Clarel/Part 4/Canto 32

32. Passion Week
Day passed; and passed a second one, A third--fourth--fifth; and bound he sate In film of sorrow without moan-- Abandoned, in the stony strait Of mutineer thrust on wild shore, Hearing, beyond the roller's froth, The last dip of the parting oar. Alone, for all had left him so; Though Rolfe, Vine, Derwent--each was loth,

How loth to leave him, or to go Be first. From Vine he caught new sense Developed through fate's pertinence. Friendly they tarried--blameless went: Life, avaricious, still demands Her own, and more; the world is rent With partings. But, since all are gone, Why lingers he, the stricken one? Why linger where no hope can be? Ask grief, love ask--fidelity In dog that by the corse abides Of shepherd fallen--abides, abides

Though autumn into winter glides, Till on the mountain all is chill And snow-bound, and the twain lie still.

How oft through Lent the feet were led Of this chastised and fasting one To neutral silence of the dead In Kedron's gulf. One morn he sate Down poring toward it from the gate Sealed and named Golden. There a tomb, Erected in time's recent day, In block along the threshold lay Impassable. From Omar's bloom Came birds which lit, nor dreamed of harm, On neighboring stones. His visage calm Seemed not the one which late showed play Of passion's throe; but here divine No peace; ignition in the mine Announced is by the rush, the roar: These end; yet may the coal burn on-- Still slumberous burn beneath the floor Of pastures where the sheep lie down. Ere long a cheerful choral strain He hears; 'tis an Armenian train Embowered in palms they bear, which (green, And shifting oft) reveal the mien Of flamens tall and singers young In festal robes: a rainbow throng, Like dolphins off Madeira seen Which quick the ship and shout dismay. With the blest anthem, censers sway, Whose opal vapor, spiral borne, Blends with the heavens' own azure Morn Of Palms; for 'twas Palm Sunday bright, Though thereof he, oblivious quite, Knew nothing, nor that here they came In memory of the green acclaim Triumphal, and hosanna-roll Which hailed Him on the ass's foal

But unto Clarel that bright view Into a dusk reminder grew: He saw the tapers--saw again The censers, singers, and the wreath And litter of the bride of death Pass through the Broken Fountain's lane; In treble shrill and bass how deep The men and boys he heard again The undetermined contest keep About the bier--the bier Armenian. Yet dull, in torpor dim, he knew Tht futile omen in review.

Yet three more days, and leadenly From over Mary's port and arch, On Holy Thursday, he the march Of friars beheld, with litany Filing beneath his feet, and bent With crosses craped to sacrament Down in the glenned Gethsemane. Yes, Passion Week; the altars cower-- Each shrine a dead dismantled bower.

But when Good Friday dirged her gloom Ere brake the morning, and each light Round Calvary faded and the TOMB,

What exhalations met his sight:-- Illusion of grief's wakeful doom: The dead walked. There, amid the train, Wan Nehemiah he saw again-- With charnel beard; and Celio passed As in a dampened mirror glassed; Gleamed Mortmain, pallid as wolf-bone Which bleaches where no man hath gone; And Nathan in his murdered guise-- Sullen, and Hades in his eyes; Poor Agar, with such wandering mien As in her last blank hour was seen. And each and all kept lonely state,

Yea, man and wife passed separate. But Ruth--ah, how estranged in face! He knew her by no earthly grace: Nor might he reach to her in place. And languid vapors from them go Like thaw-fogs curled from dankish snow.

Where, where now He who helpeth us, The Comforter?--Tell, Erebus!