Clarel/Part 1/Canto 17

17. Nathan
Nathan had sprung from worthy stock— Austere, ascetical, but free, Which hewed their way from sea-beat rock Wherever woods and winter be. The pilgrim-keel in storm and stress Had erred, and on a wilderness. But shall the children all be schooled By hap which their forefathers ruled? Those primal settlers put in train

New emigrants which inland bore; From these too, emigrants again Westward pressed further; more bred more; At each remove a goodlier wain, A heart more large, an ampler shore, With legacies of farms behind; Until in years the wagons wind Through parks and pastures of the sun, Warm plains as of Esdraleon: 'Tis nature in her best benign. Wild, wild in symmetry of mould With freckles on her tawny gold, The lily alone looks pantherine—

The libbard-lily. Never broods The gloom here of grim hemlock woods Breeding the witcheraft-spell malign; But groves like isles in Grecian seas, Those dotting isles, the Sporades. But who the gracious charm may tell— Long rollings of the vast serene— The prairie in her swimming swell Of undulation. Such glad scene Was won by venturers from far Born under that severer star The landing patriarchs knew. In fine, To Illinois—a turf divine Of promise, how auspicious spread, Ere yet the cities rose thereon— From Saco's mountain wilds were led The sire of Nathan, wife and son; Life's lot to temper so, and shun Mountains whose camp withdrawn was set Above one vale he would forget. After some years their tale had told, He rested; lay forever stilled With sachems and mound-builders old. The son was grown; the farm he tilled; A stripling, but of manful ways, Hardy and frugal, oft he filled The widow's eyes with tears of praise. An only child, with her he kept For her sake part, the Christian way, Though frequent in his bosom crept Precocious doubt unbid. The sway He felt of his grave life, and power Of vast space, from the log-house door Daily beheld. Thrce Indian mounds Against the horizon's level bounds Dim showed across the prairie green Like dwarfed and blunted mimic shapes Of Pyramids at distance seen

From the broad Delta's planted capes Of vernal grain. In nearer view With trees he saw them crowned, which drew From the red sagamores of eld Entombed within, the vital gum Which green kept each mausoleum. Hard by, as chanced, he once beheld Bones like sea corals; one bleached skull A vase vined round and beautiful With flowers; felt, with bated breath The floral revelry over death. And other sights his heart had thrilled; Lambs had he known by thunder killed, Innocents—and the type of Christ Betrayed. Had not such things sufficed To touch the young pure heart with awe, Memory's mint could move him more. In prairie twilight, summer's own, The last cow milked, and he alone In barn-yard dreamy by the fence, Contrasted, came a scene immense: The great White Hills, mount flanked by mount, The Saco and Ammonoosuc's fount; Where, in September's equinox Nature hath put such terror on That from his mother man would run—

Our mother, Earth: the founded rocks Unstable prove: the Slide! the Slide! Again he saw the mountain side Sliced open; yet again he stood Under its shadow, on the spot— Now waste, but once a cultured plot, Though far from village neighborhood— Where, nor by sexton hearsed at even, Somewhere his uncle slept; no mound, Since not a trace of him was found, So whelmed the havoc from the heaven. This reminiscence of dismay, These thoughts unhinged him. On a day

Waiting for monthly grist at mill In settlement some miles away, It chanced, upon the window-sill A dusty book he spied, whose coat, Like the Scotch miller's powdered twill, The mealy owner might denote. Called offfrom reading, unaware The miller e'en had left it there. A book all but forsaken now For more advanced ones not so frank, Nor less in vogue and taking rank; And yet it never shall outgrow That infamy it first incurred, Though—viewed in light which moderns know— Capricious infamy absurd. The blunt straightforward Saxon tone, Work-a-day language, even his own, The sturdy thought, not deep but clear, The hearty unbelief sincere, Arrested him much like a hand Clapped on the shoulder. Here he found Body to doubt, rough standing-ground. After some pages brief were scanned, "Wilt loan me this?" he anxious said. The shrewd Scot turned his square, strong head— The book he saw, in troubled trim, Fearing for Nathan, even him So young, and for the mill, may be, Should his unspoken heresy Get bruited so. The lad but part Might penetrate that senior heart. Vainly the miller would dissuade; Pledge gave he, and the loan was made. Reclined that night by candle dim He read, then slept, and woke afraid: The White Hill's slide! the Indian skull! But this wore off; and unto him Came acquiescence, which tho' dull Was hardly peace. An altered earth

Sullen he tilled, in Adam's frame When thrust from Eden out to dearth And blest no more, and wise in shame. The fall! nor aught availed at need To Nathan, not each filial deed Done for his mother, to allay This ill. But tho' the Deist's sway, Broad as the prairie fire, consumed Some pansies which before had bloomed Within his heart; it did but feed To clear the soil for upstart weed. Yes, ere long came replacing mood. The god, expelled from given form, Went out into the calm and storm. Now, ploughing near the isles of wood In dream he felt the loneness come, In dream regarded there the loam Turned first by him. Such mental food Need quicken, and in natural way, Each germ of Pantheistic sway, Whose influence, nor always drear, Tenants our maiden hemisphere; As if, dislodged long since from cells Of Thracian woodlands, hither stolc Hither, to renew their old control— Pan and the pagan oracles.

How frequent when Favonius low Breathed from the copse which mild did wave Over his father's sylvan grave, And stirred the corn, he stayed the hoe, And leaning, listening, felt a thrill Which heathenized against the will.

Years sped. But years attain not truth, Nor length of life avails at all; But time instead contributes ruth: His mother—her the garners call: When sicklemen with sickles go, The churl of nature reaps her low.

Let now the breasts of Ceres swell— In shooks, with golden tassels gay, The Indian corn its trophies ray About the log-house; is it well With death's ripe harvest?—To believe, Belief to win nor more to grieve! But how? a sect about him stood In thin and scattered neighborhood; Uncanny, and in rupture new; Nor were all lives of members true And good. For them who hate and heave Contempt on rite and creed sublime, Yet to their own rank fable cleave— Abject, the latest shame of time; These quite repelled, for still his mind Erring, was of no vulgar kind. Alone, and at Doubt's freezing pole He wrestled with the pristine forms Like the first man. By inner storms Held in solution, so his soul Ripened for hour of such control As shapes, concretes. The influence came, And from a source that well might claim Surpnse. 'Twas in a lake-port new, A mart for grain, by chance he met A Jewess who about him threw Else than Nerea's amorous net And dubious wile. 'Twas Miriam's race: A sibyl breathed in Agar's grace— A sibyl, but a woman too; He felt her grateful as the rains To Rephaim and the Rama plains In drought. Ere won, herself did woo: "Wilt join my people?" Love is power; Came the strange plea in yielding hour. Nay, and turn Hebrew? But why not? If backward still the inquirer goes To get behind man's present lot

Of crumbling faith; for rear-ward shows Far behind Rome and Luther what? The crag of Sinai. Here then plant Thyself secure: 'tis adamant. Still as she dwelt on Zion's story He felt the glamour, caught the gleam; All things but these seemed transitory— Love, and his love's Jerusalem. And interest in a mitred race, With awe which to the fame belongs, These in receptive heart found place When Agar chanted David's songs. 'Twas passion. But the Puritan— Mixed latent in his blood—a strain How evident, of Hebrew source; 'Twas that, diverted here in force, Which biased—hardly might do less. Hereto append, how earnestness, Which disbelief for first-fruits bore, Now, in recoil, by natural stress Constrained to faith—to faith in more Than prior disbelief had spurned; As if, when he toward credence turned, Distance therefrom but gave career For impetus that shot him sheer Beyond. Agar rejoiced; nor knew

How such a nature, charged with zeal, Might yet overpass that limit due Observed by her. For woe or weal They wedded, one in heart and creed. Transferring fields with title-deed, From rustic life he quite withdrew— Traded, and throve. Two children came: Sedate his heart, nor sad the dame. But years subyert; or he outgrew (While yet confirmed in all the myth) The mind infertile of the Jew. His northern nature, full of pith Vigor and enterprise and will,

Having taken thus the Hebrew bent, Might not abide inactive so And but the empty forms fulfill: Needs utilize the mystic glow— For nervous energies find vent. The Hebrew seers announce in time The return of Judah to her prime; Some Christians deemed it then at hand. Here was an object: Up and do! With seed and tillage help renew— Help reinstate the Holy Land. Some zealous Jews on alien soil Who still from Gentile ways recoil, And loyally maintain the dream, Salute upon the Paschal day With Next year in Jerusalem! Now Nathan turning unto her, Greeting his wife at morning ray, Those words breathed on the Passover; But she, who mutely startled lay, In the old phrase found import new, In the blithe tone a bitter cheer That did the very speech subdue. She kenned her husband's mind austere, Had watched his reveries grave; he meant No flourish mere of sentiment. Then what to do? or how to stay? Decry it? that would faith unsay. Withstand him? but she gently loved. And so with Agar here it proved, As oft it may, the hardy will Overpowered the deep monition still.

Enough; fair fields and household charms They quit, sell all, and cross the main With Ruth and a young child in arms. A tract secured on Sharon's plain, Some sheds he built, and 'round walled in Defensive; toil severe but vain. The wandering Arabs, wonted long (Nor crime they deemed it, crime nor sin) To scale the desert convents strong— In sly foray leaped Nathan's fence And robbed him; and no recompense Attainable where law was none Or perjured. Resolute hereon, Agar, with Ruth and the young child, He lodged within the stronghold town Of Zion, and his heart exiled To abide the worst on Sharon's lea. Himself and honest servants three Armed husbandmen became, as erst His sires in Pequod wilds immersed. Hittites—foes pestilent to God His fathers old those Indians deemed: Nathan the Arabs here esteemed The same—slaves meriting the rod; And out he spake it; which bred hate The more imperiling his state. With muskets now his servants slept; Alternate watch and ward they kept In grounds beleaguered. Not the less Visits at stated times he made To them in Zion's walled recess. Agar with sobs of suppliance prayed

That he would fix there: "Ah, for good Tarry! abide with us, thine own; Put not these blanks between us; should Such space be for a shadow thrown? Quit Sharon, husband; leave to brood; Serve God by cleaving to thy wife, Thy children. If come fatal strife— Which I forebode—nay!" and she flung Her arms about him there, and clung. She plead. But tho' his heart could feel, 'Twas mastered by inveterate zeal.

Even the nursling's death ere long Balked not his purpose tho' it wrung.

But Time the cruel, whose smooth way Is feline, patient for the prey That to this twig of being clings; And Fate, which from her ambush springs And drags the loiterer soon or late Unto a sequel unforeseen; These doomed him and cut short his date; But first was modified the lien The husband had on Agar's heart; And next a prudence slid athwart— After distrust. But be unsaid That steep toward which the current led. Events shall speak. And now the guide, Who did in sketch this tale begin, Parted with Clarel at the inn; And ere long came the eventide.