Clarel/Part 4/Canto 3

3. The Island
"In waters where no charts avail, Where only fin and spout ye see, The lonely spout of hermit-whale, God set that isle which haunteth me. There clouds hang low, but yield no rain-- Forever hang, since wind is none Or light; nor ship-boy's eye may gain The smoke-wrapped peak, the inland one Volcanic; this, within its shroud Streaked black and red, burns unrevealed; It burns by night--by day the cloud Shows leaden all, and dull and sealed. The beach is cinders. With the tide Salt creek and ashy inlet bring More loneness from the outer ring Of ocean." Pause he made, and sighed.-- "But take the way across the marl, A broken field of tumbled slabs Like ice-cakes frozen in a snarl After the break-up in a sound; So win the thicket's upper ground Where silence like a poniard stabs, Since there the low throb of the sea Not heard is, and the sea-fowl flee Far offthe shore, all the long day Hunting the flying-fish their prey.

Haply in bush ye find a path: Of man or beast it scarce may be; And yet a wasted look it hath, As it were traveled ceaselessly-- Century after century-- The rock in places much worn down Like to some old, old kneeling-stone Before a shrine. But naught's to see, At least naught there was seen by me, Of any moving, creeping one.

No berry do those thickets bear, Nor many leaves. Yet even there, Some sailor from the steerage den Put sick ashorc alas, by men Who, weary of him, thus abjure-- The way may follow, in pursuit Of apples red--the homestead-fruit He dreams of in his calenture. He drops, lost soul; but we go on-- Advance, until in end be won The terraced orchard's mysteries, Which well do that imp-isle beseem; Paved with jet blocks those terraces, The surface rubbed to unctuous gleam By something which has life, you feel: And yet, the shades but death reveal; For under cobwebbed cactus trees, White by their trunks--what hulks be these Which, like old skulls of Anaks, are Set round as in a Golgotha? But, list,--a sound! Dull, dull it booms-- Dull as the jar in vaulted tombs When urns are shifted. With amaze Into the dim retreats ye gaze. Lo, 'tis the monstrous tortoise drear! Of huge humped arch, the ancient shell Is trenched with seams where lichens dwell, Or some adhesive growth and sere: A lumpish languor marks the pacc A hideous, harmless look, with trace Of hopelessness; the eyes are dull As in the bog the dead black pool: Penal his aspect; all is dragged, As he for more than years had lagged-- A convict doomed to bide the place; A soul transformed--for earned disgrace Degraded, and from higher race. Ye watch him--him so woe-begone: Searching, he creeps with laboring neck,

Each crevice tries, and long may seek: Water he craves, where rain is nonc Water within the parching zone, Where only dews of midnight fall And dribbling lodge in chinks of stone. For meat the bitter tree is all-- The cactus, whose nipped fruit is shed On those bleached skull-like hulks below, Which, when by life inhabited, Crept hither in last journey slow After a hundred years of pain And pilgrimage here to and fro, For other hundred years to reign In hollow of white armor so-- Then perish piecemeal. You advance: Instant, more rapid than a glance, Long neck and four legs are drawn in, Letting the shell down with report Upon the stone; so falls in court The clattering buckler with a din. There leave him, since for hours he'll keep That feint of death.--But for the islc Much seems it like this barren steep: As here, few there would think to smile."

So, paraphrased in lines sincere

Which still similitude would win, The sketch ran of that timoneer. He ended, and how passive sate: Nature's own look, which might recall Dumb patience of mere animal, Which better may abide life's fate Than comprehend. What may man know? (Here pondered Clarel;) let him rule-- Pull down, build up, creed, system, school, And reason's endless battle wage, Make and remake his verbiage-- But solve the world! Scarce that he'll do: Too wild it is, too wonderful. Since this world, then, can baffle so-- Our natural harbor--it were strange If that alleged, which is afar, Should not confound us when we range In revery where its problems are.-- Such thoughts! and can they e'en be mine In fount? Did Derwent true divine Upon the tower of Saba--yes, Hinting I too much felt the stress Of Rolfe--or whom? Green and unsure, And in attendance on a mind Poised at self-center and mature, Do I but lacquey it behind? Yea, here in frame of thought and word But wear the cast clothes of my lord?