Clarel/Part 2/Canto 36

36. Sodom
Full night. The moon has yet to rise; The air oppresses, and the skies Reveal beyond the lake afar One solitary tawny star-- Complexioned so by vapors dim, Whereof some hang above the brim And nearer waters of the lake, Whose bubbling air-beads mount and break As charged with breath of things alive.

In talk about the Cities Five Engulfed, on beach they linger late.

And he, the quaffer of the brine, Puckered with that heart-wizening wine Of bitterness, among them sate Upon a camel's skull, late dragged From forth the wave, the eye-pits slagged With crusted salt.--"What star is yon?" And pointed to that single one Befogged above the sea afar. "It might be Mars, so red it shines," One answered; "duskily it pines In this strange mist."--"It is the star Called Wormwood. Some hearts die in thrall Of waters which yon star makes gall;" And, lapsing, turned, and made review Of what that wickedness might be Which down on these ill precincts drew The flood, the fire; put forth new plea, Which not with Writ might disagree; Urged that those malefactors stood Guilty of sins scarce scored as crimes In any statute known, or code-- Nor now, nor in the former times: Things hard to prove: decorum's wile, Malice discreet, judicious guile; Good done with ill intent--reversed: Best deeds designed to serve the worst; And hate which under life's fair hue Prowls like the shark in sunned Pacific blue. He paused, and under stress did bow, Lank hands enlocked across the brow. "Nay, nay, thou sea, 'Twas not all carnal harlotry, But sins refined, crimes of the spirit, Helped earn that doom ye here inherit: Doom well imposed, though sharp and dread, In some god's reign, some god long fled.-- Thou gaseous puff of mineral breath Mephitical; thou swooning flaw That fann'st me from this pond of death;

Wert thou that venomous small thing Which tickled with the poisoned straw? Thou, stronger, but who yet couldst start Shrinking with sympathetic sting, While willing the uncompunctious dart! Ah, ghosts of Sodom, how ye thrill About me in this peccant air, Conjuring yet to spare, but spare! Fie, fie, that didst in formal will Plot piously the posthumous snare. And thou, the mud-flow--evil mass Of surest-footed sluggishness Swamping the nobler breed--art there? Moan, Burker of kind heart: all's known To Him; with thy connivers, moan.-- Sinners--expelled, transmuted souls Blown in these airs, or whirled in shoals Of gurgles which your gasps send up, Or on this crater marge and cup Slavered in slime, or puffed in stench-- Not ever on the tavern bench Ye lolled. Few dicers here, few sots, Few sluggards, and no idiots. 'Tis thou who servedst Mammon's hate Or greed through forms which holy are-- Black slaver steering by a star,

'Tis thou--and all like thee in state. Who knew the world, yet varnished it; Who traded on the coast of crime Though landing not; who did outwit Justice, his brother, and the time-- These, chiefly these, to doom submit. But who the manifold may tell? And sins there be inserutable, Unutterable. "          Ending there He shrank, and like an osprey gray Peered on the wave. His hollow stare Marked then some smaller bubbles play

In cluster silvery like spray: "Be these the beads on the wives'-wine, Tofana-brew?--O fair Medea-- O soft man-eater, furry-fine: Oh, be thou Jael, be thou Leah-- Unfathomably shallow!--No! Nearer the core than man can go Or Science get--nearer the slime Of nature's rudiments and lime In chyle before the bone. Thee, thee, In thee the filmy cell is spun-- The mould thou art of what men be: Events are all in thee begun-- By thee, through thee!--Undo, undo, Prithee, undo, and still renew The fall forever!" On his throne He lapsed; and muffled came the moan How multitudinous in sound, From Sodom's wave. He glanced around: They all had left him, one by one. Was it because he open threw The inmost to the outward view? Or did but pain at frenzied thought, Prompt to avoid him, since but naught In such case might remonstrance do? But none there ventured idle plea, Weak sneer, or fraudful levity.

Two spirits, hovering in remove, Sad with inefficacious love, Here sighed debate: "Ah, Zoima, say; Be it far from me to impute a sin, But may a sinless nature win Those deeps he knows?"--"Sin shuns that way; Sin acts the sin, but flees the thought That sweeps the abyss that sin has wrought. Innocent be the heart and true-- Howe'er it feed on bitter bread--

That, venturous through the Evil led, Moves as along the ocean's bed Amid the dragon's staring crew."