Clarel — Part 1 — Canto 31

The hill above the garden hereThey rove; and chance ere long to meetA second stranger, keeping cheer

Apart. Trapper or pioneerHe looked, astray in Judah's seat-- 5Or one who might his business plyOn waters under tropic sky.Perceiving them as they drew near,He rose, removed his hat to greet,Disclosing so in shapely sphere 10A marble brow over face embrowned:So Sunium by her fane is crowned.One read his superscription clear--A genial heart, a brain austercAnd further, deemed that such a man 15Though given to study, as might seem,Was no scholastic partisanOr euphonist of Academe,But supplemented Plato's themeWith daedal life in boats and tents, 20A messmate of the elements;And yet, more bronzed in face than mind,Sensitive still and frankly kind--Too frank, too unreserved, may be,And indiscreet in honesty. 25But what implies the tinge of soil--Like tarnish on Pizarro's spoil,Precious in substance rudely wrought,Peruvian plate--which here is caught?What means this touch of the untoward 30In aspect hinting nothing froward?

From Baalbec, for a new sojourn,To Jewry Rolfe had made return;To Jewry's inexhausted shoreOf barrenness, where evermore 35Some lurking thing he hoped to gdill--Slip quite behind the parrot-loreConventional, and what attain?Struck by each clear or latent signExpressive in the stranger's air, 40The student glanced from him to Vine:

Peers, peers--yes, needs that these must pair.Clarel was young. In promise fine,To him here first were brought togetherExceptional natures, of a weather 45Strange as the tropics with strange trees,Strange birds, strange fishes, skies and seas,To one who in some meager landHis bread wins by the horny hand.What now may hap? what outcome new 50Elicited by contact true--Frank, cordial contact of the twain?Crude wonderment, and proved but vain.If average mortals social be,And yet but seldom truly meet, 55Closing like halves of apple sweet--How with the rarer in degree?The informal salutation done,Vine into his dumb castle went--Not as all parley he would shun, 60But looking down from battlement,Ready, if need were, to accordReception to the other's word,--Nay, far from wishing to decline,And neutral not without design, 65May be.--"Look, by Christ's belfry set,

Appears the Moslem minaret!"So--to fill trying pause alone--Cried Rolfe; and o'er the deep defile 70Of Kedron, pointed toward the TownWhere, thronged about by many a pileMonastic, but no vernal bower,The Saracen shaft and Norman towerIn truce stand guard beside that Dome 75Which canopies the Holy's home:"The tower looks lopped; it shows forlorn--A stunted oak whose crown is shornBut see, palm-like the minaret standsSuperior, and the tower commands." 80

"Yon shaft," said Clarel, "seems ill-placed.""Ay, seems; but 'tis for memory based.The story's known: how Omar thereAfter the town's surrender meek--Hallowed to him, as dear to Greek-- 85Clad in his clouts of camel's hair,And with the Patriarch robed and fineWalking beneath the dome divine,When came the Islam hour for prayerDeclined to use the carpet good 90Spread for him in the church, but stoodWithout, even yonder where is setThe monumental minaret;And, earnest in true suppliance cried,Smiting his chest: 'Me overrule! 95Allah, to me be merciful!''Twas little shared he victor-prideThough victor. So the church he savedOf purpose from that law engravedWhich prompt transferred to Allah sole 100Each fane where once his rite might roll.Long afterward, the town being stormedBy Christian knights, how ill conformedThe butchery then to Omar's prayerAnd heart magnanimous. But spare." 105

Response they looked; and thence he warmed:"Yon gray Cathedral of the Tomb,Who reared it first? a woman weak,A second Mary, first to seekIn pagan darkness which had come, 110The place where they had laid the Lord:Queen Helena, she traced the site,And cleared the ground, and made it brightWith all that zeal could then afford.But Constantinc--there falls the blight! 115The mother's warm emotional heart,Subserved it still the son's cold part?Even he who, timing well the tide,

Laced not the Cross upon Rome's flagSupreme, till Jove began to lag 120Behind the new religion's stride.And Helena--ah, may it beThe saint herself not quite was freeFrom that which in the years bygone,Made certain stately dames of France, 125Such as the fair De Maintenon,To string their rosaries of pearl,And found brave chapels--sweet romance:Coquetry of the borrowed curl?--You let me prate." 130"Nay, nay--go on,"Cried Clarel, yet in such a toneIt showed disturbance.--"Laud the dame:Her church, admit, no doom it fears. 135Unquelled by force of battering years--Years, years and sieges, sword and flame;Fallen--rebuilt, to fall anew;By armies shaken, earthquake too;Lo, it abides--if not the same, 140In self-same spot. Last time 'twas burntThe Rationalist a lesson learnt.But you know all."--"Nay, not the end,"

Said Vine. And Clarel, "We attend." 145"Well, on the morrow never shrunkFrom wonted rite the steadfast monk,Though hurt and even maimed were someBy crash of the ignited dome.Staunch stood the walls. As friars profess 150(And not in fraud) the central cell--Christ's tomb and faith's last citadel--The flames did tenderly caress,Nor harm; while smoking, smouldering beams,Fallen across, lent livid gleams 155To Golgotha. But none the lessIn robed procession of his God

The mitred one the cinders trod;Before the calcined altar thereThe host he raised; and hymn and prayer 160Went up from ashes. These, ere chill,Away were brushed; and trowel shrillAnd hod and hammer came in place.'Tis now some three score years ago."In Lima's first convulsion so, 165When shock on shock had left slim traceOf hundred temples; and--in moodOf malice dwelling on the faceItself has tortured and subduedTo uncomplaint--the cloud pitch-black 170Lowered o'er the rubbish; and the landNot less than sea, did countermandHer buried corses--heave them back;And flocks and men fled on the trackWhich wins the Andes; then went forth 175The prelate with intrepid trainRolling the anthem 'mid the rainOf ashes white. In rocking plainNew boundaries staked they, south and north,For ampler piles. These stand. In cheer 180The priest reclaimed the quaking sphere.Hold it he shall, so long as spinsThis star of tragedies, this orb of sins.""That," Clarel said, "is not my mind.Rome's priest forever rule the world?" 185"The priest, I said. Though some be hurledFrom anchor, nor a haven find;Not less religion's ancient port,Till the crack of doom, shall be resortIn stress of weather for mankind. 190Yea, long as children feel affrightIn darkness, men shall fear a God;And long as daisies yield delightShall see His footprints in the sod.Is't ignorance? This ignorant state 195Science doth but elucidate--

Deepen, enlarge. But though 'twere madeDemonstrable that God is not--What then? it would not change this lot:The ghost would haunt, nor could be laid." 200Intense he spake, his eyes of blueAltering, and to eerie hue,Like Tyrrhene seas when overcast;The which Vine noted, nor in joy,Inferring thence an ocean-waste 205Of earnestness without a buoy:An inference which afterwardAcquaintance led him to discardOr modify, or not employ.Clarel ill-relished. 210Rolfe, in toneHalf elegiac, thus went on:"Phyla, upon thy sacred groundOsiris' broken tomb is found:A god how good, whose good proved vain-- 215In strife with bullying Python slain.For long the ritual chant or moanOf pilgrims by that mystic stoneWent up, even much as now ascendThe liturgies of yearning prayer 220To one who met a kindred end--Christ, tombed in turn, and worshiped there,"

And pointed.--"Hint you," here asked Vine,"In Christ Osiris met declineAnew?"--"Nay, nay; and yet, past doubt, 225Strange is that text St. Matthew wonFrom gray Hosea in sentence: OutOf Egypt have I called my son. "Here Clarel spake, and with a stirNot all assured in eager plight: 230"But does not Matthew there referOnly to the return from flight,Flight into Egypt?"--"May be so,"Said Rolfe; "but then Hosea?--Nay,We'll let it pass."--And fell delay 235

Of talk; they mused.--"To Cicero,"Rolfe sudden said, "is a long wayFrom Matthew; yet somehow he comesTo mind here--he and his fine tomes, 240Which (change the gods) would serve to readFor modern essays. And indeedHis age was much like ours: doubt ran,Faith flagged; negations which sufficedLawyer, priest, statesman, gentleman, 245Not yet being popularly prized,The augurs hence retained some state--Which served for the illiterate.Still, the decline so swiftly ranFrom stage to stage, that To Believe, 250Except for slave or artisan,Seemed heresy. Even doubts which metHorror at first, grew obsolete,And in a decade. To bereaveOf founded trust in Sire Supreme, 255Was a vocation. Sophists throve--Each weaving his thin thread of dreamInto the shroud for Numa's Jove.Caesar his atheism avowedBefore the Senate. But why crowd 260Examples here: the gods were gone.Tully scarce dreamed they could be wonBack into credence; less that earthEver could know yet mightier birthOf deity. He died. Christ came. 265And, in due hour, that impious Rome,Emerging from vast wreck and shame,Held the fore front of Christendom.The inference? the lesson?--come:Let fools count on faith's closing knell-- 270Time, God, are inexhaustible.--But what? so earnest? ay, again.""Hard for a fountain to refrain,"Breathed Vine. Was that but irony?

At least no envy in the strain. 275Rolfe scarce remarked, or let go by.For Clarel--when ye, meeting, scanIn waste the Bagdad caravan,And solitude puts on the stir,Clamor, dust, din of Nineveh, 280As horsemen, camels, footmen all,Soldier and merchant, free and thrall,Pour by in tide processional;So to the novice streamed alongRolfe's filing thoughts, a wildering throng. 285Their sway he owned. And yet how Vine--Who breathed few words, or gave dumb sign--Him more allured, suggestive moreOf choicer treasure, rarer storeReserved, like Kidd's doubloons long sought 290Without the wand.The ball of thoughtAnd chain yet dragging, on they strainedOblique along the upland--slowAnd mute, until a point they gained 295Where devotees will pause, and knowA tenderness, may be. Here then,While tarry now these pilgrim men,The interval let be assignedA niche for image of a novel mind. 300