Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land E-Book

Herman Melville.

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
• Sprache: Deutsch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2012

Seitenzahl: 554

Beschreibung

Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land is an American epic poem by Herman Melville, published in two volumes in 1876. Clarel is the longest poem in American literature, stretching to almost 18,000 lines (longer even than European classics such as the Iliad, Aeneid and Paradise Lost). As well its great length, Clarel is notable for being the major work of Melville's later years; in the three decades between The Confidence Man (1857) and Billy Budd (begun in 1888), Melville devoted himself solely to writing poetry, with Clarel and the short American Civil War collection, Battle Pieces, being his most significant achievements. (from wikipedia.com)

Leseprobe

Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land

Herman Melville

Contents:

HERMAN MELVILLE – A PRIMER

Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land

Part 1: Jerusalem

1. The Hostel

2. Abdon

3. The Sepulchre

4. Of the Crusaders

5. Clarel

6. Tribes and Sects

7. Beyond the Walls

8. The Votary

9. Saint and Student

10. Rambles

11. Lower Gihon

12. Celio

13. The Arch

14. In the Glen

15. Under the Minaret

16. The Wall of Wail

17. Nathan

18. Night

19. The Fulfillment

20. Vale of Ashes

21. By-Places

22. Hermitage

23. The Close

24. The Gibe

25. Huts

26. The Gate of Zion

27. Matron and Maid

28. Tomb and Fountain

29. The Recluse

30. The Site of the Passion

31. Rolfe

32. Of Rama

33. By the Stone

34. They Tarry

35. Arculf and Adamnan

36. The Tower

37. A Sketch

38. The Sparrow

39. Clarel and Ruth

40. The Mounds

41. On the Wall

42. Tidings

43. A Procession

44. The Start

Part 2: The Wilderness

1. The Cavalcade

2. The Skull Cap

3. By The Garden

4. Of Mortmain

5. Clarel and Glaucon

6. The Hamlet

7. Guide and Guard

8. Rolfe and Derwent

9. Through Adommin

10. A Halt

11. Of Deserts

12. The Banker

13. Flight of the Greeks

14. By Anchor

15. The Fountain

16. Night in Jericho

17. In Mid-Watch

18. The Syrian Monk

19. An Apostate

20. Under the Mountain

21. The Priest and Rolfe

22. Concerning Hebrews

23. By the Jordan

24. The River-Rite

25. The Dominican

26. Of Rome

27. Vine and Clarel

28. The Fog

29. By the Marge

30. Of Petra

31. The Inscription

32. The Encampment

33. Lot's Sea

34. Mortmain Reappears

35. Prelusive

36. Sodom

37. Of Traditions

38. The Sleep-Walker

39. Obsequies

Part 3: Mar Saba

1. In the Mountain

2. The Carpenter

3. Of the Many Mansions

4. The Cypriote

5. The High Desert

6. Derwent

7. Bell and Cairn

8. Tents of Kedar

9. Of Monasteries

10. Before the Gate

11. The Beaker

12. The Timoneer's Story

13. Song and Recitative

14. The Revel Closed

15. In Moonlight

16. The Easter Fire

17. A Chant

18. The Minister

19. The Masque

20. Afterward

21. In Confidence

22. The Medallion

23. Derwent with the Abbott

24. Vault and Grotto

25. Derwent and the Lesbian

26. Vine and the Palm

27. Man and Bird

28. Mortmain and the Palm

29. Rolfe and the Palm

30. The Celibate

31. The Recoil

32. Empty Stirrups

Part 4: Bethlehem

1. In Saddle

2. The Ensign

3. The Island

4. An Intruder

5. Of the Stranger

6. Bethlehem

7. At Table

8. The Pillow

9. The Shepherds' Dale

10. A Monument

11. Disquiet

12. Of Pope and Turk

13. The Church of the Star

14. Soldier and Monk

15. Symphonies

16. The Convent Roof

17. A Transition

18. The Hill-Side

19. A New-Comer

20. Derwent and Ungar

21. Ungar and Rolfe

22. Of Wickedness the Word

23. Derwent and Rolfe

24. Twilight

25. The Invitation

26. The Prodigal

27. By Parapet

28. David's Well

29. The Night Ride

30. The Valley of Decision

31. Dirge

32. Passion Week

33. Easter

34. Via Crucis

35. Epilogue

Clarel, H. Melville

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

86450 Altenmünster, Germany

ISBN: 9783849603601

www.jazzybee-verlag.de

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HERMAN MELVILLE – A PRIMER

CONSIDERED as a seed-time of eminent names, the year 1819 was one of remarkable fertility. Keeping to England and the United States alone, in that year were born Herman Melville, John Ruskin, J. R. Lowell, Walt Whitman, Charles Kingsley, W. W. Story, T. W. Parsons, C. A. Dana, E. P. Whipple, J. G. Holland, H. P. Gray, Thomas Hall, Cyrus Field, Julia Ward Howe, and Queen Victoria.

Of these names, which will endure the longer as author or artist? It seems to me that Melville's Typee has an intrinsic charm, born of concurring genius and circumstance, that make it surer of immortality than any other work by any other name on the list — not even excepting Queen Victoria's Journal in the Highlands. Hut re-incarnation is not as yet, and who shall know the future dealings of fate with these various fames?

But I am anticipating. Let me give a brief outline of the events of Melville's life, and indicate— within these limits I can do no more— how directly his writings flowed from real experience, like water from a spring. Melville was born August 1, 1819, the third in a family of eight children, in New York City — the last place that one looks for a poet to be born in. Eminent men generally, according to popular statistic-, are born in the country; they nourish their genius there, and come to town to win their fame. If this theory has any truth, it is simply due to the fact that more people are born in the country, anyway, than in the town; a circumstance that does not occur to the popular statisticians. In 1835 young Melville attended the " Albany Classical School; " his teacher, Dr. Charles E. West, still lives in Brooklyn, and makes an occasional appearance at the Saturday evenings of the Century Club. He speaks of his pupil as having been distinguished in English composition and weak in mathematics.

In 1837, when Melville was eighteen, he made his first voyage before the mast in a New York merchantman bound for Liverpool, returning after a short cruise. The record of this first voyage will be found in Redburn, which, however, was not his first but his fourth book, having been published in 1849. For three years young Melville had had enough of the sea. He spent the summer of 1838 working on his uncle's farm in Pittsfield, Mass., and at intervals he taught school, both there and in Greenbush, now East Albany, New York. This sea-going and this school-teaching were undertaken in the pluckiest spirit for self-support, his father being then in straitened circumstances. Hut the seeds of adventure and unrest were also in his nature; and he shipped again before the mast in the whaler "Acushnet," sailing from New Bedford, January 1, 1841. This was the voyage that gave him his opportunity. In the summer of 1842, as detailed in the true history, Typee, he left his ship at the Hay of Nukuheva, in the Marquesas Islands, escaping to the Typee Valley. There he received from the natives the kindest treatment, and lived deliriously all the summer long; while, on the other hand, he was in constant fear of being sacrificed at any moment to their cannibal proclivities. He spent four months in this anxious paradise; finally he escaped from the valley to an Australian whaler, where he resumed the life of the forecastle. It would be curious to know whether any of the rough sailors with whom he herded during these tossing years recognized the presence of his gifts in their shipmate; in all probability they did not.

The Australian whaler touched at some of the smaller islands, and anchored at Tahiti on the day of its occupation by the French. These were stirring times in that peaceful group, and the young poet, as he sets forth in Omoo, was confined for alleged mutinous conduct, with others of his companions, but was honorably discharged. From Tahiti he made his way to Honolulu, where he spent four months. He has left some record of that time in the very biting comments upon political and missionary affairs, that may be found in the appendix to the English edition of Typee; an appendix, by the way, that is discreetly suppressed in the American edition. To get a passage homeward he shipped for the fourth time before the mast, this time upon the United States frigate "United States," then (I think) commanded by Captain James Armstrong, and thus added the experience of man-of-war service to that of life on a New York merchantman and on American and English whaling-ships. He spent more than a year upon the frigate, and was discharged in Boston in the fall of 1844. He then returned to his mother's home in Lansingburgh, and began the literary work for which he had such varied, ample, and profoundly interesting material. Typee was written during the winter of 1845-46, and published in London and New York in 1846. Its success was immediate and great. The entire English reading-world knew Melville's name, if not the book itself; it was the talk of the public and of the coteries. Omoo, which followed shortly after, was very well received, but not so widely read. August 4, 1847, he married the daughter of Chief-Justice Shaw of Massachusetts, removed to New York, and lived there until 1850. Meanwhile he published Mardi, a South Sea romance, prefacing a note to the effect that, as Typee and Omoo had been received as romance instead of reality, he would now enter the field of avowed fiction. In the same year, 1849, was published Redburn, the record, as already noted, of his first voyage before the mast.

In 1850 Melville went to Pittsfield, Mass., and lived there thirteen years, returning to New York again in October, 1863; and here he spent the remainder of his life, with the exception of two brief visits to Europe and a voyage to California. Leaving New York, October 8, 1849, he went to London to arrange for the publication of his works, returning about the first of February, 1850. He now addressed himself to writing While Jacket, a most vivid record of his man-of-war experience; it was published in 1850. Moby Dick, the story of the great White Whale, appeared in 1851; the novel, Pierre, or The Ambiguities, in 1852; Israel Patter and The Confidence Man 1855, and the Piazza Tales in 1856. All of Melville's works, except Clarel, were published almost as soon as written.

During these years Melville applied himself so closely to literary work that his health became impaired, and he made another visit to England, sailing October II, and returning in May, 1857. During this time he visited his old friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, at Southport; went up the Mediterranean, saw Constantinople and the Holy Land, and returned with new material for future work; but from this time he published little for some years. During the winters 1857 to 1860, however, he gave lectures in different cities, touching a large range of subjects: "The South Seas," "Travel," "Statues in Rome," among others. In 1860 he made a voyage to San Francisco via Cape Horn, sailing from Boston May 30, with his brother, Thomas Melville, who commanded the "Meteor," a fast-sailing clipper in the China trade, and returning in mid-November. In 1866 his poems, Baltic Pieces, were published; and on the fifth of December of that year he was appointed collector of customs in the New York Custom House by Henry A. Smyth, an office which he held for nineteen years and resigned the first of January, 1866. In the interim, 1876, his Clarel appeared, a work of which the germ had been unfolding for many years; his visit to the Holy Land gave much of the material and imagery in it. His latest books were privately printed. A copy of Jo/in Marr and Other Sailors, and one of his Timoleon, lie before me; each of these volumes of poetry appeared in an edition of twenty-five copies only. With these closed the exterior record of a life of extreme contrasts — years of the most restless activity, followed by a most unusual seclusion.

These data, now for the first time fully given, will help us to characterize Melville's life and literary work. Typee and Omoo, mistaken by the public for fiction, were, on the contrary, the most vivid truth expressed in the most telling and poetic manner. My father, the Rev. Titus Coan, went over Melville's ground in 1867, and while he has criticised the topography of Typee as being somewhat exaggerated in the mountain distances, a very natural mistake, he told me that the descriptions were admirably true and the characterizations faultless in the main. The book is a masterpiece, the outcome of an opportunity that will never be repeated. Melville was the first and only man ever made captive in a valley full of Polynesian cannibals, who had the genius to describe the situation, and who got away alive to write his book.

His later works, equally great in their way — While Jacket and Moby Dick — had a different though equal misappreciation. They dealt with a life so alien to that of the average reader that they failed adequately to interest him; but they are life and truth itself. On this matter I may speak with some authority, for I have spent years at sea, and I cannot overpraise the wonderful vigor and beauty of these descriptions. The later works were less powerful, and Pierre roused a storm of critical opposition. Yet these misunderstandings and attacks were not the main cause of his withdrawal from society. The cause was intrinsic; his extremely proud and sensitive nature and his studious habits led to the seclusion of his later years. My acquaintance with Melville began in 1859, when I had a most interesting conversation with him at his home in Pittsfield, and wrote of him as follows:

In vain I sought to hear of "Typee " and those paradise islands; he preferred to pour forth instead his philosophy and his theories of life. The shade of Aristotle arose like a cold mist between myself and Fayaway. . . . He seems to put away the objective side of life, and to shut himself up as a cloistered thinker and poet. This seclusion endured to the end. He never denied himself to his friends; but he sought no one. I visited him repeatedly in New York, and had the most interesting talks with him. What stores of reading, what reaches of philosophy, were his I He took the attitude of absolute independence toward the world. He said, " My books will speak for themselves, and all the better if I avoid the rattling egotism by which so many win a certain vogue for a certain time." He missed immediate success; he won the distinction of a hermit. It may appear, in the end, that he was right. No other autobiographical books in our literature suggest more vividly than Typee, Omoo, White Jacket, and Moby Dick, the title of Goethe, "Truth and Beauty from my own life." Typee, at least, is one of those books that the world cannot let die.

In conclusion: does any one know whether the "Toby" of Typee, Mr. Richard T. Greene, is living? He has disappeared from ken a second time, as heretofore he disappeared from " Tommo " in Typee Valley; has he gone where a second quest would be useless? If not, and if this meets the eye of any friend of his, will he send me word?

Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land

Part 1: Jerusalem

1. The Hostel

IN CHAMBER low and scored by time, Masonry old, late washed with lime-- Much like a tomb new-cut in stone; Elbow on knee, and brow sustained All motionless on sidelong hand, A student sits, and broods alone. The small deep casement sheds a ray Which tells that in the Holy Town It is the passing of the day-- The Vigil of Epiphany. Beside him in the narrow cell His luggage lies unpacked; thereon The dust lies, and on him as well-- The dust of travel. But anon His face he lifts--in feature fine, Yet pale, and all but feminine But for the eye and serious brow-- Then rises, paces to and fro, And pauses, saying, "Other cheer Than that anticipated here, By me the learner, now I find. Theology, art thou so blind? What means this naturalistic knell In lieu of Siloh's oracle Which here should murmur? Snatched from grace, And waylaid in the holy place! Not thus it was but yesterday Off Jaffa on the clear blue sea; Nor thus, my heart, it was with thee Landing amid the shouts and spray; Nor thus when mounted, full equipped, Out through the vaulted gate we slipped Beyond the walls where gardens bright With bloom and blossom cheered the sight. "The plain we crossed. In afternoon, How like our early autumn bland-- So softly tempered for a boon-- The breath of Sharon's prairie land! And was it, yes, her titled Rose, That scarlet poppy oft at hand? Then Ramleh gleamed, the sail white town At even. There I watched day close From the fair tower, the suburb one: Seaward and dazing set the sun: Inland I turned me toward the wall Of Ephraim, stretched in purple pall. Romance of mountains! But in end What change the near approach could lend.  "The start this morning--gun and lance Against the quartermoon's low tide; The thieves' huts where we hushed the ride; Chill daybreak in the lorn advance; In stony strait the scorch of noon, Thrown off-by crags, reminding one Of those hot paynims whose fierce hands Flung showers of Afric's fiery sands In face of that crusader king, Louis, to wither so his wing; And, at the last, aloft for goal, Like the ice bastions round the Pole, Thy blank, blank towers, Jerusalem!" Again he droops, with brow on hand. But, starting up, "Why, well I knew Salem to be no Samarcand; 'Twas scarce surprise; and yet first view Brings this eclipse. Needs be my soul, Purged by the desert's subtle air From bookish vapors, now is heir To nature's influx of control; Comes likewise now to consciousness Of the true import of that press Of inklings which in travel late Through Latin lands, did vex my state, And somehow seemed clandestine. Ah! These under formings in the mind, Banked corals which ascend from far, But little heed men that they wind Unseen, unheard--till lo, the reef-- The reef and breaker, wreck and grief. But here unlearning, how to me Opes the expanse of time's vast sea! Yes, I am young, but Asia old. The books, the books not all have told. "And, for the rest, the facile chat Of overweenings--what was that The grave one said in Jaffa lane Whom there I met, my countryman, But new returned from travel here; Some word of mine provoked the strain; His meaning now begins to clear: Let me go over it again:--  "Our New World's worldly wit so shrewd Lacks the Semitic reverent mood, Unworldly--hardly may confer Fitness for just interpreter Of Palestine. Forego the state Of local minds inveterate, Tied to one poor and casual form. To avoid the deep saves not from storm. "Those things he said, and added more; No clear authenticated lore I deemed. But now, need now confess My cultivated narrowness, Though scarce indeed of sort he meant? 'Tis the uprooting of content!" So he, the student. 'Twas a mind, Earnest by nature, long confined Apart like Vesta in a grove Collegiate, but let to rove At last abroad among mankind, And here in end confronted so By the true genius, friend or foe, And actual visage of a place Before but dreamed of in the glow Of fancy's spiritual grace. Further his meditations aim, Reverting to his different frame Bygone. And then: "Can faith remove Her light, because of late no plea I've lifted to her source above?" Dropping thereat upon the knee, His lips he parted; but the word Against the utterance demurred And failed him. With infirm intent He sought the housetop. Set of sun: His feet upon the yet warm stone, He, Clarel, by the coping leant, In silent gaze. The mountain town, A walled and battlemented one, With houseless suburbs front and rear, And flanks built up from steeps severe, Saddles and turrets the ascent-- Tower which rides the elephant. Hence large the view. There where he stood, Was Acra's upper neighborhood. The circling hills he saw, with one Excelling, ample in its crown, Making the uplifted city low By contrast--Olivet. The flow Of eventide was at full brim; Overlooked, the houses sloped from him-- Terraced or domed, unchimnied, gray, All stone--a moor of roofs. No play Of life; no smoke went up, no sound Except low hum, and that half drowned. The inn abutted on the pool Named Hezekiah's, a sunken court Where silence and seclusion rule, Hemmed round by walls of nature's sort, Base to stone structures seeming one E'en with the steeps they stand upon. As a threedecker's sternlights peer Down on the oily wake below, Upon the sleek dark waters here The inn's small lattices bestow A rearward glance. And here and there In flaws the languid evening air Stirs the dull weeds adust, which trail In festoons from the crag, and veil The ancient fissures, overtopped By the tall convent of the Copt, Built like a lighthouse o'er the main. Blind arches showed in walls of wane, Sealed windows, portals masoned fast, And terraces where nothing passed By parapets all dumb. No tarn Among the Kaatskills, high above Farmhouse and stack, last lichened barn And logbridge rotting in remove-- More lonesome looks than this dead pool In town where living creatures rule. Not here the spell might he undo; The strangeness haunted him and grew. But twilight closes. He descends And toward the inner court he wends.

2. Abdon

A lamp in archway hangs from key-- A lamp whose sidelong rays are shed On a slim vial set in bed Of doorpost all of masonry. That vial hath the Gentile vexed; Within it holds Talmudic text, Or charm. And there the Black Jew sits, Abdon the host. The lamplight flits O'er reverend beard of saffron hue Sweeping his robe of Indian blue. Disturbed and troubled in estate, Longing for solacement of mate, Clarel in court there nearer drew, As yet unnoted, for the host In meditation seemed engrossed, Perchance upon some line late scanned In leathern scroll that drooped from hand. Ere long, without surprise expressed, The lone man marked his lonelier guest, And welcomed him. Discourse was bred; In end a turn it took, and led To grave recital. Here was one (If question of his word be none) Descended from those dubious men, The unreturning tribes, the Ten Whom shout and halloo wide have sought, Lost children in the wood of time. Yes, he, the Black Jew, stinting naught, Averred that ancient India's clime Harbored the remnant of the Tribes, A people settled with their scribes In far Cochin. There was he born And nurtured, and there yet his kin, Never from true allegiance torn, Kept Moses' law. Cochin, Cochin (Mused Clarel). I have heard indeed Of those Black Jews, their ancient creed And hoar tradition. Esdras saith The Ten Tribes built in Arsareth-- Eastward, still eastward. That may be. But look, the scroll of goatskin, see Wherein he reads, a wizard book; It is the Indian Pentateuch Whereof they tell. Whate'er the plea (And scholars various notions hold Touching these missing clans of old), This seems a deeper mystery; How Judah, Benjamin, live on-- Unmixed into time's swamping sea So far can urge their Amazon. He pondered. But again the host, Narrating part his lifetime tossed, Told how, long since, with trade in view, He sailed from India with a Jew And merchant of the Portuguese For Lisbon. More he roved the seas And marts, till in the last event He pitched in Amsterdam his tent. "There had I lived my life," he said, "Among my kind, for good they were; But loss came loss, and I was led To long for Judah--only her. But see." He rose, and took the light And led within: "There ye espy What prospect's left to such as I-- Yonder!"--a dark slab stood upright Against the wall; a rude gravestone Sculptured, with Hebrew ciphers strown. "Under Moriah it shall lie No distant date, for very soon, Ere yet a little, and I die. From Ind to Zion have I come, But less to live, than end at home. One other last remove!" he sighed, And meditated on the stone, Lamp held aloft. That magnified The hush throughout the dim unknown Of night--night in a land how dead! Thro' Clarel's heart the old man's strain Dusky meandered in a vein One with the revery it bred; His eyes still dwelling on the Jew In added dream--so strange his shade Of swartness like a born Hindoo, And wizened visage which betrayed The Hebrew cast. And subtile yet In ebon frame an amulet Which on his robe the patriarch wore-- And scroll, and vial in the door, These too contributed in kind. They parted. Clarel sought his cell Or tomblike chamber, and--with mind To break or intermit the spell, At least perplex it and impede-- Lighted the lamp of olive oil, And, brushing from a trunk the soil-- 'Twas one late purchased at his need-- Opened, and strove to busy him With small adjustments. Bootless cheer! While wavering now, in chanceful skim His eyes fell on the word JUDEA In paper lining of the tray, For all was trimmed, in cheaper way, With printed matter. Curious then To know this faded denizen, He read, and found a piece complete, Briefly comprised in one poor sheet:  "The World accosts--  "Last one out of Holy Land, What gift bring'st thou? Sychem grapes? Tabor, which the Eden drapes, Yieldeth garlands. I demand Something cheery at thy hand. Come, if Solomon's Song thou singest, Haply Sharon's rose thou bringest." "The Palmer replies: "Nay, naught thou nam'st thy servant brings, Only Judea my feet did roam; And mainly there the pilgrim clings About the precincts of Christ's tomb. These palms I bring--from dust not free, Since dust and ashes both were trod by me. O'er true thy gift (thought Clarel). Well, Scarce might the world accept, 'twould seem. But I, shall I my feet impel Through road like thine and naught redeem? Rather thro' brakes, lone brakes, I wind: As I advance they close behind.-- Thought's burden! on the couch he throws Himself and it--rises, and goes To peer from casement. 'Twas moonlight, With stars, the Olive Hill in sight, Distinct, yet dreamy in repose, As of Katahdin in hot noon, Lonely, with all his pines in swoon. The nature and evangel clashed, Rather, a double mystery flashed. Olivet, Olivet do I see? The ideal upland, trod by Thee? Up or reclined, he felt the soul Afflicted by that noiseless calm, Till sleep, the good nurse, deftly stole The bed beside, and for a charm Took the pale hand within her own, Nor left him till the night was gone.

3. The Sepulchre

In Crete they claimed the tomb of Jove In glen over which his eagles soar; But thro' a peopled town ye rove To Christ's low urn, where, nigh the door, Settles the dove. So much the more The contrast stamps the human God Who dwelt among us, made abode With us, and was of woman born; Partook our bread, and thought no scorn To share the humblest, homeliest hearth, Shared all of man except the sin and mirth. Such, among thronging thoughts, may stir In pilgrim pressing thro' the lane That dusty wins the reverend fane, Seat of the Holy Sepulchre, And naturally named therefrom. What altars old in cluster rare And grottoshrines engird the Tomb: Caves and a crag; and more is there; And halls monastic join their gloom. To sum in comprehensive bounds The Passion's drama with its grounds, Immense the temple winds and strays Finding each storied precinct out-- Absorbs the sites all roundabout-- Omnivorous, and a world of maze.  And yet time was when all here stood Separate, and from rood to rood, Chapel to shrine, or tent to tent, Unsheltered still the pilgrim went Where now enroofed the whole coheres-- Where now thro' influence of years And spells by many a legend lent, A sort of nature reappears-- Sombre or sad, and much in tone Perhaps with that which here was known Of yore, when from this Salem height, Then sylvan in primeval plight, Down came to Shaveh's Dale, with wine And bread, after the four Kings' check, The Druid priest Melchizedek, Abram to bless with rites divine. What rustlings here from shadowy spaces, Deep vistas where the votary paces, Will, strangely intermitting, creep Like steps in Indian forest deep. How birdlike steals the singer's note Down from some rail or arch remote: While, glimmering where kneelers be, Small lamps, dispersed, with glowworm light Mellow the vast nave's azure night, And make a haze of mystery: The blur is spread of thousand years, And Calvary's seen as through one's tears. In cloistral walks the dome detains Hermits, which during public days Seclude them where the shadow stays, But issue when charmed midnight reigns, Unshod, with tapers lit, and roam, According as their hearts appoint, The purlieus of the central Tomb In round of altars; and anoint With fragrant oils each marble shelf; Or, all alone, strange solace find And oratory to their mind Lone locked within the Tomb itself. Cells note ye as in bower a nest Where some sedate rich devotee Or grave guestmonk from over sea Takes up through Lent his votive rest, Adoring from his saintly perch Golgotha and the guarded Urn, And mysteries everywhere expressed; Until his soul, in rapt sojourn, Add one more chapel to the Church.  The friars in turn which tend the Fane, Dress it and keep, a home make there Nor pass for weeks the gate. Again Each morning they ascend the stair Of Calvary, with cloth and broom, For dust thereon will settle down, And gather, too, upon the Tomb And places of the Passion's moan. Tradition, not device and fraud Here rules--tradition old and broad. Transfixed in sites the drama's shown-- Each given spot assigned; 'tis here They scourged Him; soldiers yonder nailed The Victim to the tree; in jeer There stood the Jews; there Mary paled; The vesture was divided here. A miracle play of haunted stone-- A miracle play, a phantom one, With power to give pause or subdue. So that whatever comment be Serious, if to faith unknown-- Not possible seems levity Or aught that may approach thereto. And, sooth, to think what numbers here, Age after age, have worn the stones In suppliance or judgment fear; What mourners--men and women's moans, Ancestors of ourselves indeed; What souls whose penance of remorse Made poignant by the elder creed, Found honest language in the force Of chains entwined that ate the bone; How here a'Becket's slayers clung Taking the contrite anguish on, And, in release from fast and thong, Buried upon Moriah sleep; With more, much more; such ties, so deep, Endear the spot, or false or true As an historic site. The wrong Of carpings never may undo The nerves that clasp about the plea Tingling with kinship through and through-- Faith childlike and the tried humanity. But little here moves hearts of some; Rather repugnance grave, or scorn Or cynicism, to mark the dome Beset in court or yard forlorn By pedlars versed in wonted tricks, Venders of charm or crucifix; Or, on saint days, to hark the din As during market day at inn, And polyglot of Asian tongues And island ones, in interchange Buzzed out by crowds in costumes strange Of nations divers. Are these throngs Merchants? Is this Cairo's bazar And concourse? Nay, thy strictures bar. It is but simple nature, see; None mean irreverence, though free. Unvexed by Europe's grieving doubt Which asks And can the Father be? Those children of the climes devout, On festival in fane installed, Happily ignorant, make glee Like orphans in the playground walled. Others the duskiness may find Imbued with more than nature's gloom; These, loitering hard by the Tomb, Alone, and when the day's declined-- So that the shadow from the stone Whereon the angel sat is thrown To distance more, and sigh or sound Echoes from place of Mary's moan, Or cavern where the cross was found; Or mouse stir steals upon the ear From where the soldier reached the spear-- Shrink, much like Ludovico erst Within the haunted chamber. Thou, Less sensitive, yet haply versed In everything above, below-- In all but thy deep human heart; Thyself perchance mayst nervous start At thine own fancy's final range Who here wouldst mock: with mystic smart The subtile Eld can slight avenge. But gibe--gibe on, until there crawl About thee in the scorners' seat, Reactions; and pride's Smyrna shawl Plague strike the wearer. Ah, retreat! But how of some which still deplore Yet share the doubt? Here evermore 'Tis good for such to turn afar From the Skull's place, even Golgotha, And view the cedarn dome in sun Pierced like the marble Pantheon: No blurring pane, but open sky: In there day peeps, there stars go by, And, in still hours which these illume, Heaven's dews drop tears upon the Tomb. Nor lack there dreams romance can thrill: In hush when tides and towns are still, Godfrey and Baldwin from their graves (Made meetly near the rescued Stone) Rise, and in arms. With beaming glaives They watch and ward the urn they won. So fancy deals, a light achiever: Imagination, earnest ever, Recalls the Friday far away, Relives the crucifixion day-- The passion and its sequel proves, Sharing the three pale Marys' frame; Thro' the eclipse with these she moves Back to the house from which they came To Golgotha. O empty room, O leaden heaviness of doom-- O cowering hearts, which sore beset Deem vain the promise now, and yet Invoke him who returns no call; And fears for more that may befall. O terror linked with love which cried "Art gone? is't o'er? and crucified?" Who might foretell from such dismay Of blank recoilings, all the blest Lilies and anthems which attest The floral Easter holiday?

4. Of the Crusaders

When sighting first the towers afar Which girt the object of the war And votive march--the Saviour's Tomb, What made the redeross knights so shy? And wherefore did they doff the plume And baldrick, kneel in dust, and sigh? Hardly it serves to quote Voltaire And say they were freebooters--hence, Incapable of awe or sense Pathetic; no, for man is heir To complex moods; and in that age Belief devout and bandit rage Frequent were joined; and e'en today At shrines on the Calabrian steep-- Not insincere while feelings sway-- The brigand halts to adore, to weep. Grant then the worst--is all romance Which claims that the crusader's glance Was blurred by tears?  But if that round Of disillusions which accrue In this our day, imply a ground For more concern than Tancred knew, Thinking, yet not as in despair, Of Christ who suffered for him there Upon the crag; then, own it true, Cause graver much than his is ours At least to check the hilarious heart Before these memorable towers. But wherefore this? such theme why start? Because if here in many a place The rhyme--much like the knight indeed-- Abjure brave ornament, 'twill plead Just reason, and appeal for grace.

5. Clarel

Upon the morrow's early morn Clarel is up, and seeks the Urn. Advancing towards the fane's old arch Of entrance--curved in sculptured stone, Dim and defaced, he saw thereon From rural Bethany the march Of Christ into another gate-- The golden and triumphal one, Upon Palm Morn. For porch to shrine On such a site, how fortunate That adaptation of design. Well might it please. He entered then. Strangers were there, of each degree, From Asian shores, with island men, Mild guests of the Epiphany. As when to win the Paschal joy And Nisan's festal month renew, The Nazarenes to temple drew, Even Joseph, Mary, and the BOY, Whose hand the mother's held; so here To later rites and altars dear, Domestic in devotion's flame Husbands with wives and children came. But he, the student, under dome Pauses; he stands before the Tomb. Through open door he sees the wicks Alight within, where six and six For Christ's apostles, night and day, Lamps, olden lamps do burn. In smoke Befogged they shed no vivid ray, But heat the cell and seem to choke. He marked, and revery took flight: "These burn not like those aspects bright Of starry watchers when they kept Vigil at napkined feet and head Of Him their Lord.--Nay, is He fled? Or tranced lies, tranced nor unbewept With Dorian gods? or, fresh and clear, A charm diffused throughout the sphere, Streams in the ray through yonder dome? Not hearsed He is. But hath ghost home Dispersed in soil, in sea, in air? False Pantheism, false though fair!" So he; and slack and aimless went, Nor might untwine the ravelment Of doubts perplexed. For easement there Halting awhile in pillared shade, A friar he marked, in robe of blue And round Greek cap of sable hue: Poor men he led; much haste he made, Nor sequence kept, but dragged them so Hither and thither, to and fro, To random places. Might it be That Clarel, who recoil did here, Shared but that shock of novelty Which makes some Protestants unglad First viewing the mysterious cheer In Peter's fane? Beheld he had, In Rome beneath the Lateran wall, The Scala Santa--watched the knees Of those ascending devotees, Who, absolution so to reap, Breathe a low prayer at every step. Nay, 'twas no novelty at all. Nor was it that his nature shrunk But from the curtness of the monk: Another influence made swerve And touched him in profounder nerve. He turned, and passing on enthralled, Won a still chapel; and one spake The name. Brief Scripture, here recalled, The context less obscure may make: 'Tis writ that in a garden's bound Our Lord was urned. On that green ground He reappeared, by Mary claimed. The place, or place alleged, is shown-- Arbors congealed to vaults of stone-- The Apparition's chapel named. This was the spot where now, in frame Hard to depict, the student came-- The spot where in the dawning gray, His pallor with night's tears bedewed, Restored the Second Adam stood-- Not as in Eden stood the First All ruddy. Yet, in leaves immersed And twilight of imperfect day, Christ seemed the gardener unto her Misjudging, who in womanhood Had sought him late in sepulchre Embowered, nor found. Here, votive here-- Here by the shrine that Clarel won-- A wreath shed odors. Scarce that cheer Warmed some poor Greeks recumbent thrown, Sore from late journeying far and near, To hallowed haunts without the town; So wearied, that no more they kneeled, But over night here laid them down, Matrons and children, yet unhealed Of ache. And each face was a book Of disappointment. "Why weep'st thou? Whom seekest?"--words, which chanceful now Recalled by Clarel, he applied To these before him; and he took, In way but little modified, Part to himself; then stood in dream Of all which yet might hap to them. He saw them spent, provided ill-- Pale, huddled in the pilgrim fleet, Back voyaging now to homes afar. Midnight, and rising tempests beat-- Such as St. Paul knew--furious war, To meet which, slender is the skill. The lamp that burnt upon the prow In wonted shrine, extinct is now-- Drowned out with Heaven's last feeble star. Panic ensues; their course is turned; Toward Tyre they drive--Tyre undiscerned: A coast of wrecks which warping bleach On wrecks of piers where eagles screech. How hopeful from their isles serene They sailed, and on such tender quest; Then, after toils that came between, They reembarked; and, tho' distressed, Grieved not, for Zion had been seen; Each wearing next the heart for charm Some priestly scrip in leaf of palm. But these, ah, these in Dawn's pale reign Asleep upon beach Tyrian! Or is it sleep? no, rest--that rest Which naught shall ruffle or molest. In gliding turn of dreams which mate He saw from forth Damascus' gate Tall Islam in her Mahmal go-- Elected camel, king of all, In mystic housings draped in flow, Silk fringed, with many a silver ball, Worked ciphers on the Koran's car And Sultan's cloth. He hears the jar Of janizaries armed, a throng Which drum barbaric, shout and gong Invest. And camels--robe and shawl Of riders which they bear along-- Each sheik a pagod on his tower, Crosslegged and dusky. Therewithal, In affluence of the opal hour, Curveting troops of Moslem peers And flash of scimeters and spears In groves of grassgreen pennons fair, (Like Feiran's palms in fanning air,) Wherefrom the crescent silvery soars. Then crowds pell-mell, a concourse wild, Convergings from Levantine shores; On foot, on donkeys; litters rare-- Whole families; twin panniers piled; Rich men and beggars--all beguiled To cheerful trust in Allah's care; Allah, toward whose prophet's urn And Holy City, fond they turn As forth in pilgrimage they fare. But long the way. And when they note, Ere yet they pass wide suburbs green, Some camp in field, nor far remote, Inviting, pastoral in scene; Some child shall leap, and trill in glee "Mecca, 'tis Mecca, mother--see!" Then first she thinks upon the waste Whither the Simoom maketh haste; Where baskets of the white ribbed dead Sift the fine sand, while dim ahead In long, long line, their way to tell, The bones of camels bleaching dwell, With skeletons but part interred-- Relics of men which friendless fell; Whose own hands, in last office, scooped Over their limbs the sand, but drooped: Worse than the desert of the Word, El Tih, the great, the terrible. Ere town and tomb shall greet the eye Many shall fall, nor few shall die Which, punctual at set of sun, Spread the worn prayer cloth on the sand, Turning them toward the Mecca stone, Their shadows ominously thrown Oblique against the mummy land. These pass; they fade. What next comes near? The tawny peasants--human wave Which rolls over India year by year, India, the spawning place and grave. The turbaned billow floods the plains, Rolling toward Brahma's rarer fanes-- His Compostel or brown Loret Where sin absolved, may grief forget. But numbers, plague struck, faint and sore, Drop livid on the flowery shore-- Arrested, with the locusts sleep, Or pass to muster where no man may peep. That vision waned. And, far afloat, From eras gone he caught the sound Of hordes from China's furthest moat, Crossing the Himalayan mound, To kneel at shrine or relic so Of Buddha, the Mongolian Fo Or Indian Saviour. What profound Impulsion makes these tribes to range? Stable in time's incessant change Now first he marks, now awed he heeds The inter-sympathy of creeds, Alien or hostile tho' they seem-- Exalted thought or groveling dream. The worn Greek matrons mark him there: Ah, young, our lassitude dost share? Home do thy pilgrim reveries stray? Art thou too, weary of the way?-- Yes, sympathies of Eve awake; Yet do but err. For how might break Upon those simple natures true, The complex passion? might they view The apprehension tempest tossed, The spirit in gulf of dizzying fable lost?

6. Tribes and Sects

He turned to go; he turned, but stood: In many notes of varying keys, From shrines like coves in Jordan's wood Hark to the rival liturgies, Which, rolling underneath the dome, Resound about the patient Tomb And penetrate the aisles. The rite Of Georgian and Maronite, Armenian and fervid Greek, The Latin organ, and wild clash Of cymbals smitten cheek to cheek Which the dark Abyssinian sways; These like to tides together dash And question of their purport raise.  If little of the words he knew, Might Clarel's fancy forge a clue? A malediction seemed each strain-- Himself the mark: O heart profane, O pilgrim infidel, begone! Nor here the sites of Faith pollute, Thou who misgivest we enthrone A God untrue, in myth absurd As monstrous figments blabbed of Jove, Or, worse, rank lies of Islam's herd: We know thee, thou there standing mute. Out, out--begone! try Nature's reign Who deem'st the supernature vain: To Lot's Wave by black Kedron rove; On, by Mount Seir, through Edom move; There crouch thee with the jackall down-- Crave solace of the scorpion!  'Twas fancy, troubled fancy weaved Those imputations half believed. The porch he neared; the chorus swelled; He went forth like a thing expelled.  Yet, going, he could but recall The wrangles here which oft befall: Contentions for each holy place, And jealousies how far from grace: O, bickering family bereft, Was feud the heritage He left?

7. Beyond the Walls

In street at hand a silence reigns Which Nature's hush of loneness feigns. Few casements, few, and latticed deep, High raised above the head below, That none might listen, pry, or peep, Or any hint or inkling know Of that strange innocence or sin Which locked itself so close within. The doors, recessed in massy walls, And far apart, as dingy were As Bastile gates. No shape astir Except at whiles a shadow falls Athwart the way, and key in hand Noiseless applies it, enters so And vanishes. By dry airs fanned, The languid hyssop waveth slow, Dusty, on stones by ruin rent. 'Twould seem indeed the accomplishment Whereof the greater prophet tells In truth's forecasting canticles Where voice of bridegroom, groom and bride Is hushed. Each silent wall and lane-- The city's towers in barren pride Which still a stifling air detain, So irked him, with his burden fraught, Timely the Jaffa Gate he sought, Thence issued, and at venture went Along a vague and houseless road Save narrow houses where abode The Turk in man's last tenement Inearthed. But them he heeded not, Such trance his reveries begot: "Christ lived a Jew: and in Judea May linger any breath of Him? If nay, yet surely it is here One best may learn if all be dim."  Sudden it came in random play "Here to Emmaus is the way;" And Luke's narration straight recurred, How the two falterers' hearts were stirred Meeting the Arisen (then unknown) And listening to his lucid word As here in place they traveled on. That scene, in Clarel's temper, bred A novel sympathy, which said-- I too, I too; could I but meet Some stranger of a lore replete, Who, marking how my looks betray The dumb thoughts clogging here my feet, Would question me, expound and prove, And make my heart to burn with love-- Emmaus were no dream today! He lifts his eyes, and, outlined there, Saw, as in answer to the prayer, A man who silent came and slow Just over the intervening brow Of a nigh slope. Nearer he drew Revealed against clear skies of blue; And--in that Syrian air of charm-- He seemed, illusion such was given, Emerging from the level heaven, And vested with its liquid calm. Scarce aged like time's wrinkled sons, But touched by chastenings of Eld, Which halloweth life's simpler ones; In wasted strength he seemed upheld Invisibly by faith serene-- Paul's evidence of things not seen. No staff he carried; but one hand A solitary Book retained. Meeting the student's, his mild eyes Fair greeting gave, in faint surprise. But, noting that untranquil face, Concern and anxiousness found place Beyond the occasion and surmise:  "Young friend in Christ, what thoughts molest That here ye droop so? Wanderest Without a guide where guide should be? Receive one, friend: the book--take ye.  From man to book in startled way The youth his eyes bent. Book how gray And weatherstained in woeful plight-- Much like that scroll left bare to blight, Which poet pale, when hope was low, Bade one who into Libya went, Fling to the wasteful element, Yes, leave it there, let wither so.  Ere Clarel ventured on reply Anew the stranger proffered it, And in such mode he might espy It was the page of--Holy Writ. Then unto him drew Clarel nigher: "Thou art?" "The sinner Nehemiah."

8. The Votary

Sinner?--So spake the saint, a man Long tarrying in Jewry's court. With him the faith so well could sort His home he'd left, nor turned again, His home by Narraganset's marge, Giving those years on death which verge Fondly to that enthusiast part Oft coming of a stricken heart Unselfish, which finds solace so. Though none in sooth might hope to know, And few surmise his forepast bane, Such needs have been; since seldom yet Lone liver was, or wanderer met, Except he closeted some pain Or memory thereof. But thence, May be, was given him deeper sense Of all that travail life can lend. Which man may scarce articulate Better than herds which share. What end? How hope? turn whither? where was gate For expectation, save the one Of beryl, pointed by St. John? That gate would open, yea, and Christ Thence issue, come unto His own, And earth be reimparadised. Passages, presages he knew: Zion restore, convert the Jew, Reseat him here, the waste bedew; Then Christ returneth: so it ran. No founded mission chartered him; Single in person as in plan, Absorbed he ranged, in method dim, A flitting tractdispensing man: Tracts in each text scribe ever proved In East which he of Tarsus roved. Though well such heart might sainthood claim, Unjust alloy to reverence came. In Smyrna's mart (sojourning there Waiting a ship for Joppa's stair) Pestered he passed thro' Gentile throngs Teased by an eddying urchin host, His tracts all fluttering like tongues The fireflakes of the Pentecost.  Deep read he was in seers devout, The which forecast Christ's second prime, And on his slate would cipher out The mystic days and dates sublime, And "Time and times and halfa time" Expound he could; and more reveal; Yet frequent would he feebly steal Close to one's side, asking, in way Of weary age--the hour of day. But how he lived, and what his fare, Ravens and angels, few beside, Dreamed or divined. His garments spare True marvel seemed, nor unallied To clothes worn by that wandering band Which ranged and ranged the desert sand With Moses; and for forty years, Which two score times reclad the spheres In green, and plumed the birds anew, One vesture wore. From home he brought The garb which still met sun and dew, Ashen in shade, by rustics wrought. Latin, Armenian, Greek, and Jew Full well the harmless vagrant kenned, The small meek face, the habit gray: In him they owned our human clay. The Turk went further: let him wend; Him Allah cares for, holy one: A Santon held him; and was none Bigot enough scorn's shaft to send. For, say what cynic will or can, Man sinless is revered by man Thro' all the forms which creeds may lend. And so, secure, nor pointed at, Among brave Turbans freely roamed the Hat.

9. Saint and Student

"Nay, take it, friend in Christ," and held The book in proffer new; the while His absent eyes of dreamy Eld Some floating vision did beguile (Of heaven perchance the wafted hem), As if in place of earthly wight A haze of spirits met his sight, And Clarel were but one of them. "Consult it, heart; wayfarer you, And this a friendly guide, the best; No ground there is that faith would view But here 'tis rendered with the rest; The way to fields of Beulah dear And New Jerusalem is here. "  "I know that guide," said Clarel, "yes;" And mused awhile in bitterness; Then turned and studied him again, Doubting and marveling. A strain Of trouble seamed the elder brow: "A pilgrim art thou? pilgrim thou?" Words simple, which in Clarel bred More than the simple saint divined; And, thinking of vocation fled, Himself he asked: or do I rave, Or have I left now far behind The student of the sacred lore? Direct he then this answer gave: "I am a traveler--no more."  "Come then with me, in peace we'll go; These ways of Salem well I know; Me let be guide whose guide is this," And held the Book in witness so, As 'twere a guide that could not miss: "Heart, come with me; all times I roam, Yea, everywhere my work I ply, In Salem's lanes, or down in gloom Of narrow glens which outer lie: Ever I find some passerby. But thee I'm sent to; share and rove, With me divide the scrip of love."  Despite the old man's shattered ray, Won by his mystic saintly way, Revering too his primal faith, And grateful for the human claim; And deeming he must know each path, And help him so in languid frame The student gave assent, and caught Dim solacement to previous thought.

10. Rambles

Days fleet. They rove the storied ground-- Tread many a site that rues the ban Where serial wrecks on wrecks confound Era and monument and man; Or rather, in stratifying way Bed and impact and overlay. The Hospitalers' cloisters shamed Crumble in ruin unreclaimed On shivered Fatimite palaces Reared upon crash of Herod's sway-- In turn built on the Maccabees, And on King David's glory, they; And David on antiquities Of Jebusites and Ornan's floor, And hunters' camps of ages long before. So Glenroy's tiers of beaches be-- Abandoned margins of the Glacial Sea. Amid that waste from joy debarred, How few the islets fresh and green; Yet on Moriah, tree and sward In Allah's courts park like were seen From roof near by; below, fierce ward Being kept by Mauritanian guard Of bigot blacks. But of the reign Of Christ did no memento live Save soil and ruin? Negative Seemed yielded in that crumbling fane, Erst gem to Baldwin's sacred fief, The chapel of our Dame of Grief. But hard by Ophel's winding base, Well watered by the runnel led, A spot they found, not lacking grace, Named Garden of King Solomon, Tho' now a cauliflowerbed To serve the kitchens of the town. One day as here they came from far, The saint repeated with low breath. "Adonijah, Adonijah-- The stumbling stone of Zoheleth." He wanders, Clarel thought--but no, For text and chapter did he show Narrating how the prince in glade,