Clarel — Part 4 — Canto 4

Quiet Agath, with a start, just thenShrieked out, abhorrent or in fright.Disturbed in its pernicious denAmid dry flints and shards of blight,A crabbed scorpion, dingy brown, 5With nervous tail slant upward thrown(Like to a snake's wroth neck and headDilating when the coil's unmadeBefore the poor affrighted clownWhose foot offends it unbeknown) 10Writhing, faint crackling, like wire spring,With anguish of the poisonous bileInflaming the slim duct, the whileIn act of shooting toward the sting;This, the unblest, small, evil thing, 15'Tis this they mark, wriggling in range,Fearless, and with ill menace, strangeIn such a minim.

Derwent rose,And Clarel; Vine and Rolfe remained 20At gaze; the soldier too and Druze.Cried Rolfe, while thus they stood enchained:"O small epitome of devil,Wert thou an ox couldst thou thus sway?No, disproportionate is evil 25In influence. Evil do I say?But speak not evil of the evil:Evil and good they braided playInto one cord."While they delay, 30The object vanished. Turning headToward the salt one, Derwent said:"The thing's not sweet; but why start so,My good man, you that frequent knowThe wonders of the deep?" He flushed, 35And in embarrassment kept dumb.But Rolfe here to the rescue pushed:"Men not deemed craven will succumbTo such an apparition. Why,Soldiers, that into battle marching 40Elastic pace with instep arching--Sailors (and he's a sailor nigh)Who out upon the jib-boom hie,At world's end, in the midnight gale,And wrestle with the thrashing sail, 45

The while the speared spar like a javelin fliesSlant up from thundering seas to skiesElectric:--these--I've known one startSeeing a spider run athwart!"

In common-place here lightly blew 50Across them through the desert airA whiff from pipe that Belex smoked:The Druze his sleek mare smooth bestroked,Then gave a sign. One parting viewAt Zion blurred, and on they fare. 55