Clarel/Part 2/Canto 39

39. Obsequies
The camel's skull upon the beach No more the sluggish waters reach-- No more the languid waters lave; Not now they wander in and out Of those void chambers walled about-- So dull the calm, so dead the wave. Above thick mist how pallid looms, While the slurred day doth wanly break, Ammon's long ridge beyond the lake.

Down to the shrouded margin comes Lone Vinc and starts: not at the skull, The camel's, for that bides the same As when overnight 'twas Mortmain's stool. But, nigh it--how that object name? Slant on the shore, ground-curls of mist Enfold it, as in amethyst Subdued, small flames in dead of night Lick the dumb back-log ashy white. What is it?--paler than the pale Pervading vapors, which so veil, That some peak-tops are islanded Baseless above the dull, dull bed Of waters, which not e'en transmit One ripple 'gainst the cheek of It.

The start which the discoverer gave Was physical--scarce shocked the soul,

Since many a prior revery grave Forearmed against alarm's control. To him, indeed, each lapse and end Meet--in harmonious method blend. Lowly he murmured, "Here is balm: Repose is snowed upon repose-- Sleep upon sleep; it is the calm And incantation of the close." The others, summoned to the spot,

Were staggered: Nehemiah? no! The innocent and sinless--what!-- Pale lying like the Assyrian low?

The Swede stood by; nor after-taste Extinct was of the liquid waste Nor influence of that Wormwood Star Whereof he spake. All overcast-- His genial spirits meeting jar-- Derwent on no unfeeling plea Held back. Mortmain, relentless: "See: To view death on the bed--at ease-- A dream, and draped; to minister To inheriting kin; to comfort these In chamber comfortable;--here The elements all that unsay! The first man dies. Thus Abel lay." The sad priest, rightly to be read Scarce hoping,--pained, dispirited-- Was dumb. And Mortmain went aside In thrill by only Vine espied: Alas (thought Vine) thou bitter Swede, Into thine armor dost thou bleed?

Intent but poised, the Druze looked on: "The sheath: the sword?" "Ah, whither gone?" Clarel, and bowed him there and kneeled: "Whither art gone? thou friendliest mind Unfriended--what friend now shalt find? Robin or raven, hath God a bird To come and strew thee, lone interred, With leaves, when here left far behind?" "He's gone," theJew; "czars, stars must go Or change! All's chymestry. Aye so."-- "Resurget"--faintly Derwent there. "In pace"--Vine, nor more would dare.

Rolfe in his reaching heart did win Prelude remote, yet gathering in:

"Moist, moist with sobs and balsam shed-- Warm tears, cold odors from the urn-- They hearsed in heathen Rome their dead Nor hopeful of the soul's return. -Embracing them, in marble set, ' The mimic gates of Orcus met-- The Pluto-bolt, the fatal one Wreathed over by the hung festoon. How fare we now? But were it clear In nature or in lore devout That parted souls live on in cheer, Gladness would be shut pathos out. His poor thin life: the end? no more? The end here by the Dead Sea shore?" He turned him, as awaiting nod Or answer from earth, air, or skies; But be it ether or the clod, The elements yield no replies. Cross-legged on a cindery hight, Belex, the fatalist, smoked on. Slow whiffs; and then, "It needs be done: Come, beach the loins there, Bethlehemite."--

Inside a hollow free from stone With camel-ribs they scooped a trench;

And Derwent, rallying from blench Of Mortmain's brow, and nothing loth Tacit to vindicate the cloth, Craved they would bring to him the Book, Now ownerless. The same he took, And thence had culled brief service meet, But closed, reminded of the psalm Heard when the salt fog shrunk the palm-- They wending toward these waters' seat-- Raised by the saint, as e'en it lent A voice to low presentiment: Naught better might one here repeat:

"Though through the valley of the shade Ipass, no evil do Ifear;

His candle shineth on my head: Lo, he is with me, even here. "

That o'er, they kneeled--with foreheads bare Bowed as he made the burial prayer. Even Margoth bent him; but 'twas so As some hard salt at sea will do Holding the narrow plank that bears The shotted hammock, while brief prayers Are by the master read mid war Relentless of wild elements-- The sleet congealing on the spar: It was a sulking reverence. The body now the Arabs placed Within the grave, and then with haste Had covered, but for Rolfe's restraint: "The Book!"--The Bible of the saint-- With that the relics there he graced, Yea, put it in the hand: "Since now The last long journey thou dost go, Why part thee from thy friend and guide! And better guide who knoweth? Bide."

They closed. And came a rush, a roar-- Aloof, but growing more and more, Nearer and nearer. They invoke The long Judaic range, the hight Of nearer mountains hid from sight By the blind mist. Nor spark nor smoke Of that plunged wake their eyes might see; But, hoarse in hubbub, horribly, With all its retinue around-- Flints, dust, and showers of splintered stone, An avalanche of rock down tore, In somerset from each rebound-- Thud upon thump--down, down and down-- And landed. Lull. Then shore to shore Rolled the deep echo, fold on fold,

Which, so reverberated, bowled And bowled far down the long El Ghor.

They turn; and, in that silence sealed, What works there from behind the veil? A counter object is revealed-- A thing of heaven, and yet how frail: Up in thin mist above the sea Humid is formed, and noiselessly, The fog-bow: segment of an oval Set in a colorless removal Against a vertical shaft, or slight Slim pencil of an aqueous light. Suspended there, the segment hung Like to the May-wreath that is swung Against the pole. It showed half spent-- Hovered and trembled, paled away, and--went.