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1891
Timoleon, Etc.: An online electronic text of the first edition (1891)
Herman Melville
Paul Royster (editor & depositor) University of Nebraska-Lincoln, [email protected]
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Melville, Herman and Royster, Paul (editor & depositor), "Timoleon, Etc.: An online electronic text of the first edition (1891)" (1891). Faculty Publications, UNL Libraries. 16. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libraryscience/16
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TIMOLEON
ETC.
NEW YORK THE CAXTON PRESS 1891
TO
C OPYRIGHT, 1891, BY MY COUNTRYMAN THE CAXTON PRESS ELIHU VEDDER
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
TIMOLEON, ...... 7 AFTER THE PLEASURE PARTY, . . 17 THE NIGHT MARCH, . . . . 26 THE RAVAGED VILLA, . . . . 26 THE MARGRAVE’S BIRTHNIGHT, . . 27 MAGIAN WINE, . . . . . 29 THE GARDEN OF METRODORUS, . . 30 THE NEW ZEALOT TO THE SUN, . . 30 THE WEAVER, . . . . . 32 LAMIA’S SONG, . . . . . 33 IN A GARRET, . . . . . 33 MONODY, ...... 34 LONE FOUNTS, . . . . . 34 THE BENCH OF BOORS, . . . . 35 THE ENTHUSIAST, . . . . 36 ART, ...... 37 BUDDHA, ...... 38 C _____’ S LAMENT, . . . . . 38 SHELLEY’S VISION, . . . . 39 FRAGMENTS OF A LOST GNOSTIC POEM OF THE 12TH CENTURY, . . . 40 THE MARCHIONESS OF BRINVILLIERS, . 41
vi. Contents.
THE AGE OF THE ANTONINES, . . 41 HERBA SANTA, . . . . . 43
FRUIT OF TRAVEL LONG AGO. VENICE, ...... 48
IN A BYE CANAL, . . . . . 48
PISA’S LEANING TOWER, . . . . 50 TIMOLEON. IN A CHURCH OF PADUA, . . . 51 MILAN CATHEDRAL, . . . . 52 (394 B. C.) PAUSILIPPO, . . . . . 53 THE ATTIC LANDSCAPE, . . . . 57 I. THE SAME, ...... 57 F more than once, as annals tell, THE PARTHENON, . . . . . 58 I Through blood without compunction spilt, GREEK MASONRY, . . . . 60 An egotist arch rule has snatched, GREEK ARCHITECTURE, . . . . 60 And stamped the seizure with his sabre’s hilt, OFF CAPE COLONNA, . . . . 60 And, legalised by lawyers, stood ; Shall the good heart whose patriot fire THE ARCHIPELAGO, . . . . 61 Leaps to a deed of startling note, SYRA, ...... 62 Do it, then flinch ? Shall good in weak expire ? DISINTERMENT OF THE HERMES, . . 65 Needs goodness lack the evil grit, THE APPARITION, . . . . 66 That stares down censorship and ban, IN THE DESERT, . . . . . 67 And dumfounds saintlier ones with this— THE GREAT PYRAMID, . . . . 68 God’s will avouched in each successful man ? L‘ ENVOI. Or, put it, where dread stress inspires A virtue beyond man’s standard rate, THE RETURN OF THE SIRE DE NESLE, . 70 Seems virtue there a strain forbid—
8 Timoleon. Timoleon. 9
Transcendence such as shares transgression’s fate ? Warding his brother from the field If so, and wan eclipse ensue, Spite failing friends dispersed and rallying foes. Yet glory await emergence won, Here might he rest, in claim rest here, Is that high Providence, or Chance ? Rest, and a Phidian form remain ; And proved it which with thee, Timoleon ? But life halts never, life must on, O, crowned with laurel twined with thorn, And take with term prolonged some scar or stain. Not rash thy life’s cross-tide I stem, Yes, life must on. And latent germs But reck the problem rolled in pang Time’s seasons wake in mead and man ; And reach and dare to touch thy garment’s hem. And brothers, playfellows in youth, Develop into variance wide in span.
II. III. When Argos and Cleone strove Against free Corinth’s claim or right, Timophanes was his mother’s pride— Two brothers battled for her well : Her pride, her pet, even all to her A footman one, and one a mounted knight. Who slackly on Timoleon looked : Apart in place, each braved the brunt Scarce he (she mused) may proud affection stir. Till the rash cavalryman, alone, He saved my darling, gossips tell : Was wrecked against the enemy’s files, If so, ’twas service, yea, and fair ; His bayard crippled and he maimed and thrown. But instinct ruled and duty bade, Timoleon, at Timophanes’ need, In service such, a henchman e’en might share. Makes for the rescue through the fray, When boys they were I helped the bent ; Covers him with his shield, and takes I made the junior feel his place, The darts and furious odds and fights at bay ; Subserve the senior, love him, too ; Till, wrought to palor of passion dumb, And sooth he does, and that’s his saving grace. Stark terrors of death around he throws, But me the meek one never can serve,
10 Timoleon. Timoleon. 11
Not he, he lacks the quality keen Devotion one with ties how dear To make the mother through the son And passion that late to make the rescue ran. An envied dame of power, a social queen. But crime and kin—the terrorized town, But thou, my first-born, thou art I The silent, acquiescent mother— In sex translated ; joyed, I scan Revulsion racks the filial heart, My features, mine, expressed in thee ; The loyal son, the patriot true, the brother. Thou art what I would be were I a man. In evil visions of the night My brave Timophanes, ’tis thou He sees the lictors of the gods, Who yet the world’s fore-front shalt win, Giant ministers of righteousness, For thine the urgent resolute way, Their fasces threatened by the Furies’ rods. Self pushing panoplied self through thick and But undeterred he wills to act, thin. Resolved thereon though Ate rise ; Nor here maternal insight erred : He heeds the voice whose mandate calls, Foresworn, with heart that did not wince Or seems to call, peremptory from the skies. At slaying men who kept their vows, Her darling strides to power, and reigns—a Prince. V. Nor less but by approaches mild, And trying each prudential art, IV. The just one first advances him Because of just heart and humane, In parley with a flushed intemperate heart. Profound the hate Timoleon knew The brother first he seeks—alone, For crimes of pride and men-of-prey And pleads ; but is with laughter met ; And impious deeds that perjurous upstarts do ; Then comes he, in accord with two, And Corinth loved he, and in way And these adjure the tyrant and beset ; Old Scotia’s clansman loved his clan, Whose merriment gives place to rage :
12 Timoleon. Timoleon. 13
“Go,” stamping, “what to me is Right ? Within perturbed Timoleon here I am the Wrong, and lo, I reign, Such deeps were bared as when the sea And testily intolerant too in might :” Convulsed, vacates its shoreward bed, And glooms on his mute brother pale, And Nature’s last reserves show nakedly. Who goes aside ; with muffled face He falters, and from Hades’ glens He sobs the predetermined word, By night insidious tones implore— And Right in Corinth reassumes its place. Why suffer ? hither come and be What Phocion is who feeleth man no more. But, won from that, his mood elects VI. To live—to live in wilding place ; But on his robe, ah, whose the blood ? For years self-outcast, he but meets And craven ones their eyes avert, In shades his playfellow’s reproachful face. And heavy is a mother’s ban, Estranged through one transcendent deed And dismal faces of the fools can hurt. From common membership in mart, The whispering-gallery of the world, In severance he is like a head Where each breathed slur runs wheeling wide Pale after battle trunkless found apart. Eddies a false perverted truth, Inveterate turning still on fratricide. The time was Plato’s. Wandering lights VII. Confirmed the atheist’s standing star ; But flood-tide comes though long the ebb, As now, no sanction Virtue knew Nor patience bides with passion long ; For deeds that on prescriptive morals jar. Like sightless orbs his thoughts are rolled Reaction took misgiving’s tone, Arraigning heaven as compromised in wrong : Infecting conscience, till betrayed To second causes why appeal ? To doubt the irrevocable doom Vain parleying here with fellow clods. Herself had authorised when undismayed. To you, Arch Principals, I rear
14 Timoleon. Timoleon. 15
My quarrel, for this quarrel is with gods. Corinth recalls Timoleon—ay, Shall just men long to quit your world ? And plumes him forth, but yet with schooling It is aspersion of your reign ; phrase. Your marbles in the temple stand— On Sicily's fields, through arduous wars, Yourselves as stony and invoked in vain ? A peace he won whose rainbow spanned Ah, bear with one quite overborne, The isle redeemed ; and he was hailed Olympians, if he chide ye now ; Deliverer of that fair colonial land. Magnanimous be even though he rail And Corinth clapt : Absolved, and more ! And hard against ye set the bleaching brow. Justice in long arrears is thine : If conscience doubt, she’ll next recant. Not slayer of thy brother, no, What basis then ? O, tell at last, But savior of the state, Jove's soldier, man Are earnest natures staggering here divine. But fatherless shadows from no substance cast ? Eager for thee thy City waits : Yea, are ye, gods ? Then ye, ’tis ye Return ! with bays we dress your door. Should show what touch of tie ye may, But he, the Isle's loved guest, reposed, Since ye, too, if not wrung are wronged And never for Corinth left the adopted shore. By grievous misconceptions of your sway. But deign, some little sign be given— Low thunder in your tranquil skies ; Me reassure, nor let me be Like a lone dog that for a master cries.
VIII. Men’s moods, as frames, must yield to years, And turns the world in fickle ways ;
AFTER THE PLEASURE PARTY.
After the Pleasure Party. 19
EHIND the house the upland falls LINES TRACED B With many an odorous tree— UNDER AN IMAGE OF White marbles gleaming through green halls, AMOR THREATENING. Terrace by terrace, down and down, And meets the starlit Mediterranean Sea.
Fear me, virgin whosoever ’Tis Paradise. In such an hour Taking pride from love exempt, Some pangs that rend might take release. Fear me, slighted. Never, never Nor less perturbed who keeps this bower Brave me, nor my fury tempt : Of balm, nor finds balsamic peace ? Downy wings, but wroth they beat From whom the passionate words in vent Tempest even in reason’s seat. After long reverie’s discontent ?
Tired of the homeless deep,
Look how their flight yon hurrying billows urge, Hitherward but to reap Passive repulse from the iron-bound verge ! Insensate, can they never know ’Tis mad to wreck the impulsion so ?
An art of memory is, they tell : But to forget ! forget the glade Wherein Fate sprung Love’s ambuscade,
20 After the Pleasure Party. After the Pleasure Party. 21
To flout pale years of cloistral life Starred Cassiopea in Golden Chair. And flush me in this sensuous strife. In dream I throned me, nor I saw ’Tis Vesta struck with Sappho’s smart. In cell the idiot crowned with straw. No fable her delirious leap : With more of cause in desperate heart, And yet, ah yet scarce ill I reigned, Myself could take it—but to sleep ! Through self-illusion self-sustained, When now—enlightened, undeceived— Now first I feel, what all may ween, What gain I barrenly bereaved ! That soon or late, if faded e’en, Than this can be yet lower decline— One’s sex asserts itself. Desire, Envy and spleen, can these be mine ? The dear desire through love to sway, Is like the Geysers that aspire— The peasant girl demure that trod Through cold obstruction win their fervid way. Beside our wheels that climbed the way, But baffied here—to take disdain, And bore along a blossoming rod To feel rule’s instinct, yet not reign ; That looked the sceptre of May-Day— To dote, to come to this drear shame— On her—to fire this petty hell, Hence the winged blaze that sweeps my soul His softened glance how moistly fell ! Like prairie fires that spurn control, The cheat ! on briars her buds were strung ; Where withering weeds incense the flame. And wiles peeped forth from mien how meek. The innocent bare-foot ! young, so young ! And kept I long heaven’s watch for this, To girls, strong man’s a novice weak. Contemning love, for this, even this ? To tell such beads ! And more remain, O terrace chill in Northern air, Sad rosary of belittling pain. O reaching ranging tube I placed Against yon skies, and fable chased When after lunch and sallies gay Till, fool, I hailed for sister there Like the Decameron folk we lay
22 After the Pleasure Party. After the Pleasure Party. 23
In sylvan groups ; and I———let be ! Few matching halves here meet and mate. O, dreams he, can he dream that one What Cosmic jest or Anarch blunder Because not roseate feels no sun ? The human integral clove asunder The plain lone bramble thrills with Spring And shied the fractions through life’s gate ? As much as vines that grapes shall bring. Ye stars that long your votary knew Me now fair studies charm no more. Rapt in her vigil, see me here ! Shall great thoughts writ, or high themes sung Whither is gone the spell ye threw Damask wan cheeks—unlock his arm When rose before me Cassiopea ? About some radiant ninny flung ? Usurped on by love’s stronger reign— How glad with all my starry lore, But lo, your very selves do wane : I’d buy the veriest wanton’s rose Light breaks—truth breaks ! Silvered no more, Would but my bee therein repose. But chilled by dawn that brings the gale Shivers yon bramble above the vale, Could I remake me ! or set free And disillusion opens all the shore. This sexless bound in sex, then plunge Deeper than Sappho, in a lunge Piercing Pan’s paramount mystery ! One knows not if Urania yet For, Nature, in no shallow surge The pleasure-party may forget ; Against thee either sex may urge, Or whether she lived down the strain Why hast thou made us but in halves— Of turbulent heart and rebel brain ; Co-relatives ? This makes us slaves. For Amor so resents a slight, If these co-relatives never meet And her’s had been such haught disdain, Self-hood itself seems incomplete. He long may wreak his boyish spite, And such the dicing of blind fate And boy-like, little reck the pain.
24 After the Pleasure Party. After the Pleasure Party. 25
One knows not, no. But late in Rome O self-reliant, strong and free, (For queens discrowned a congruous home) Thou in whom power and peace unite, Entering Albani’s porch she stood Transcender ! raise me up to thee, Fixed by an antique pagan stone Raise me and arm me ! Colossal carved. No anchorite seer, Not Thomas a Kempis, monk austere, Fond appeal. Religious more are in their tone ; For never passion peace shall bring, Yet far, how far from Christian heart Nor Art inanimate for long That form august of heathen Art. Inspire. Nothing may help or heal Swayed by its influence, long she stood, While Amor incensed remembers wrong. Till surged emotion seething down, Vindictive, not himself he’ll spare ; She rallied and this mood she won : For scope to give his vengeance play Himself he’ll blaspheme and betray. Languid in frame for me, To-day by Mary’s convent shrine, Then for Urania, virgins everywhere, Touched by her picture’s moving plea O pray ! Example take too, and have care. In that poor nerveless hour of mine, I mused—A wanderer still must grieve. Half I resolved to kneel and believe, Believe and submit, the veil take on. But thee, armed Virgin ! less benign, Thee now I invoke, thou mightier one. Helmeted woman—if such term Befit thee, far from strife Of that which makes the sexual feud And clogs the aspirant life—
26 The Night-March.
THE NIGHT-MARCH. ITH banners furled, and clarions mute, W An army passes in the night ; And beaming spears and helms salute The dark with bright. THE MARGRAVE’S BIRTHNIGHT.
In silence deep the legions stream, P from many a sheeted valley, With open ranks, in order true ; U From white woods as well, Over boundless plains they stream and gleam— Down too from each fleecy upland No chief in view ! Jingles many a bell
Afar, in twinkling distance lost, Jovial on the work-sad horses (So legends tell) he lonely wends Hitched to runners old And back through all that shining host Of the toil-worn peasants sledging His mandate sends. Under sheepskins in the cold ;
THE RAVAGED VILLA. Till from every quarter gathered Meet they on one ledge, N shards the sylvan vases lie, There from hoods they brush the snow off Their links of dance undone, I Lighting from each sledge And brambles wither by thy brim,
Choked fountain of the sun ! Full before the Margrave’s castle, The spider in the laurel spins, Summoned there to cheer The weed exiles the flower : On his birth-night, in mid-winter, And, flung to kiln, Apollo’s bust Kept year after year. Makes lime for Mammon’s tower.
28 The Margrave’s Birthnight. Magian Wine. 29
O the hall, and O the holly ! Tacit as the plough-horse feeding Tables line each wall ; In the palfrey’s stall. Guests as holly-berries plenty, But—no host withal ! Ah, enough for toil and travail, If but for a night May his people feast contented Into wine is turned the water, While at head of board Black bread into white. Empty throne and vacant cover Speak the absent lord ?
Minstrels enter. And the stewards Serve the guests ; and when, Passing there the vacant cover, MAGIAN WINE. Functionally then MULETS gemmed, to Miriam dear, Old observance grave they offer ; A Adown in liquid mirage gleam ; But no Margrave fair, Solomon’s Syrian charms appear, In his living aspect gracious, Opal and ring supreme. Sits responsive there ; The rays that light this Magian Wine Thrill up from semblances divine. No, and never guest once marvels, None the good lord name, And, seething through the rapturous wave, Scarce they mark void throne and cover— What low Elysian anthems rise : Dust upon the same. Sibylline inklings blending rave, Then lap the verge with sighs. Mindless as to what importeth Delirious here the oracles swim Absence such in hall ; Ambiguous in the beading hymn.
30 The Garden of Metrodorus. The New Zealot to the Sun. 31
THE Arch type of sway, Meetly your over-ruling ray GARDEN OF METRODORUS. You fling from Asia’s plain, HE Athenians mark the moss-grown gate Whence flashed the javelins abroad T And hedge untrimmed that hides the Of many a wild incursive horde haven green : Led by some shepherd Cain. And who keeps here his quiet state ? And shares he sad or happy fate Mid terrors dinned Where never foot-path to the gate is seen ? Gods too came conquerors from your Ind, The brood of Brahma throve ; Here none come forth, here none go in, They came like to the scythed car, Here silence strange, and dumb seclusion dwell : Westward they rolled their empire far, Content from loneness who may win ? Of night their purple wove. And is this stillness peace or sin Which noteless thus apart can keep its dell ? Chemist, you breed In orient climes each sorcerous weed That energizes dream— Transmitted, spread in myths and creeds, THE NEW ZEALOT TO THE SUN. Houris and hells, delirious screeds And Calvin’s last extreme.
ERSIAN, you rise What though your light Aflame from climes of sacrifice P In time’s first dawn compelled the flight Where adulators sue, Of Chaos’ startled clan, And prostrate man, with brow abased, Shall never all your darted spears Adheres to rites whose tenor traced Disperse worse Anarchs, frauds and fears, All worship hitherto. Sprung from these weeds to man ?
32 The Weaver. Lamia’s Song. 33
But Science yet An effluence ampler shall beget, LAMIA’S SONG. And power beyond your play— Shall quell the shades you fail to rout, ESCEND, descend ! Yea, searching every secret out D Pleasant the downward way— Elucidate your ray. From your lonely Alp With the wintry scalp To our myrtles in valleys of May. Wend then, wend : Mountaineer, descend ! THE WEAVER. And more than a wreath shall repay. Come, ah come ! OR years within a mud-built room With the cataracts come, F For Arva’s shrine he weaves the shawl, That hymn as they roam Lone wight, and at a lonely loom, How pleasant the downward way ! His busy shadow on the wall.
The face is pinched, the form is bent, No pastime knows he nor the wine, IN A GARRET. Recluse he lives and abstinent Who weaves for Arva’s shrine. EMS and jewels let them heap— G Wax sumptuous as the Sophi : For me, to grapple from Art’s deep One dripping trophy !
34 Monody. The Bench of Boors. 35
MONODY. Stand where the Ancients stood before, And, dipping in lone founts thy hand, O have known him, to have loved him Drink of the never-varying lore : T After loneness long ; Wise once, and wise thence evermore. And then to be estranged in life, And neither in the wrong ; THE BENCH OF BOORS. And now for death to set his seal— N bed I muse on Tenier’s boors, Ease me, a little ease, my song ! Embrowned and beery losels all : I A wakeful brain By wintry hills his hermit-mound Elaborates pain : The sheeted snow-drifts drape, Within low doors the slugs of boors And houseless there the snow-bird flits Laze and yawn and doze again. Beneath the fir-trees’ crape : Glazed now with ice the cloistral vine In dreams they doze, the drowsy boors, That hid the shyest grape. Their hazy hovel warm and small : Thought’s ampler bound But chill is found : Within low doors the basking boors LONE FOUNTS. Snugly hug the ember-mound.
Sleepless, I see the slumberous boors HOUGH fast youth’s glorious fable flies, Their blurred eyes blink, their eyelids fall : View not the world with worldling’s eyes ; T Thought’s eager sight Nor turn with weather of the time. Aches—overbright ! Foreclose the coming of surprise : Within low doors the boozy boors Stand where Posterity shall stand ; Cat-naps take in pipe-bowl light.
36 The Enthusiast. Art. 37
THE ENTHUSIAST. Nor cringe if come the night : Walk through the cloud to meet the pall, “Though He slay me Though light forsake thee, never fall yet will I trust in Him.” From fealty to light. HALL hearts that beat no base retreat S In youth’s magnanimous years— Ignoble hold it, if discreet When interest tames to fears ; Shall spirits that worship light ART. Perfidious deem its sacred glow, Recant, and trudge where worldlings go, N placid hours well-pleased we dream Conform and own them right ? I Of many a brave unbodied scheme. But form to lend, pulsed life create, Shall Time with creeping influence cold What unlike things must meet and mate : Unnerve and cow ? the heart A flame to melt—a wind to freeze ; Pine for the heartless ones enrolled Sad patience—joyous energies ; With palterers of the mart ? Humility—yet pride and scorn ; Shall faith abjure her skies, Instinct and study ; love and hate ; Or pale probation blench her down Audacity—reverence. These must mate, To shrink from Truth so still, so lone And fuse with Jacob’s mystic heart, Mid loud gregarious lies ? To wrestle with the angel—Art.
Each burning boat in Cæsar’s rear, Flames—No return through me ! So put the torch to ties though dear, If ties but tempters be.
38 Buddha. Shelley’s Vision. 39
BUDDHA. And nothing then but had its worth, Even pain. Yes, pleasure still and pain “For what is your life ? It is In quick reaction made of life even a vapor that appeareth for a A lovers’ quarrel, happy strife little time and then vanisheth away.” In youth that never comes again. WOONING swim to less and less S Aspirant to nothingness ! But will youth never come again ? Sobs of the worlds, and dole of kinds Even to his grave-bed has he gone, That dumb endurers be— And left me lone to wake by night Nirvana ! absorb us in your skies, With heavy heart that erst was light ? Annul us into thee. O, lay it at his head—a stone !
SHELLEY’S VISION. C______’S LAMENT. ANDERING late by morning seas When my heart with pain was low— OW lovely was the light of heaven, W Hate the censor pelted me— What angels leaned from out the sky H Deject I saw my shadow go. In years when youth was more than wine And man and nature seemed divine In elf-caprice of bitter tone Ere yet I felt that youth must die. I too would pelt the pelted one : At my shadow I cast a stone. Ere yet I felt that youth must die How insubstantial looked the earth, When lo, upon that sun-lit ground Aladdin-land ! in each advance, I saw the quivering phantom take Or here or there, a new romance ; The likeness of St Stephen crowned : I never dreamed would come a dearth. Then did self-reverence awake.
40 Fragments of a Lost Gnostic Poem, etc. The Marchioness of Brinvilliers. 41
THE MARCHIONESS OF BRIN- FRAGMENTS OF A LOST VILLIERS. GNOSTIC POEM E toned the sprightly beam of morning OF THE 12TH CENTURY. H With twilight meek of tender eve, Brightness interfused with softness, * * * * Light and shade did weave : And gave to candor equal place OUND a family, build a state, With mystery starred in open skies ; F The pledged event is still the same : And, floating all in sweetness, made Matter in end will never abate Her fathomless mild eyes. His ancient brutal claim.
THE AGE OF THE ANTONINES. * * * * HILE faith forecasts millenial years Indolence is heaven’s ally here, W Spite Europe’s embattled lines, And energy the child of hell : Back to the Past one glance be cast— The Good Man pouring from his pitcher clear The Age of the Antonines ! But brims the poisoned well. O summit of fate, O zenith of time When a pagan gentleman reigned, And the olive was nailed to the inn of the world Nor the peace of the just was feigned. A halcyon Age, afar it shines, Solstice of Man and the Antonines.
42 The Age of The Antonines
Hymns to the nations’ friendly gods HERBA SANTA. Went up from the fellowly shrines, No demagogue beat the pulpit-drum I. In the Age of the Antonines ! The sting was not dreamed to be taken from FTER long wars when comes release death, A Not olive wands proclaiming peace No Paradise pledged or sought, An import dearer share But they reasoned of fate at the flowing feast, Than stems of Herba Santa hazed Nor stifled the fluent thought. In autumn’s Indian air. We sham, we shuffle while faith declines— Of moods they breathe that care disarm, They were frank in the Age of the Antonines. They pledge us lenitive and calm.
II. Orders and ranks they kept degree, Few felt how the parvenu pines, Shall code or creed a lure afford No law-maker took the lawless one’s fee To win all selves to Love’s accord ? In the Age of the Antonines ! When Love ordained a supper divine Under law made will the world reposed For the wide world of man, And the ruler’s right confessed, What bickerings o’er his gracious wine ! For the heavens elected the Emperor then, Then strange new feuds began. The foremost of men the best. Ah, might we read in America’s signs Effectual more in lowlier way, The Age restored of the Antonines. Pacific Herb, thy sensuous plea The bristling clans of Adam sway At least to fellowship in thee !
44 Herba Santa. Herba Santa. 45
Before thine altar tribal flags are furled, Even ruffians feel thy influence breed Fain woulds’t thou make one hearthstone of Saint Martin’s summer in the mind, the world. They feel this last evangel plead, As did the first, apart from creed, III. Be peaceful, man—be kind !
To scythe, to sceptre, pen and hod— V. Yea, sodden laborers dumb ; To brains overplied, to feet that plod, Rejected once on higher plane, In solace of the Truce of God O Love supreme, to come again The Calumet has come ! Can this be thine ? Again to come, and win us too IV. In likeness of a weed That as a god didst vainly woo, Ah for the world ere Raleigh’s find As man more vainly bleed ? Never that knew this suasive balm That helps when Gilead’s fails to heal, VI. Helps by an interserted charm. Forbear, my soul ! and in thine Eastern Insinuous thou that through the nerve chamber Windest the soul, and so canst win Rehearse the dream that brings the long Some from repinings, some from sin, release : The Church’s aim that dost subserve. Through jasmine sweet and talismanic amber
Inhaling Herba Santa in the passive Pipe of The ruffled fag fordone with care Peace. And brooding, Gold would ease this pain :
Him soothest thou and smoothest down
Till some content return again.
FRUIT OF TRAVEL LONG AGO.
In a Bye-Canal. 49
VENICE. A languid impulse from the oar Plied by my indolent gondolier ITH Pantheist energy of will Tinkles against a palace hoar, W The little craftsman of the Coral Sea And, hark, response I hear ! Strenuous in the blue abyss, A lattice clicks ; and lo, I see Up-builds his marvelous gallery Between the slats, mute summoning me, And long arcade, What loveliest eyes of scintillation, Erections freaked with many a fringe What basilisk glance of conjuration ! Of marble garlandry, Evincing what a worm can do. Fronted I have, part taken the span Of portents in nature and peril in man. Laborious in a shallower wave, I have swum—I have been Advanced in kindred art, Twixt the whale’s black flukes and the white A prouder agent proved Pan’s might shark’s fin ; When Venice rose in reefs of palaces. The enemy’s desert have wandered in, And there have turned, have turned and scanned, Following me how noiselessly, IN A BYE-CANAL. Envy and Slander, lepers hand in hand. All this. But at the latticed eye— SWOON of noon, a trance of tide “Hey ! Gondolier, you sleep, my man ; A The hushed siesta brooding wide Wake up !” And, shooting by, we ran ; Like calms far off Peru ; The while I mused, This, surely now, No floating wayfarer in sight, Confutes the Naturalists, allow ! Dumb noon, and haunted like the night Sirens, true sirens verily be, When Jael the wiled one slew. Sirens, waylayers in the sea.
50 Pisa’s Leaning Tower. In a Church of Padua. 51
Well, wooed by these same deadly misses, Is it shame to run ? No ! flee them did divine Ulysses, Brave, wise, and Venus’ son. IN A CHURCH OF PADUA.
N vaulted place where shadows flit, PISA’S LEANING TOWER. I An upright sombre box you see : A door, but fast, and lattice none, HE Tower in tiers of architraves, But punctured holes minutely small T Fair circle over cirque, In lateral silver panel square A trunk of rounded colonades, Above a kneeling-board without, The maker’s master-work, Suggest an aim if not declare. Impends with all its pillared tribes, And, poising them, debates : Who bendeth here the tremulous knee It thinks to plunge—but hesitates ; No glimpse may get of him within, Shrinks back—yet fain would slide ; And he immured may hardly see Withholds itself—itself would urge ; The soul confessing there the sin ; Hovering, shivering on the verge, Nor yields the low-sieved voice a tone A would-be suicide ! Whereby the murmurer may be known.
Dread diving-bell ! In thee inurned What hollows the priest must sound, Descending into consciences Where more is hid than found.
52 Milan Cathedral. Pausilippo. 53
PAUSILIPPO.
MILAN CATHEDRAL. (In the time of Bomba.)
HROUGH light green haze, a rolling sea HILL there is that laves its feet T Over gardens where redundance flows, A In Naples’ bay and lifts its head The fat old plain of Lombardy, In jovial season, curled with vines. The White Cathedral shows. Its name, in pristine years conferred By settling Greeks, imports that none Who take the prospect thence can pine, Of Art the miracles For such the charm of beauty shown Its tribes of pinnacles Even sorrow’s self they cheerful weened Gleam like to ice-peaks snowed ; and higher, Surcease might find and thank good Pan. Erect upon each airy spire In concourse without end, Toward that hill my landau drew ; Statues of saints over saints ascend And there, hard by the verge, was seen Like multitudinous forks of fire. Two faces with such meaning fraught One scarce could mark and straight pass on.
What motive was the master-builder’s here ? A man it was less hoar with time Why these synodic hierarchies given, Than bleached through strange immurement long, Sublimely ranked in marble sessions clear, Retaining still, by doom depressed, Except to signify the host of heaven. Dim trace of some aspiring prime.
54 Pausilippo. Pausilippo. 55
Seated he tuned a homely harp But only thrilled the wire—no more, Watched by a girl, whose filial mien The constant maid supplying voice, Toward one almost a child again, Hinting by no ineloquent sign Took on a staid maternal tone. That she was but his mouth-piece mere, Nor might one question that the locks Himself too spiritless and spent. Which in smoothed natural silvery curls Fell on the bowed one’s thread-bare coat Betrayed her ministering hand. Pausilippo, Pausilippo, Anon, among some ramblers drawn Pledging easement unto pain, A murmur rose “Tis Silvio, Silvio !” Shall your beauty even solace With inklings more in tone suppressed If one’s sense of beauty wane ? Touching his story, part recalled : Clandestine arrest abrupt by night ; Could light airs that round ye play The sole conjecturable cause Waft heart-heaviness away The yearning in a patriot ode Or memory lull to sleep, Construed as treason ; trial none ; Then, then indeed your balm Prolonged captivity profound ; Might Silvio becharm, Vain liberation late. All this, And life in fount would leap, With pity for impoverishment Pausilippo ! And blight forestalling age’s wane. Did not your spell invite, Hillward the quelled enthusiast turned, In moods that slip between, Unmanned, made meek through strenuous wrong, A dream of years serene, Preluding, faltering ; then began, And wake, to dash, delight—
56 Pausilippo. The Attic Landscape. 57
Evoking here in vision THE ATTIC LANDSCAPE. Fulfilment and fruition— Nor mine, nor meant for man ! OURIST, spare the avid glance Did hope not frequent share T That greedy roves the sight to see : The mirage when despair Little here of “Old Romance,” Overtakes the caravan, Or Picturesque of Tivoli. Me then your scene might move To break from sorrow’s snare, No flushful tint the sense to warm— And apt your name would prove, Pure outline pale, a linear charm. Pausilippo ! The clear-cut hills carved temples face, Respond, and share their sculptural grace. But I’ve looked upon your revel— It unravels not the pain : ‘Tis Art and Nature lodged together, Pausilippo, Pausilippo, Sister by sister, cheek to cheek ; Named benignly if in vain ! Such Art, such Nature, and such weather, The All-in-All seems here a Greek.
It ceased. In low and languid tone The tideless ripple lapped the passive shore ; THE SAME. As listlessly the bland untroubled heaven Looked down as silver doled was silent given CIRCUMAMBIENT spell it is, In pity—futile as the ore ! A Pellucid on these scenes that waits, Repose that does of Plato tell— Charm that his style authenticates.
58 The Parthenon. The Parthenon. 59
THE PARTHENON. III. The Frieze. I. What happy musings genial went Seen aloft from afar. With airiest touch the chisel lent STRANGED in site, To frisk and curvet light E Aerial gleaming, warmly white, Of horses gay—their riders grave— You look a suncloud motionless Contrasting so in action brave In noon of day divine ; With virgins meekly bright, Your beauty charmed enhancement takes Clear filing on in even tone In Art’s long after-shine. With pitcher each, one after one Like water-fowl in flight. II.
Nearer viewed. IV. Like Lais, fairest of her kind, The Last Tile. In subtlety your form’s defined— The cornice curved, each shaft inclined, When the last marble tile was laid While yet, to eyes that do but revel The winds died down on all the seas ; And take the sweeping view, Hushed were the birds, and swooned the glade ; Erect this seems, and that a level, Ictinus sat ; Aspasia said To line and plummet true. “Hist !—Art’s meridian, Pericles !”
Spinoza gazes ; and in mind Dreams that one architect designed Lais—and you !
60 Greek Architecture. The Archipelago. 61
GREEK MASONRY.
OINTS were none that mortar sealed : J Together, scarce with line revealed, The blocks in symmetry congealed. THE ARCHIPELAGO.
AIL before the morning breeze GREEK ARCHITECTURE. S The Sporads through and Cyclades OT magnitude, not lavishness, They look like isles of absentees— N But Form—the Site ; Gone whither ? Not innovating wilfulness, But reverence for the Archetype. You bless Apollo’s cheering ray, But Delos, his own isle, today Not e’en a Selkirk there to pray OFF CAPE COLONNA. God friend me !
LOOF they crown the foreland lone, Scarce lone these groups, scarce lone and bare A From aloft they loftier rise— When Theseus roved a Raleigh there, Fair columns, in the aureola rolled Each isle a small Virginia fair— From sunned Greek seas and skies. Unravished. They wax, sublimed to fancy’s view, A god-like group against the blue. Nor less through havoc fell they rue,
They still retain in outline true Over much like gods ! Serene they saw Their grace of form when earth was new The wolf-waves board the deck, And primal. And headlong hull of Falconer,
And many a deadlier wreck.
62 Syra. Syra. 63
But beauty clear, the frame’s as yet, Then pounce upon and drag them back, Never shall make one quite forget For height they made, and prudent won Thy picture, Pan, therein once set— A cone-shaped fastness on whose flanks Life’s revel ! With pains they pitched their eyrie camp, Stone huts, whereto they wary clung ; ’Tis Polynesia reft of palms, But, reassured in end, come down— Seaward no valley breathes her balms— Multiplied through compatriots now, Not such as musk thy rings of calms, Refugees like themselves forlorn— Marquesas ! And building along the water’s verge Begin to thrive ; and thriving more When Greece at last flung off the Turk, Make of the haven mere a mart. SYRA. I saw it in its earlier day— (A Transmitted Reminiscence.) Primitive, such an isled resort As hearthless Homer might have known LEEING from Scio’s smouldering vines Wandering about the Ægean here. F (Where when the sword its work had Sheds ribbed with wreck-stuff faced the sea done Where goods in transit shelter found ; The Turk applied the torch) the Greek And here and there a shanty-shop Came here, a fugitive stript of goods, Where Fez-caps, swords, tobacco, shawls Here to an all but tenantless isle, Pistols, and orient finery, Eve’s— Nor here in footing gained at first, (The spangles dimmed by hands profane ) Felt safe. Still from the turbaned foe Like plunder on a pirate’s deck Dreading the doom of shipwrecked men Lay orderless in such loose way Whom feline seas permit to land As to suggest things ravished or gone astray.
64 Syra. Disinterment of the Hermes. 65
Above a tented inn with fluttering flag And these light hearts ? Their garb, their glee, A sunburnt board announced Greek wine Alike profuse in flowing measure, In self-same text Anacreon knew, Alike inapt for serious work, Dispensed by one named “Pericles.” Blab of grandfather Saturn’s prime Got up as for the opera’s scene, When trade was not, nor toil, nor stress, Armed strangers, various, lounged or lazed, But life was leisure, merriment, peace, Lithe fellows tall, with gold-shot eyes, And lucre none and love was righteousness. Sunning themselves as leopards may.
Off-shore lay xebecs trim and light, And some but dubious in repute. But on the strand, for docks were none, What busy bees ! no testy fry ; Frolickers, picturesquely odd, DISINTERMENT OF THE HERMES. With bales and oil-jars lading boats, Lighters that served an anchored craft, HAT forms divine in adamant fair— Each in his tasseled Phrygian cap, W Carven demigod and god, Blue Eastern drawers and braided vest ; And hero-marbles rivalling these, And some with features cleanly cut Bide under Latium’s sod, As Proserpine’s upon the coin. Or lost in sediment and drift Such chatterers all ! like children gay Alluvial which the Grecian rivers sift. Who make believe to work, but play. To dig for these, O better far I saw, and how help musing too. Than raking arid sands Here traffic ’s immature as yet : For gold more barren meetly theirs Forever this juvenile fun hold out Sterile, with brimming hands.
66 The Apparition. In the Desert. 67
THE APPARITION. IN THE DESERT.
EVER Pharaoh’s Night, (The Parthenon uplifted on N Whereof the Hebrew wizards croon, its rock first challenging the view Did so the Theban flamens try on the approach to Athens.) As me this veritable Noon.
Like blank ocean in blue calm BRUPT the supernatural Cross, Undulates the ethereal frame ; Vivid in startled air, A In one flowing oriflamme Smote the Emperor Constantine God flings his fiery standard out. And turned his soul’s allegiance there.
Battling with the Emirs fierce With other power appealing down, Napoleon a great victory won, Trophy of Adam’s best ! Through and through his sword did pierce ; If cynic minds you scarce convert, But, bayonetted by this sun You try them, shake them, or molest. His gunners drop beneath the gun.
Diogenes, that honest heart, Holy, holy, holy Light ! Lived ere your date began ; Immaterial incandescence, Thee had he seen, he might have swerved Of God the effluence of the essence, In mood nor barked so much at Man. Shekinah intolerably bright !
68 The Great Pyramid. The Great Pyramid. 69
THE GREAT PYRAMID. All elements unmoved you stem, Foursquare you stand and suffer them : Your masonry—and is it man’s ? Time’s future infinite you dare, More like some Cosmic artisan’s. While, for the past, ’tis you that wear Your courses as in strata rise, Eld’s diadem. Beget you do a blind surmise Like Grampians. Slant from your inmost lead the caves And labyrinths rumoured. These who braves Far slanting up your sweeping flank And penetrates (old palmers said) Arabs with Alpine goats may rank, Comes out afar on deserts dead And there they find a choice of passes And, dying, raves. Even like to dwarfs that climb the masses Of glaciers blank. Craftsmen, in dateless quarries dim, Shall lichen in your crevice fit ? Stones formless into form did trim, Nay, sterile all and granite-knit : Usurped on Nature’s self with Art, Weather nor weather-stain ye rue, And bade this dumb I AM to start, But aridly you cleave the blue Imposing him. As lording it.
Morn’s vapor floats beneath your peak, Kites skim your side with pinion weak ; To sand-storms battering, blow on blow, Raging to work your overthrow, You—turn the cheek.
70 L’ Envoi.
L’ ENVOI. Note:
This edition reproduces the 1891 Caxton Press THE RETURN edition of Herman Melville’s Timoleon, Etc. Page and line breaks from the original are pre- OF THE SIRE DE NESLE. served, as are the spelling, punctuation, display A.D. 16— capitalization, dot leaders, and page numbers. Following the typesetting practice of that era, colons, semi-colons, question marks, and My towers at last ! These rovings end, exclamation points are preceded by a word Their thirst is slaked in larger dearth : space. The yearning infinite recoils, The typefaces used here are Perpetua Titling For terrible is earth. for the display pages (pp. 1–3) and Georgia for the text pages (pp. 5–70). The typeface used in Kaf thrusts his snouted crags through fog : the original edition text was most probably Araxes swells beyond his span, Scotch. And knowledge poured by pilgrimage Overflows the banks of man. Paul Royster University of Nebraska-Lincoln But thou, my stay, thy lasting love November 26, 2005 One lonely good, let this but be ! Weary to view the wide world’s swarm, But blest to fold but thee.