Switching a light malacca gay:
“Rules, who rules?
Fools the wise, makes wise the fools—
Every ruling overrules?
Who the dame that keeps the house,
Provides the diet, and oh, so quiet,
Brings all to pass, the slyest mouse?
Tell, tell it me:
Signora Nature, who but she!”
27. BY PARAPET
“Well may ye gaze! What’s good to see
Better than Adam’s humanity
When genial lodged! Such spell is given,
It lured the staid grandees of heaven,
Though biased in their souls divine
Much to one side—the feminine.—
He is the pleasantest small fellow!”
It was the early-rising priest,
Who up there in the morning mellow
Had followed Clarel: “Not the least
Of pleasures here which I have known
Is meeting with that laxer one.
We talked below; but all the while
My thoughts were wandering away,
Though never once mine eyes did stray,
He did so pleasingly beguile
To keep them fixed upon his form:
Such harmony pervades his warm
Soft outline.—Why now, what a stare
Of incredulity you speak
From eyes! But it was some such fair
Young sinner in the time antique
Suggested to the happy Greek
His form of Bacchus—the sweet shape!
Young Bacchus, mind ye, not the old:
The Egyptian ere he crushed the grape.—
But—how? and home-sick are you? Come,
What’s in your thoughts, pray? Wherefore mum?”
So Derwent; though but ill he sped,
Clarel declining to be led
Or cheered. Nor less in covert way
That talk might have an after-sway
Beyond the revery which ran
Half-heeded now or dim: This man—
May Christian true such temper wish?
His happiness seems paganish.
28. DAVID’S WELL
The Lyonese had joined a train
Whereof the man of scars was one
Whose office led him further on
And barring longer stay. Farewell
He overnight had said, ere cell
He sought for slumber. Brief the word;
No hand he grasped; yet was he stirred,
Despite his will, in heart at core:
’Twas countrymen he here forsook:
He felt it; and his aspect wore
In the last parting, that strange look
Of one enlisted for sad fight
Upon some desperate dark shore,
Who bids adieu to the civilian,
Returning to his club-house bright,
In city cheerful with the million.
But Nature never heedeth this:
To Nature nothing is amiss.
It was a morning full of vent
And bustle. Other pilgrims went.
Later, accoutered in array
Don Hannibal and party sate
In saddle at the convent gate,
For Hebron bound.—“Ah, well-a-day!
I’m bolstered up here, tucked away:
My spare spar lashed behind, ye see;
This crutch for scepter. Come to me,
Embrace me, my dear friend,” and leant;
“I’m off for Mamre; under oak
Of Abraham I’ll pitch my tent,
Perchance, far from the battle’s smoke.
Good friars and friends, behold me here
A poor one-legged pioneer;
I go, I march, I am the man
In fore-front of the limping van
Of refluent emigration. So,
Farewell, Don Derwent; Placido,
Farewell; and God bless all and keep!—
Start, dragoman; come, take your sheep
To Hebron.”
One among the rest
Attending the departure there
Was Clarel. Unto him, oppressed—
In travail of transition rare,
Scarce timely in its unconstraint
Was the droll Mexican’s quirkish air
And humorous turn of hintings quaint.
The group dispersed.
Pleased by the hill
And vale, the minster, grot and vine,
Hardly the pilgrims found the will
To go and such fair scene decline.
But not less Bethlehem, avow,
Negative grew to him whose heart,
Swayed by love’s nearer magnet now,
Would fain without delay depart;
Yet comradeship did still require
That some few hours need yet expire.
Restive, he sallied out alone,
And, ere long, place secluded won,
And there a well. The spot he eyed;
For fountains in that land, being rare,
Attention fix. “And, yes,” he sighed,
Weighing the thing; “though everywhere
This vicinage quite altered be,
The well of Jesse’s son I see;
For this in parched Adullam’s lair
How sore he yearned: ah me, ah me,
That one would now upon me wait
With that sweet water by the gate!—
He stood: But who will bring to me
That living water which who drinks
He thirsteth not again! Let be:
A thirst that long may anguish thee,
Too long ungratified will die.
But whither now, my heart? wouldst fly
Each thing that keepeth not the pace
Of common uninquiring life?
What! fall back on clay commonplace?
Yearnest for peace so? sick of strife?
Yet how content thee with routine
Worldly? how mix with tempers keen
And narrow like the knife? how live
At all, if once a fugitive
From thy own nobler part, though pain
Be portion inwrought with the grain?”
But here, in fair accosting word,
A stranger’s happy hail he heard
Descending from a vineyard nigh.
He turned: a pilgrim pleased his eye
(A Muscovite, late seen by shrine)
Good to behold—fresh as a pine—
Elastic, tall; complexion clear
As dawn in frosty atmosphere
Rose-tinged.
They greet. At once, to reach
Accord, the Russian said, “Sit here:
You sojourn with the Latin set,
I with the Greeks; but well we’re met:
All’s much the same: many waves, one beach.
I’m mateless now; one, and but one
I’ve taken to: and he’s late gone.
You may have crossed him, for indeed
He tarried with your Latin breed
While here: a juicy little fellow—
A Seckel pear, so small and mellow.”
“We shared a cell last night.” “Ye did?
And, doubtless, into chat ye slid:
The theme, now; I am curious there.”
“Judæa—the Jews.” With hightened air
The Russ rejoined: “And tell me, pray:
Who broached the topic? he?”
“No, I;
And chary he in grudged reply
At first, but afterward gave way.”
“Indeed?” the Russ, with meaning smile;
“But (further) did he aught revile?”
“The Jews, he said, were misconceived;
Much too he dropped which quite bereaved
The Scripture of its Runic spell.
But Runic said I? That’s not well!
I alter, sure.”
Not marking here
Clarel in his self-taxing cheer;
But full of his own thoughts in clew,
“Right, I was right!” the other cried:
“Evade he cannot, no, nor hide.
Learn, he who whiled the hour for you,
His race supplied the theme: a Jew!”
Clarel leaped up; “And can it be?
Some vague suspicion peered in me;
I sought to test it—test: and he—
Nay now, I mind me of a stir
Of color quick; and might it touch?”
And paused; then, as in slight demur:
“His cast of Hebrew is not much.”
“Enough to badge him.”
“Very well:
But why should he the badge repel?”
“Our Russian sheep still hate the mark;
They try to rub it off, nor cease
On hedge or briar to leave the fleece
In tell-tale tags. Well, much so he,
Averse to Aaron’s cipher dark
And mystical. Society
Is not quite catholic, you know,
Retains some prejudices yet—
Likes not the singular; and so
He’d melt in, nor be separate—
Exclusive. And I see no blame.
Nor rare thing is it in French Jew,
Cast among strangers—traveling too—
To cut old grandsire Abraham
As out of mode. I talked, ere you
With this our friend. Let me avow
My late surmise is surety now.”
They strolled, and parted. And amain
Confirmed the student felt the reign
Of reveries vague, which yet could mar,
Crossed by a surging element—
Surging while aiming at content:
So combs the billow ere it breaks upon the bar.
29. THE NIGHT RIDE
It was the day preceding Lent,
Shrove Tuesday named in English old
(Forefathers’ English), and content,
Some yet would tarry, to behold
The initiatory nocturn rite.
’Twas the small hour, as once again,
And final now, in mounted plight
They curve about the Bethlehem urn
Or vine-clad hollow of the swain,
And Clarel felt in every vein—
At last, Jerusalem! ’Twas thence
They started—thither they return,
Rounding the waste circumference.
Now Belex in his revery light
Rolls up and down those guineas bright
Whose minted recompense shall chink
In pouch of sash when travel’s brink
Of end is won. Djalea in face
Wears an abstraction, lit by grace
Which governed hopes of rapture lend:
On coins his musings likewise bend—
The starry sequins woven fair
Into black tresses. But an air
Considerate and prudent reigns;
For his the love not vainly sure:
’Tis passion deep of man mature
For one who half a child remains:
Yes, underneath a look sedate,
What throbs are known!
But desolate
Upon the pilgrims strangely fall
Eclipses heavier far than come
To hinds, which, after carnival,
Return to toil and querulous home.
Revert did they? in mind recall
Their pilgrimage, yes, sum it all?
Could Siddim haunt them? Saba’s bay?
Did the deep nature in them say—
Two, two are missing—laid away
In deserts twin? They let it be,
Nor spake; the candor of the heart
Shrank from suspected counterpart.
But one there was (and Clarel he)
Who, in his aspect free from cloud,
Here caught a gleam from source unspied,
As cliff may take on mountain-side,
When there one small brown cirque ye see,
Lit up in mole, how mellowly,
Day going down in somber shroud—
October-pall.
But tell the vein
Of new emotion, inly held,
That so the long contention quelled—
Languor, and indecision, pain.
Was it abrupt resolve? a strain
Wiser than wisdom’s self might teach?
Yea, now his hand would boldly reach
And pluck the nodding fruit to him,
Fruit of the tree of life. If doubt
Spin spider-like her tissue out,
And make a snare in reason dim—
Why hang a fly in flimsy web?
One thing was clear, one thing in sooth:
Stays not the prime of June or youth:
At flood that tide makes haste to ebb.
Recurred one mute appeal of Ruth
(Now first aright construed, he thought),
She seemed to fear for him, and say:
“Ah, tread not, sweet, my father’s way,
In whom this evil spirit wrought
And dragged us hither where we die!”
Alertly now and eager hie
To dame and daughter, where they trod
The Dolorosa—quick depart
With them and seek a happier sky.
Warblings he heard of hope in heart,
Responded to by duty’s hymn;
He, late but weak, felt now each limb
In strength how buoyant. But, in truth,
Was part caprice, sally of youth?
What pulse was this with burning beat?
Whence, whence the passion that could give
Feathers to thought, yea, Mercury’s feet?
The Lyonese, to sense so dear,
Nor less from faith a fugitive—
Had he infected Clarel here?
But came relapse: What end may prove?
Ah, almoner to Saba’s dove,
Ah, bodeful text of hermit-rhyme!
But what! distrust the trustful eyes?
Are the sphered breasts full of mysteries
Which not the maiden’s self may know?
May love’s nice balance, finely slight,
Take tremor from fulfilled delight?
Can nature such a doom dispense
As, after ardor’s tender glow,
To make the rapture more than pall
With evil secrets in the sense,
And guile whose bud is innocence—
Sweet blossom of the flower of gall?
Nay, nay: Ah! God, keep far from me
Cursed Manes and the Manichee!
At large here life proclaims the law:
Unto embraces myriads draw
Through sacred impulse. Take thy wife;
Venture, and prove the soul of life,
And let fate drive.—So he the while,
In shadow
from the ledges thrown,
As down the Bethlehem hill they file—
Abreast upon the plain anon
Advancing.
Far, in upland spot
A light is seen in Rama paling;
But Clarel sped, and heeded not,
At least recalled not Rachel wailing.
Aside they win a fountain clear,
The Cistern of the Kings—so named
Because (as vouched) the Magi here
Watered their camels, and reclaimed
The Ray, brief hid. Ere this they passed
Clarel looked in and there saw glassed
Down in the wave, one mellow star;
Then, glancing up, beheld afar
Enisled serene, the orb itself:—
Apt auspice here for journeying elf.
And now those skirting slopes they tread
Which devious bar the sunken bed
Of Hinnom. Thence uplifted shone
In hauntedness the deicide town
Faint silvered. Gates, of course, were barred;
But at the further eastern one,
St. Stephen’s—there the turbaned guard
(To Belex known) at whispered word
Would ope. Thither, the nearer way,
By Jeremy’s grot—they shun that ground,
For there an Ottoman camp’s array
Deters. Through Hinnom now they push
Their course round Zion by the glen
Toward Rogel—whither shadowy rush
And where, at last, in cloud convene
(Ere, one, they sweep to gloomier hush)
Those two black chasms which enfold
Jehovah’s hight. Flanking the well,
Ophel they turn, and gain the dell
Of Shaveh. Here the city old,
Fast locked in torpor, fixed in blight,
No hum sent forth, revealed no light:
Though, facing it, cliff-hung Siloam—
Sepulchral hamlet—showed in tomb
A twinkling lamp. The valley slept—
Obscure, in monitory dream
Oppressive, roofed with awful skies
Whose stars like silver nail-heads gleam
Which stud some lid over lifeless eyes.
30. THE VALLEY OF DECISION
Delay!—Shall flute from forth the Gate
Issue, to warble welcome here—
Upon this safe returning wait
In gratulation? And, for cheer,
When inn they gain, there shall they see
The door-post wreathed?
Howe’er it be,