Clarel/Part 4/Canto 22

22. Of Wickedness the Word
Since, for the charity they knew, None cared the exile to upbraid Or further breast--while yet he threw, In silence that oppressive weighed, The after-influence of his spell-- The priest in light disclaimer said

To Rolfe apart: "The icicle, The dagger-icicle draws blood; But give it sun!" "You mean his mood Is accident--would melt away In fortune's favorable ray. But if 'tis happiness he lacks, Why, let the gods warm all cold backs With that good sun. But list!" In vent Of thought, abrupt the malcontent: "What incantation shall make less The ever-upbubbling wickedness! Is this fount nature's?" Under guard Asked Vine: "Is wickedness the word?" "The right word? Yes; but scarce the thing Is there conveyed; for one need know Wicked has been the tampering With wickedness the word." "Even so?" "Ay, ridicule's light sacrilege Has taken off the honest edge-- Quite turned aside--perverted all That Saxon term and Scriptural." "Restored to the incisive wedge, What means it then, this wickedness? Ungar regarded him with look Of steady search: "And wilt thou brook? Thee leaves it whole.?--This wickedness (Might it retake true import well) Means not default, nor vulgar vice, Nor Adam's lapse in Paradise; But worse: 'twas this evoked the hell-- Gave in the conseious soul's recess Credence to Calvin. What's implied In that deep utterance decried Which Christians labially confess-- Be born anew?"            "Ah, overstate Thou dost!" the priest sighed; "but look there! No jarring theme may violate Yon tender evening sky! How fair These olive-orchards: see, the sheep Mild drift toward the folds of sleep. The blessed Nature! still her glance Returns the love she well receives From hearts that with the stars advance, Each heart that in the goal believes!"  Ungar, though nettled, as might be, At these bland substitutes in plea (By him accounted so) yet sealed His lips. In fine, all seemed to yield With one consent a truce to talk.

But Clarel, who, since that one hour Of unreserve on Saba's tower, Less relished Derwent's pleasant walk Of myrtles, hardly might remain Uninfluenced by Ungar's vein: If man in truth be what you say, And such the prospects for the clay, And outlook of the futurc cease! What's left us but the senses' sway? Sinner, sin out life's petty lease: We are not worth the saving. Nay, For me, if thou speak truc but ah, Yet, yet there gleams one beckoning star-- So near the horizon, judge I right That 'tis of heaven? But wanes the light-- The evening Angelus is rolled: They rise, and seek the convent's fold.