Clarel/Part 1/Canto 37

37. A Sketch
Not knowing them in very heart, Nor why to join him they were loth, He, disappointed, moved apart, With sad pace creeping, dull, as doth Along the bough the nerveless sloth.

For ease upon the ground they sit; And Rolfe, with eye still following Where Nehemiah slow footed it, Asked Clarel: "Know you anything Of this man's prior life at all?"

"Nothing," said Clarel.--"I recall," Said Rolfe, "a mariner like him." "A mariner?"--"Yes; one whom grim Disaster made as meek as he There plodding." Vine here showed the zest Of a deep human interest: "We crave of you his history." And Rolfe began: "Scarce would I tell Of what this mariner befell-- So much is it with cloud o'ercast-- Were he not now gone home at last Into the green land of the dead, Where he encamps and peace is shed.

Hardy he was, sanguine and bold, The master of a ship. His mind In night-watch frequent he unrolled-- As seamen sometimes are inclined-- On serious topics, to his mate, A man to creed austere resigned. The master ever spurned at fate, Calvin's or Zeno's. Always still Man-like he stood by man's free will And power to effect each thing he would, Did reason but pronounce it good. The subaltern held in humble way That still heaven's over-rulings sway Will and event. "On waters far, Where map-man never made survey, Gliding along in easy plight, The strong one brake the lull of night Emphatic in his willful war-- But staggered, for there came a jar With fell arrest to keel and speech: A hidden rock. The pound--the grind-- Collapsing sails o'er deck declined-- Sleek billows curling in the breach, And nature with her neutral mind. A wreck. 'Twas in the former days, Those waters then obscure; a maze; The isles were dreaded--every chain; Better to brave the immense of sea, And venture for the Spanish Main, Beating and rowing against the trades, Than float to valleys 'neath the lee, Nor far removed, and palmy shades. So deemed he, strongly erring there. To boats they take; the weather fair-- Never the sky a cloudlet knew; A temperate wind unvarying blew Week after week; yet came despair; The bread tho' doled. and water stored.

Ran low and lower--ceased. They burn-- They agonize till crime abhorred Lawful might be. O trade-wind, turn! "Well may some items sleep unrolled-- Never by the one survivor told. Him they picked up, where, cuddled down, They saw the jacketed skeleton, Lone in the only boat that lived-- His signal frittered to a shred. " 'Strong need'st thou be,' the rescuers said, 'Who has such trial sole survived.' 'I willed it,' gasped he. And the man, Renewed ashore, pushed off again. How bravely sailed the pennoned ship Bound outward on her sealing trip Antarctic. Yes; but who returns Too soon, regaining port by land Who left it by the bay? What spurns Were his that so could countermand? Nor mutineer, nor rock, nor gale Nor leak had foiled him. No; a whale Of purpose aiming, stove the bow: They foundered. To the master now Owners and neighbors all impute An inauspiciousness. His wife-- Gentle, but unheroic--she,

Poor thing, at heart knew bitter strife Between her love and her simplicity: A Jonah is he?--And men bruit The story. None will give him place In a third venture. Came the day Dire need constrained the man to pace A night patrolman on the quay Watching the bales till morning hour Through fair and foul. Never he smiled; Call him, and he would come; not sour L In spirit, but meek and reconciled; Patient he was, he none withstood; Oft on some secret thing would brood.

He ate what came, though but a crust; In Calvin's creed he put his trust; Praised heaven, and said that God was good, And his calamity but just. So Silvio Pellico from cell-door Forth tottering, after dungeoned years, Crippled and bleached, and dead his peers: 'Grateful, I thank the Emperor.' "

There ceasing, after pause Rolfe drew Regard to Nehemiah in view: "Look, the changed master, roams he there? I mean, is such the guise, the air?" The speaker sat between mute Vine And Clarel. From the mystic sea Laocoon's serpent, sleek and fine, In loop on loop seemed here to twine His clammy coils about the three. Then unto them the wannish man Draws nigh; but absently they scan; A phantom seems he, and from zone Where naught is real tho' the winds aye moan.