Clarel/Part 2/Canto 11

11. Of Deserts
Tho' frequent in the Arabian waste The pilgrim, up ere dawn of day, Inhale thy wafted musk, Cathay; And Adam's primal joy may taste, Beholding all the pomp of night Bee'd thick with stars in swarms how bright; And so, rides on alert and braced-- Tho' brisk at morn the pilgrim start, Ere long he'll know in weary hour Small love of deserts, if their power Make to retreat upon the heart Their own forsakenness. Darwin quotes From Shelley, that forever floats Over all desert places known, Mysterious doubt--an awful one. He quotes, adopts it. Is it true? Let instinct vouch; let poetry Science and instinct here agree, For truth requires strong retinue.

Waste places are where yet is given A charm, a beauty from the heaven Above them, and clear air divine-- Translucent a-ther opaline; And some in evening's early dew Put on illusion of a guise Which Tantalus might tantalize Afresh; ironical unrolled Like Western counties all in grain Ripe for the sickleman and wain; Or, tawnier than the Guinea gold, More like a lion's skin unfold: Attest the desert opening out Direct from Cairo by the Gate Of Victors, whence the annual rout To Mecca bound, precipitate Their turbaned frenzy.-- Sands immense Impart the oceanic sense: The flying grit like scud is made: Pillars of sand which whirl about Or are along in colonnade, True kin be to the water-spout. Yonder on the horizon, red With storm, see there the caravan Straggling long-drawn, dispirited; Mark how it labors like a fleet Dismasted, which the cross-winds fan In crippled disaster of retreat From battle.-- Sinai had renown

Ere thence was rolled the thundered Law; Ever a terror wrapped its crown; Never did shepherd dare to draw Too nigh (Josephus saith) for awe Of one, some ghost or god austere-- Hermit unknown, dread mountaineer.--

When comes the sun up over Nile In cloudlessness, what cloud is cast O'er Lybia? Thou shadow vast Of Cheops' indissoluble pile, Typ'st thou the imperishable Past In empire posthumous and reaching sway Projected far across to time's remotest day? But curb.--Such deserts in air-zone

Or object lend suggestive tone, Redeeming them. For Judah here-- Let Erebus her rival own: 'Tis horror absolutc severe, Dead, livid, honey-combed, dumb, fell-- A caked depopulated hell; Yet so created, judged by sense, And visaged in significance Of settled anger terrible. Profoundly cloven through the scene Winds Kedron--word (the scholar saith) Importing anguish hard on death. And aptly may such named ravine Conduct unto Lot's mortal Sea In cleavage from Gethsemane Where it begins. But why does man Regard religiously this tract Cadayerous and under ban Of blastment? Nay, recall the fact That in the pagan era old When bolts, deemed Jove's, tore up the mound, Great stones the simple peasant rolled And built a wall about the gap Deemed hallowed by the thunder-clap. So here: men here adore this ground Which doom hath smitten. 'Tis a land Direful yet holy--blest tho' banned.

But to pure hearts it yields no fear; And John, he found wild honey here.