Clarel/Part 4/Canto 20

20. Derwent and Ungar
"Not thou com'st in the still small voice," Said Derwent, "thou queer Mexican!" And followed him with eyes: "This man," And turned here, "he likes not grave talk, The settled undiluted tone; It does his humorous nature balk.

'Twas ever too his sly rebuff, While yet obstreperous in praise, Taking that dusty pinch of snuff. An oddity, he has his ways; Yet trust not, friends, the half he says: Not he would do a weasel harm; A secret agent of Reform; At least, that is my theory." "The quicksilver is quick to skim," Ungar remarked, with eye on him.  "Yes, nature has her levity," Dropped Derwent.              Nothing might disarm

The other; he: "Your word reform: What meaning's to that word assigned? From Luther's great initial down, Through all the series following on The impetus augments--the blind Precipitation: blind, for tell Whitherward does the surge impel? The end, the aim? 'Tis mystery." "Oh, no. Through all methinks I see The object clear: belief revised, Men liberated--equalized In happiness. No mystery, Just none at all; plain sailing." "Well, Assume this: is it feasible? Your methods? These are of the world: Now the world cannot save the world; And Christ renounces it. His faith, Breaking with every mundane path, Aims straight at heaven. To founded thrones He says: Trust not to earthly stanchions And unto poor and houseless ones-- My Father's house has many mansions. Warning and solace be but this; No thought to mend a world amiss." "Ah now, ah now!" plead Derwent. "Nay, Test further; take another way: Go ask Aurelius Antonine-- A Caesar wise, grave, just, benign, Lord of the world--why, in the calm Which through his reign the empire graced-- Why he, that most considerate heart Superior, and at vantage placed, Contrived no secular reform, Though other he knew not, nor balm." "Alas," cried Derwent (and, in part, As vainly longing for retreat) "Though good Aurelius was a man

Matchless in mind as sole in seat, Yet pined he under numbing ban Of virtue without Christian heat: As much you intimated too, Just saying that no balm he knew. Howbeit, true reform goes on By Nature; doing, never done. Mark the advance: creeds drop the hate; Events still liberalize the state."  "But tell: do men now more cohere In bonds of duty which sustain? Cliffs crumble, and the parts regain A liberal freedom, it is clear. And for conventicles--I fear, Much as a hard heart aged grown Abates in rigor, losing tone; So sects decrepit, at death's door, Dote into peace through loss of power."  "You put it so," said Derwent light: "No more developments to cite?"   "Ay, quench the true, the mock sun fails Therewith. Much so, Hypocrisy, The false thing, wanes just in degree That Faith, the true thing, wanes: each pales. There's one development; 'tis seen In masters whom not low ye rate:

What lack, in some outgivings late, Of the old Christian style toward men-- I do not mean the wicked ones, But Pauperism's unhappy sons In cloud so blackly ominous, Grimy in Mammon's English pen-- Collaterals of his overplus: How worse than them Immanuel fed On hill-top--helped and comforted. Thou, Poverty, erst free from shame, Even sacred through the Savior's claim, Professed by saints, by sages prized-- A pariah now, and bastardized!

Reactions from the Christian plan Bear others further. Quite they shun A god to name, or cite a man Save Greek, heroical, a Don: 'Tis Plato's aristocratic tone. All recognition they forego Of Evil; supercilious skim With spurious wing of seraphim The last abyss. Freemen avow Belief in right divine of Might, Yet spurn at kings. This is the light-- Divine the darkness. Mark the way The Revolution, whose first mode Ere yet the maniacs overrode, Despite the passion of the dream Evinced no disrespect for God; Mark how, in our denuding day, E'en with the masses, as would seem It tears the fig-leaf quite away. Contrast these incidents: The mob, The Paris mob of Eighty-nine, Haggard and bleeding, with a throb Burst the long Tuileries. In shrine Of chapel there, they saw the Cross And Him thereon. Ah, bleeding Man, The people's friend, thou bled'st for us Who here bleed, too! Ragged they ran-- They took the crucifix; in van They put it, marched with drum and psalm And throned it in their Notre Dame. But yesterday--how did they then, In new uprising of the Red, The offspring of those Tuileries men? They made a clothes-stand of the Cross Before the church; and, on that head Which bowed for them, could wanton toss The sword-belt, while the gibing sped. Transeended rebel angels! Woe To us; without a God, 'tis woe!"