This lad is like a land of springs,”
He said, “he gushes so with song.”—
“Nor heeds if Olivet it wrong,”
Said Rolfe; “but no—he sings—he rings;
His is the guinea, fiddle-strings
Of youth too—which may heaven make strong!”
Meanwhile, in tetchy tone austere
That reprobated song and all,
Lowering rode the presbyter,
A cloud whose rain ere long must fall.
6. THE HAMLET
In silence now they pensive win
A slope of upland over hill
Eastward, where heaven and earth be twin
In quiet, and earth seems
heaven’s sill.
About a hamlet there full low,
Nor cedar, palm, nor olive show—
Three trees by ancient legend claimed
As those whereof the cross was framed.
Nor dairy white, nor well-curb green,
Nor cheerful husbandry was seen,
Though flinty tillage might be named:
Nor less if all showed strange and lone
The peace of God seemed settled down:
Mary and Martha’s mountain-town.
To Rolfe the priest said, breathing low:
“How placid! Carmel’s beauty here,
If added, could not more endear.”—
Rolfe spake not, but he bent his brow.
Aside glanced Clarel on the face
Of meekness; and he mused: In thee
Methinks similitude I trace
To Nature’s look in Bethany.
But, ah, and can one dream the dream
That hither thro’ the shepherds’ gate,
Even by the road we traveled late,
Came Jesus from Jerusalem,
Who pleased him so in fields and bowers,
Yes, crowned with thorns, still loved the flowers?
Poor gardeners here that turned the sod
Friends were they to the Son of God?
And shared He e’en their humble lot?
The sisters here in pastoral plot
Green to the door—did they yield rest,
And bathe the feet, and spread the board
For Him, their own and brother’s guest,
The kindly Christ, even man’s fraternal Lord?
But see: how with a wandering hand,
In absent-mindedness afloat,
And dreaming of his fairy-land,
Nehemiah smooths the ass’s coat.
7. GUIDE AND GUARD
Descending by the mountain side
When crags give way to pastures wide,
And lower opening, ever new,
Glades, meadows, hamlets meet the view,
Which from above did coyly hide—
And with re-kindled breasts of spring
The robins thro’ the orchard wing;
Excellent then—as there bestowed—
And true in charm the downward road.
Quite other spells an influence throw
Down going, down, to Jericho.
Here first on path so evil-starred
Their guide they scan, and prize the guard.
The guide, a Druze of Lebanon,
Was rumored for an Emir’s son,