Clarel — Part 4 — Canto 34

Some leading thoroughfares of manIn wood-path, track, or trail began;Though threading heart of proudest town,They follow in controlling gradeA hint or dictate, nature's own, 5By man, as by the brute, obeyed.

Within Jerusalem a lane,Narrow, nor less an artery main(Though little knoweth it of din),In part suggests such origin. 10The restoration or repair,Successive through long ages there,Of city upon city tumbled,Might scarce divert that thoroughfare,Whose hill abideth yet unhumbled 15

Above the valley-side it meets.Pronounce its name, this natural street's:The Via Crucis--even the wayTradition claims to be the oneTrod on that Friday far away 20By Him our pure exemplar shown.

'Tis Whitsun-tide. From paths without,Through Stephen's gatc by many a veinConvergent brought within this lane,Ere sun-down shut the loiterer out-- 25As 'twere a frieze, behold the train!Bowed water-carriers; Jews with staves;Infirm gray monks; over-loaded slaves;Turk soldiers--young, with home-sick eyes;A Bey, bereaved through luxuries; 30Strangers and exiles; Moslem damesLong-veiled in monumental white,Dumb from the mounds which memory claims;A half-starved vagrant Edomite;Sore-footed Arab girls, which toil 35Depressed under heap of garden-spoil;The patient ass with panniered urn;Sour camels humped by heaven and man,Whose languid necks through habit turnFor easc for ease they hardly gain. 40In varied forms of fate they wend--

Or man or animal, 'tis one:Cross-bearers all, alike they tendAnd follow, slowly follow on.

But, lagging after, who is he 45Called early every hope to test,And now, at close of rarer quest,Finds so much more the heavier tree?From slopes whence even Echo's gone,Wending, he murmurs in low tone: 50"They wire the world--far under sea

They talk; but never comes to meA message from beneath the stone."

Dusked Olivet he leaves behind,And, taking now a slender wynd, 55Vanishes in the obscurer town.