Clarel/Part 2/Canto 29

29. By the Marge
The legend round a Grecian urn, The sylvan legend, though decay Have wormed the garland all away, And fire have left its Vandal burn; Yet beauty inextinct may charm In outline of the vessel's form. Much so with Sodom, shore and sea. Fair Como would like Sodom be Should horror overrun the scene And calcine all that makes it green, Yet haply sparing to impeach The contour in its larger reach. In graceful lines the hills advance,

The valley's sweep repays the glance, And wavy curves of winding beach; But all is charred or crunched or riven, Scarce seems of earth whereon we dwell; Though framed within the lines of heaven The picture intimates a hell. That marge they win. Bides Mortmain there? No trace of man, not anywhere. It was the salt wave's northern brink. No gravel bright nor shell was seen, Nor kelpy growth nor coralline, But dead boughs stranded, which the rout Of Jordan, in old freshets born In Libanus, had madly torn Green from her arbor and thrust out Into the liquid waste. No sound Nor motion but of sea. The land Was null: nor bramble, weed, nor trees, Nor anything that grows on ground, Flexile to indicate the breeze; Though hitherward by south winds fanned From Usdum's brink and Bozrah's site Of bale, flew gritty atoms light. Toward Karek's castle lost in blur, And thence beyond toward Aroer By Arnon where the robbers keep,

Jackal and vulture, eastward sweep The waters, while their western rim Stretches by Judah's headlands grim, Which make in turns a sea-wall steep. There, by the cliffs or distance hid, The Fount or Cascade of the Kid An Eden makes of one high glen, One vernal and contrasted scene In jaws of gloomy crags uncouth-- Rosemary in the black boar's mouth. Alike withheld from present view (And, until late, but hawk and kite Visited the forgotten site),

The Maccabees' Masada true; Stronghold which Flavian arms did rend, The Peak of Eleazer's end, Where patriot warriors made with brides A martyrdom of suicides. There too did Mariamne's hate The death of John accelerate. A crag of fairest, foulest weather-- Famous, and infamous together. Hereof they spake, but never Vine, Who little knew or seemed to know Derived from books, but did incline In docile way to each one's flow Of knowledge bearing anyhow In points less noted. Southernmost The sea indefinite was lost Under a catafalque of cloud. Unwelcome impress to disown Or light evade, the priest, aloud Taking an interested tone And brisk, "Why, yonder lies Mount Hor, E'en thereaway--that southward shore." "Ay," added Rolfe, "and Aaron's cell Thereon. A mountain sentinel, He holds in solitude austere The outpost of prohibited Seir In cut-off Edom." "God can sever!" Brake in the saint, who nigh them stood; "The satyr to the dragon's brood Crieth! God's word abideth ever: None there pass through--no, never, never!" "My friend Max Levi, he passed through." They turned. It was the hardy Jew. Absorbed in vision here, the saint Heard not. The priest in flushed constraint Showed mixed emotion; part he winced And part a humor pleased evinced--

Relish that would from qualms be free-- Aversion involved with sympathy. But changing, and in formal way-- "Admitted; nay, 'tis tritely true; Men pass thro' Edom, through and through. But surely, few so dull to-day As not to make allowance meet For Orientalism's display In Scripture, where the chapters treat Of mystic themes." With eye askance, The apostate fixed no genial glance: "Ay, Keith's grown obsolete. And, pray, How long will these last glosses stay? The agitating influence Of knowledge never will dispense With teasing faith, do what ye may. Adjust and readjust, ye deal With compass in a ship of steel." "Such perturbations do but give Proof that faith's vital: sensitive Is faith, my friend." "Go to, go to: Your black bat! how she hangs askew, Torpid, from wall by claws of wings: Let drop the left--sticks fast the right;

Then this unhook--the other swings; Leave--she regains her double plight." "Ah, look," cried Derwent; "ah, behold!" From the blue battlements of air, Over saline vapors hovering there, A flag was flung out--curved in fold-- Fiery, rosy, violet, green-- And, lovelier growing, brighter, fairer. Transfigured all that evil scene; And Iris was the standard-bearer.  None spake. As in a world made new, With upturned faces they review That oriflamme, the which no man

Would look for in such clime of ban. 'Twas northern; and its home-like look Touched Nehemiah. He, late with book Gliding from Margoth's dubious sway, Was standing by the ass apart; And when he caught that scarf of May How many a year ran back his heart: Scythes hang in orchard, hay-cocks loom After eve-showers, the mossed roofs gloom Greenly beneath the homestead trees; He tingles with these memories. For Vine, over him suffusive stole An efflorescence; all the soul Flowering in flush upon the brow. But 'twas ambiguously replaced In words addressed to Clarel now-- "Yonder the arch dips in the waste; Thither! and win the pouch of gold." Derwent reproached him: "ah, withhold! See, even death's pool reflects the dyes-- The rose upon the coffin lies!" "Brave words," said Margoth, plodding near; "Brave words; but yonder bow's forsworn. The covenant made on Noah's morn, Was that well kept? why, hardly here, Where whelmed by fire and flood, they say, The townsfolk sank in after day, Yon sign in heaven should reappear." They heard, but in such torpid gloom Scarcely they recked, for now the bloom Vanished from sight, and half the sea Died down to glazed monotony. Craved solace here would Clarel prove, Recalling Ruth, her glance of love. But nay; those eyes so frequent known To meet, and mellow on his own-- Now, in his vision of them, swerved; While in perverse recurrence ran Dreams of the bier Armenian.

Against their sway his soul he nerved: "Go, goblins; go, each funeral thought-- Bewitchment from this Dead Sea caught!"

Westward they move, and turn the shore Southward, till, where wild rocks are set, Dismounting, they would fain restore Ease to the limb. But haunts them yet A dumb dejection lately met.