Clarel/Part 1/Canto 36

36. The Tower
The tower they win. Some Greeks at hand, Pilgrims, in silence view the land. One family group in listless tone Are just in act of faring down. All leave at last. And these remain As by a hearthstone on the plain When roof is gone. But can they shame To tell the evasive thought within? Does intellect assert a claim Against the heart, her yielding kin? But he, the wanderer, the whilc See him; and what may so beguile?

Images he the ascending Lord Pale as the moon which dawn may meet, Convoyed by a serene accord And swoon of faces young and sweet-- Mid chaplets, stars, and halcyon wings, And many ministering things? As him they mark enkindled so, What inklings, negatives, they know! But leaving him in silence due, They enter there, the print to view-- Affirmed of Christ--the parting foot:

They mark it, nor a question moot; Next climb the stair and win the roof; Thence onJerusalem look down, And Kedron cringing by the town, Whose stony lanes map-like were shown. "Is yon the city Dis aloof?" Said Rolfe; "nay, liker 'tis some print, Old blurred, bewrinkled mezzotint. And distant, look, what lifeless hills! Dead long for them the hymn of rills And birds. Nor trees, nor ferns they know; Nor lichen there hath leave to grow In baleful glens which blacked the blood O' the son of Kish." Far peep they gain Of waters which in caldron brood, Sunk mid the mounts of leaden bane: The Sodom Wave, or Putrid Sea, Or Sea of Salt, or Cities Five, Or Lot's, or Death's, Asphaltite, Or Asafcetida; all these Being names indeed with which they gyve That site of foul iniquities Abhorred. With wordless look intent, As if the scene confirmed some thought Which in heart's lonelier hour was lent, Vine stood at gaze. The rest were wrought According unto kind. The Mount Of Olives, and, in distance there The charnel wave who may recount? Hope's hill descries the pit Despair: Flitted the thought; they nothing said; And down they drew. As ground they tread, Nehemiah met them: "Pleaseth ye, Fair stroll awaits; if all agree, Over the hill let us go on-- Bethany is a pleasant town. I'll lead, for well the way I know."

He gazed expectant: Would they go? Before that simpleness so true Vine showed embarrassed (Clarel too) Yet thanked him with a grateful look Benign; and Rolfe the import took, And whispered him in softened key, "Some other day." And might it be Such influence their spirits knew From all the tower had given to view, Untuned they felt for Bethany?