A Meditation

How often in the years that close,
When truce had stilled the sieging gun,
The soldiers, mounting on their works,
With mutual curious glance have run
From face to face along the fronting show,
And kinsman spied, or friend–even in a foe.

What thoughts conflicting then were shared,
While sacred tenderness perforce
Welled from the heart and wet the eye;
And something of a strange remorse
Rebelled against the sanctioned sin of blood,
And Christian wars of natural brotherhood.

Then stirred the god within the breast–
The witness that is man’s at birth;
A deep misgiving undermined
Each plea and subterfuge of earth;
They felt in that rapt pause, with warning rife,
Horror and anguish for the civil strife.

Of North or South they reeked not then,
Warm passion cursed the cause of war:
Can Africa pay back this blood
Spilt on Potomac’s shore?
Yet doubts, as pangs, were vain the strife
to stay,
And hands that fain had clasped again
could slay.

How frequent in the camp was seen
The herald from the hostile one,
A guest and frank companion there
When the proud formal talk was done;
The pipe of peace was smoked even ‘mid the
war,
And fields in Mexico again fought o’er.

In Western battle long they lay
So near opposed in trench or pit,
That foeman unto foeman called
As men who screened in tavern sit:
‘You bravely fight’ each to the other said–
‘Toss us a biscuit!’ o’er the wall it sped.

And pale on those same slopes, a boy–
A stormer, bled in noon-day glare;
No aid the Blue-coats then could bring,
He cried to them who nearest were,
And out there came ‘mid howling shot and shell
A daring foe who him befriended well.

Mark the great Captains on both sides,
The soldiers with the broad renown–
They all were messmates on the Hudson’s
marge,
Beneath one roof they laid them down;
And, free from hate in many an after pass,
Strove as in school-boy rivalry of the class.

A darker side there is; but doubt
In Nature’s charity hovers there:
If men for new agreement yearn,
Then old upbraiding best forbear:
‘The South’s the sinner!’ Well, so let it be;
But shall the North sin worse, and stand the
Pharisee?

O, now that brave men yield the sword,
Mine be the manful soldier-view;
By how much more they boldly warred,
By so much more is mercy due:
When Vicksburg fell, and the moody files
marched out,
Silent the victors stood, scorning to raise a
shout.

by Herman Melville

A Ray of the Moon

A ray of the moon on the dancing waves
Is the step, light step of that beautiful maid:
Mardi, with music, her footfall paves,
And her voice, no voice, but a song in the glade.

by Herman Melville

A Rail Road Cutting near Alexandria in

Plump thro’ tomb and catacomb
Rolls the Engine ripping;
Egypt’s ancient dust
This before the gust,
The Pyramid is slipping!
Too long inurned, Sesostres’s spurned,
What glory left to Isis
Mid loud acclaim to Watts his name
Alack for Miriam’s spices!

by Herman Melville

A Requiem for Soldiers Lost in Ocean Transports

for Soldiers lost in Ocean Transports

When, after storms that woodlands rue,
To valleys comes atoning dawn,
The robins blithe their orchard-sports renew;
And meadow-larks, no more withdrawn,
Caroling fly in the languid blue;
The while, from many a hid recess,
Alert to partake the blessedness,
The pouring mites their airy dance pursue.
So, after ocean’s ghastly gales,
When laughing light of hoyden morning breaks,
Every finny hider wakes —
From vaults profound swims up with glittering scales;
Through the delightsome sea he sails,
With shoals of shining tiny things
Frolic on every wave that flings
Against the prow its showery spray;
All creatures joying in the morn,
Save them forever from joyance torn,
Whose bark was lost where now the dolphins play;
Save them that by the fabled shore,
Down the pale stream are washed away,
Far to the reef of bones are borne;
And never revisits them the light,
Nor sight of long-sought land and pilot more;
Nor heed they now the lone bird’s flight
Round the lone spar where mid-sea surges pour.

by Herman Melville

A Requiem

For Soldiers lost in Ocean Transports
When, after storms that woodlands rue,
To valleys comes atoning dawn,
The robins blithe their orchard-sports renew;
And meadow-larks, no more withdrawn
Caroling fly in the languid blue;
The while, from many a hid recess,
Alert to partake the blessedness,
The pouring mites their airy dance pursue.
So, after ocean’s ghastly gales,
When laughing light of hoyden morning
breaks,
Every finny hider wakes–
From vaults profound swims up with
glittering scales;
Through the delightsome sea he sails,
With shoals of shining tiny things
Frolic on every wave that flings
Against the prow its showery spray;
All creatures joying in the morn,
Save them forever from joyance torn,
Whose bark was lost where now the
dolphins play;
Save them that by the fabled shore,
Down the pale stream are washed away,
Far to the reef of bones are borne;
And never revisits them the light,
Nor sight of long-sought land and pilot more;
Nor heed they now the lone bird’s flight
Round the lone spar where mid-sea surges
pour.

by Herman Melville

A Reasonable Constitution

What though Reason forged your scheme?
‘Twas Reason dreamed the Utopia’s dream:
‘Tis dream to think that Reason can
Govern the reasoning creature, man.

by Herman Melville

A Sketch

Not knowing them in very heart,
Nor why to join him they were loth,
He, disappointed, moved apart,
With sad pace creeping, dull, as doth
Along the bough the nerveless sloth.

For ease upon the ground they sit;
And Rolfe, with eye still following
Where Nehemiah slow footed it,
Asked Clarel: ” Know you anything
Of this man’s prior life at all? ”
” Nothing, ” said Clarel. — ” I recall, ”
Said Rolfe, ” a mariner like him. ”
” A mariner? ” — ” Yes; one whom grim
Disaster made as meek as he
There plodding. ” Vine here showed the zest
Of a deep human interest:
” We crave of you his history: ”
And Rolfe began: ” Scarce would I tell
Of what this mariner befell —
So much is it with cloud o’ercast —
Were he not now gone home at last
Into the green land of the dead,
Where he encamps and peace is shed.
Hardy he was, sanguine and bold,
The master of a ship. His mind
In night-watch frequent he unrolled —
As seamen sometimes are inclined —
On serious topics, to his mate,
A man to creed austere resigned.
The master ever spurned at fate,
Calvin’s or Zeno’s. Always still
Man-like he stood by man’s free will
And power to effect each thing he would,
Did reason but pronounce it good.
The subaltern held in humble way
That still heaven’s over-rulings sway
Will and event.

” On waters far,
Where map-man never made survey,
Gliding along in easy plight,
The strong one brake the lull of night
Emphatic in his willful war —
But staggered, for there came a jar
With fell arrest to keel and speech:
A hidden rock. The pound — the grind —
Collapsing sails o’er deck declined —
Sleek billows curling in the breach,
And nature with her neutral mind.
A wreck. ‘Twas in the former days,
Those waters then obscure; a maze;
The isles were dreaded — every chain;
Better to brave the immense of sea,
And venture for the Spanish Main,
Beating and rowing against the trades,
Than float to valleys ‘neath the lee,
Nor far removed, and palmy shades.
So deemed he, strongly erring there.
To boats they take; the weather fair —
Never the sky a cloudlet knew;
A temperate wind unvarying blew
Week after week; yet came despair;
The bread though doled, and water stored,
Ran low and lower — ceased. They burn —
They agonize till crime abhorred
Lawful might be. O trade-wind, turn!
” Well may some items sleep unrolled —
Never by the one survivor told.
Him they picked up, where, cuddled down,
They saw the jacketed skeleton,
Lone in the only boat that lived —
His signal frittered to a shred.
” ” Strong need’st thou be,” the rescuers said,
” Who hast such trial sole survived.”
” Iwilledit,” gasped he. And the man,
Renewed ashore, pushed off again.
How bravely sailed the pennoned ship
Bound outward on her sealing trip
Antarctic. Yes; but who returns
Too soon, regaining port by land
Who left it by the bay? What spurns
Were his that so could countermand?
Nor mutineer, nor rock, nor gale
Nor leak had foiled him. No; a whale
Of purpose aiming, stove the bow:
They foundered. To the master now
Owners and neighbors all impute
An inauspiciousness. His wife —
Gentle, but unheroic — she,
Poor thing, at heart knew bitter strife
Between her love and her simplicity:
A Jonah is he? — And men bruit
The story. None will give him place
In a third venture. Came the day
Dire need constrained the man to pace
A night patrolman on the quay
Watching the bales till morning hour
Through fair and foul. Never he smiled;
Call him, and he would come; not sour
In spirit, but meek and reconciled;
Patient he was, he none withstood;
Oft on some secret thing would brood.
He ate what came, though but a crust;
In Calvin’s creed he put his trust;
Praised heaven, and said that God was good,
And his calamity but just.
So Sylvio Pellico from cell-door
Forth tottering, after dungeoned years,
Crippled and bleached, and dead his peers:
” Grateful, I thank the Emperor.” ”

There ceasing, after pause Rolfe drew
Regard to Nehemiah in view:
” Look, the changed master, roams he there?
I mean, is such the guise, the air? ”
The speaker sat between mute Vine
And Clarel. From the mystic sea
Laocoon’s serpent, sleek and fine,
In loop on loop seemed here to twine
His clammy coils about the three.
Then unto them the wannish man
Draws nigh; but absently they scan;
A phantom seems he, and from zone
Where naught is real though the winds aye moan.

by Herman Melville

A Spirit Appeared to Me

A Spirit appeared to me, and said
” Where now would you choose to dwell?
In the Paradise of the Fool,
Or in wise Solomon’s hell? ”
Never he asked me twice:
” Give me the fool’s Paradise. ”

by Herman Melville

A Utilitarian View Of The Monitor's Fight

Plain be the phrase, yet apt the verse,
More ponderous than nimble;
For since grimed War here laid aside
His painted pomp, ‘twould ill befit
Overmuch to ply
The rhyme’s barbaric symbol.

Hail to victory without the gaud
Of glory; zeal that needs no fans
Of banners; plain mechanic power
Plied cogently in War now placed –
Where War belongs –
Among the trades and artisans.

Yet this was battle, and intense –
Beyond the strife of fleets heroic;
Deadlier, closer, calm ‘mid storm;
No passion; all went on by crank.
Pivot, and screw,
And calculations of caloric.

Needless to dwell; the story’s known.
The ringing of those plates on plates
Still ringeth round the world –
The clangor of the blacksmiths’ fray.
The anvil-din
Resounds this message from the Fates:

War shall yet be, and to the end;
But war-paint shows the streaks of weather;
War yet shall be, but the warriors
Are now but operatives; War’s made
Less grand than Peace,
And a singe runs through lace and feather.

by Herman Melville

A Way-side Weed

By orchards red he whisks along,
A charioteer from villa fine;
With passing lash o’ the whip he cuts
A way-side Weed divine.
But knows he what it is he does?
He flouts October’s god
Whose sceptre is this Way-side Weed,
This swaying Golden Rod?

by Herman Melville

Adieu

Ring down! The curtain falls and ye
Will go your ways. Yet think of me.
And genie take what’s genie given
And long be happy under heaven.

by Herman Melville

After the Pleasure Party: Lines Traced Under an Image of Amor Threatening

Behind the house the upland falls
With many an odorous tree–
White marbles gleaming through green halls,
Terrace by terrace, down and down,
And meets the starlit Mediterranean Sea.

‘Tis Paradise. In such an hour
Some pangs that rend might take release.
Nor less perturbed who keeps this bower
Of balm, nor finds balsamic peace?
From whom the passionate words in vent
After long revery’s discontent?

Tired of the homeless deep,
Look how their flight yon hurrying billows urge,
Hitherward but to reap
Passive repulse from the iron-bound verge!
Insensate, can they never know
‘Tis mad to wreck the impulsion so?

An art of memory is, they tell:
But to forget! forget the glade
Wherein Fate sprung Love’s ambuscade,
To flout pale years of cloistral life
And flush me in this sensuous strife.
‘Tis Vesta struck with Sappho’s smart.
No fable her delirious leap:
With more of cause in desperate heart,
Myself could take it–but to sleep!

Now first I feel, what all may ween,
That soon or late, if faded e’en,
One’s sex asserts itself. Desire,
The dear desire through love to sway,
Is like the Geysers that aspire–
Through cold obstruction win their fervid way.
But baffled here–to take disdain,
To feel rule’s instinct, yet not reign;
To dote, to come to this drear shame–
Hence the winged blaze that sweeps my soul
Like prairie fires that spurn control,
Where withering weeds incense the flame.

And kept I long heaven’s watch for this,
Contemning love, for this, even this?
O terrace chill in Northern air,
O reaching ranging tube I placed
Against yon skies, and fable chased
Till, fool, I hailed for sister there
Starred Cassiopea in Golden Chair.
In dream I throned me, nor I saw
In cell the idiot crowned with straw.

And yet, ah yet scarce ill I reigned,
Through self-illusion self-sustained,
When now–enlightened, undeceived–
What gain I barrenly bereaved!
Than this can be yet lower decline–
Envy and spleen, can these be mine?

The peasant girl demure that trod
Beside our wheels that climbed the way,
And bore along a blossoming rod
That looked the sceptre of May-Day–
On her–to fire this petty hell,
His softened glance how moistly fell!
The cheat! on briars her buds were strung;
And wiles peeped forth from mien how meek.
The innocent bare-foot! young, so young!
To girls, strong man’s a novice weak.
To tell such beads! And more remain,
Sad rosary of belittling pain.

When after lunch and sallies gay
Like the Decameron folk we lay
In sylvan groups; and I–let be!
O, dreams he, can he dream that one
Because not roseate feels no sun?
The plain lone bramble thrills with Spring
As much as vines that grapes shall bring.

Me now fair studies charm no more.
Shall great thoughts writ, or high themes sung
Damask wan cheeks–unlock his arm
About some radiant ninny flung?
How glad with all my starry lore,
I’d buy the veriest wanton’s rose
Would but my bee therein repose.

Could I remake me! or set free
This sexless bound in sex, then plunge
Deeper than Sappho, in a lunge
Piercing Pan’s paramount mystery!
For, Nature, in no shallow surge
Against thee either sex may urge,
Why hast thou made us but in halves–
Co-relatives? This makes us slaves.

If these co-relatives never meet
Self-hood itself seems incomplete.
And such the dicing of blind fate
Few matching halves here meet and mate.
What Cosmic jest or Anarch blunder
The human integral clove asunder
And shied the fractions through life’s gate?

Ye stars that long your votary knew
Rapt in her vigil, see me here!
Whither is gone the spell ye threw
When rose before me Cassiopea?
Usurped on by love’s stronger reign–
But lo, your very selves do wane:
Light breaks–truth breaks! Silvered no more,
But chilled by dawn that brings the gale
Shivers yon bramble above the vale,
And disillusion opens all the shore.

One knows not if Urania yet
The pleasure-party may forget;
Or whether she lived down the strain
Of turbulent heart and rebel brain;
For Amor so resents a slight,
And her’s had been such haught disdain,
He long may wreak his boyish spite,
And boy-like, little reck the pain.

One knows not, no. But late in Rome
(For queens discrowned a congruous home)
Entering Albani’s porch she stood
Fixed by an antique pagan stone
Colossal carved. No anchorite seer,
Not Thomas a Kempis, monk austere,
Religious more are in their tone;
Yet far, how far from Christian heart
That form august of heathen Art.
Swayed by its influence, long she stood,
Till surged emotion seething down,
She rallied and this mood she won:

Languid in frame for me,
To-day by Mary’s convent shrine,
Touched by her picture’s moving plea
In that poor nerveless hour of mine,
I mused–A wanderer still must grieve.
Half I resolved to kneel and believe,
Believe and submit, the veil take on.
But thee, armed Virgin! less benign,
Thee now I invoke, thou mightier one.
Helmeted woman–if such term
Befit thee, far from strife
Of that which makes the sexual feud
And clogs the aspirant life–
O self-reliant, strong and free,
Thou in whom power and peace unite,
Transcender! raise me up to thee,
Raise me and arm me!

Fond appeal.
For never passion peace shall bring,
Nor Art inanimate for long
Inspire. Nothing may help or heal
While Amor incensed remembers wrong.
Vindictive, not himself he’ll spare;
For scope to give his vengeance play
Himself he’ll blaspheme and betray.

Then for Urania, virgins everywhere,
O pray! Example take too, and have care.

by Herman Melville

After the Pleasure Party

Fear me, virgin whosoeverTaking pride from love exemptFear me, slighted. Never, neverBrave me, nor my fury tempt:Downy wings, but wroth they beatTempest even in reason’s seat.

Behind the house the upland falls
With many an odorous tree–
White marbles gleaming through green halls,
Terrace by terrace, down and down,
And meets the starlit Mediterranean Sea.

‘Tis Paradise. In such an hour
Some pangs that rend might take release.
Nor less perturbed who keeps this bower
Of balm, nor finds balsamic peace?
From whom the passionate words in vent
After long revery’s discontent?

Tired of the homeless deep,
Look how their flight yon hurrying billows urge,
Hitherward but to reap
Passive repulse from the iron-bound verge!
Insensate, can they never know
‘Tis mad to wreck the impulsion so?

An art of memory is, they tell:
But to forget! forget the glade
Wherein Fate sprung Love’s ambuscade,
To flout pale years of cloistral life
And flush me in this sensuous strife.
‘Tis Vesta struck with Sappho’s smart.
No fable her delirious leap:
With more of cause in desperate heart,
Myself could take it–but to sleep!

Now first I feel, what all may ween,
That soon or late, if faded e’en,
One’s sex asserts itself. Desire,
The dear desire through love to sway,
Is like the Geysers that aspire–
Through cold obstruction win their fervid way.
But baffled here–to take disdain,
To feel rule’s instinct, yet not reign;
To dote, to come to this drear shame–
Hence the winged blaze that sweeps my soul
Like prairie fires that spurn control,
Where withering weeds incense the flame.

And kept I long heaven’s watch for this,
Contemning love, for this, even this?
O terrace chill in Northern air,
O reaching ranging tube I placed
Against yon skies, and fable chased
Till, fool, I hailed for sister there
Starred Cassiopea in Golden Chair.
In dream I throned me, nor I saw
In cell the idiot crowned with straw.

And yet, ah yet scarce ill I reigned,
Through self-illusion self-sustained,
When now–enlightened, undeceived–
What gain I barrenly bereaved!
Than this can be yet lower decline–
Envy and spleen, can these be mine?

The peasant girl demure that trod
Beside our wheels that climbed the way,
And bore along a blossoming rod
That looked the sceptre of May-Day–
On her–to fire this petty hell,
His softened glance how moistly fell!
The cheat! on briars her buds were strung;
And wiles peeped forth from mien how meek.
The innocent bare-foot! young, so young!
To girls, strong man’s a novice weak.
To tell such beads! And more remain,
Sad rosary of belittling pain.

When after lunch and sallies gay
Like the Decameron folk we lay
In sylvan groups; and I–let be!
O, dreams he, can he dream that one
Because not roseate feels no sun?
The plain lone bramble thrills with Spring
As much as vines that grapes shall bring.

Me now fair studies charm no more.
Shall great thoughts writ, or high themes sung
Damask wan cheeks–unlock his arm
About some radiant ninny flung?
How glad with all my starry lore,
I’d buy the veriest wanton’s rose
Would but my bee therein repose.

Could I remake me! or set free
This sexless bound in sex, then plunge
Deeper than Sappho, in a lunge
Piercing Pan’s paramount mystery!
For, Nature, in no shallow surge
Against thee either sex may urge,
Why hast thou made us but in halves–
Co-relatives? This makes us slaves.
If these co-relatives never meet
Self-hood itself seems incomplete.
And such the dicing of blind fate
Few matching halves here meet and mate.
What Cosmic jest or Anarch blunder
The human integral clove asunder
And shied the fractions through life’s gate?

Ye stars that long your votary knew
Rapt in her vigil, see me here!
Whither is gone the spell ye threw
When rose before me Cassiopea?
Usurped on by love’s stronger reign–
But lo, your very selves do wane:
Light breaks–truth breaks! Silvered no more,
But chilled by dawn that brings the gale
Shivers yon bramble above the vale,
And disillusion opens all the shore.

One knows not if Urania yet
The pleasure-party may forget;
Or whether she lived down the strain
Of turbulent heart and rebel brain;
For Amor so resents a slight,
And her’s had been such haught disdain,
He long may wreak his boyish spite,
And boy-like, little reck the pain.

One knows not, no. But late in Rome
(For queens discrowned a congruous home)
Entering Albani’s porch she stood
Fixed by an antique pagan stone
Colossal carved. No anchorite seer,
Not Thomas a Kempis, monk austere,
Religious more are in their tone;
Yet far, how far from Christian heart
That form august of heathen Art.
Swayed by its influence, long she stood,
Till surged emotion seething down,
She rallied and this mood she won:

Languid in frame for me,
To-day by Mary’s convent shrine,
Touched by her picture’s moving plea
In that poor nerveless hour of mine,
I mused–A wanderer still must grieve.
Half I resolved to kneel and believe,
Believe and submit, the veil take on.
But thee, armed Virgin! less benign,
Thee now I invoke, thou mightier one.
Helmeted woman–if such term
Befit thee, far from strife
Of that which makes the sexual feud
And clogs the aspirant life–
O self-reliant, strong and free,
Thou in whom power and peace unite,
Transcender! raise me up to thee,
Raise me and arm me!

Fond appeal.
For never passion peace shall bring,
Nor Art inanimate for long
Inspire. Nothing may help or heal
While Amor incensed remembers wrong.
Vindictive, not himself he’ll spare;
For scope to give his vengeance play
Himself he’ll blaspheme and betray.

Then for Urania, virgins everywhere,
O pray! Example take too, and have care.

by Herman Melville

Ah! / These under-formings in the mind

Ah!
These under-formings in the mind,
Banked corals which ascend from far,
But little heed men that they wind
Unseen, unheard—till lo, the reef—
The reef and breaker, wreck and grief.
But here unlearning, how to me
Opes the expanse of time’s vast sea!
Yes, I am young, but Asia old.
The books, the books not all have told.

by Herman Melville

Afterward

“Seedsmen of old Saturn’s land,
Love and peace went hand in hand,
And sowed the Era Golden!

“Golden time for man and mead:
Title none, nor title-deed,
Nor any slave, nor Soldan.

“Venus burned both large and bright,
Honey-moon from night to night,
Nor bride, nor groom waxed olden.

“Big the tears, but ruddy ones,
Crushed from grapes in vats and tuns
Of vineyards green and golden!

“Sweet to sour did never sue,
None repented ardor true—
Those years did so embolden.

“Glum Don Graveairs slunk in den:
Frankly roved the gods with men
In gracious talk and golden.

“Thrill it, cymbals of my rhyme,
Power was love, and love in prime,
Nor revel to toil beholden.

“Back, come back, good age, and reign,
Goodly age, and long remain—
Saturnian Age, the Golden!”

The masquer gone, by stairs that climb,
In seemly sort, the friars withdrew;
And, waiting that, the Islesman threw
His couplets of the Arcadian time,
Then turning on the pilgrims: “Hoo!

“The bird of Paradise don’t like owls:
A handful of acorns after the cowls!”

But Clarel, bantered by the song,
Sad questioned, if in frames of thought
And feeling, there be right and wrong;
Whether the lesson Joel taught
Confute what from the marble’s caught
In sylvan sculpture—Bacchant, Faun,
Or shapes more lax by Titian drawn.
Such counter natures in mankind—
Mole, bird, not more unlike we find:
Instincts adverse, nor less how true
Each to itself. What clew, what clew?

by Herman Melville

Always with Us!

Betimes a wise guest
His visit will sever.
Yes, absence endears.
Revisit he would,
So remains not forever.

Well, Robin the wise one
He went yestreen,
Bound for the South
Where his chums convene.

Back, he’ll come back
In his new Spring vest
And the more for long absence
Be welcomed with zest.

But thou, black Crow,
Inconsiderate fowl,
Wilt never away —
Take elsewhere they cowl?

From the blasted hemlock’s
Whitened spur;
Whatever the season,
Or Winter or Ver
Or Summer or Fall,
Croaker, foreboder,
We hear thy call —
Caw! Caw! Caw!

by Herman Melville

America

I
Where the wings of a sunny Dome expand
I saw a Banner in gladsome air-
Starry, like Berenice’s Hair-
Afloat in broadened bravery there;
With undulating long-drawn flow,
As rolled Brazilian billows go
Voluminously o’er the Line.
The Land reposed in peace below;
The children in their glee
Were folded to the exulting heart
Of young Maternity.
II
Later, and it streamed in fight
When tempest mingled with the fray,
And over the spear-point of the shaft
I saw the ambiguous lightning play.
Valor with Valor strove, and died:
Fierce was Despair, and cruel was Pride;
And the lorn Mother speechless stood,
Pale at the fury of her brood.

III
Yet later, and the silk did wind
Her fair cold for;
Little availed the shining shroud,
Though ruddy in hue, to cheer or warm
A watcher looked upon her low, and said-
She sleeps, but sleeps, she is not dead.
But in that sleep contortion showed
The terror of the vision there-
A silent vision unavowed,
Revealing earth’s foundation bare,
And Gorgon in her hidden place.
It was a thing of fear to see
So foul a dream upon so fair a face,
And the dreamer lying in that starry shroud.
IV
But from the trance she sudden broke-
The trance, or death into promoted life;
At her feet a shivered yoke,
And in her aspect turned to heaven
No trace of passion or of strife-
A clear calm look. It spake of pain,
But such as purifies from stain-
Sharp pangs that never come again-
And triumph repressed by knowledge meet,
Power delicate, and hope grown wise,
And youth matured for age’s seat-
Law on her brow and empire in her eyes.
So she, with graver air and lifted flag;
While the shadow, chased by light,
Fled along the far-brawn height,
And left her on the crag.

by Herman Melville

Amoroso

Rosamond, my Rosamond
Of roses is the rose;
Her bloom belongs to summer,
Nor less in winter glows,
When, mossed in furs all cosey,
We speed it o’er the snows
By ice-bound streams enchanted,
While red Arcturus, he
A huntsman ever ruddy,
Sees a ruddier star by me.
O Rosamond, Rose Rosamond,
Is yonder Dian’s reign?
Look, the icicles despond
Chill drooping from the fane!
But Rosamond, Rose Rosamond,
In us, a plighted pair,
First makes with flame a bond, —
One purity they share.
To feel your cheek like ice,
While snug the furs inclose —
This is spousal love’s device
This is Arctic Paradise,
And wooing in the snows!
Rosamond, my Rosamond,
Rose Rosamond, Moss-Rose!

by Herman Melville

An Uninscribed Monument on One of the Battle-Fields of the Wilderness

Silence and solitude may hint
(Whose home is in yon piney wood)
What I, though tableted, could never tell–
The din which here befell,
And striving of the multitude.
The iron cones and spheres of death
Set round me in their rust,
These, too, if just,
Shall speak with more than animated breath.
Thou who beholdest, if thy thought,
Not narrowed down to personal cheer,
Take in the import of the quiet here–
The after-quiet–the calm full fraught;
Thou too wilt silent stand–
Silent as I, and lonesome as the land.

by Herman Melville

Apathy and Enthusiasm

I

O the clammy cold November,
And the winter white and dead,
And the terror dumb with stupor,
And the sky a sheet of lead;
And events that came resounding
With the cry that All was lost ,
Like the thunder-cracks of massy ice
In intensity of frost —
Bursting one upon another
Through the horror of the calm.
The paralysis of arm
In the anguish of the heart;
And the hollowness and dearth.
The appealings of the mother
To brother and to brother
Not in hatred so to part —
And the fissure in the hearth
Growing momently more wide.
Then the glances ‘tween the Fates,
And the doubt on every side,
And the patience under gloom
In the stoniness that waits
The finality of doom.

II

So the winter died despairing,
And the weary weeks of Lent;
And the ice-bound rivers melted,
And the tomb of Faith was rent.
O, the rising of the People
Came with springing of the grass,
They rebounded from dejection
After Easter came to pass.
And the young were all elation
Hearing Sumter’s cannon roar,
And they thought how tame the Nation
In the age that went before.
And Michael seemed gigantical,
The Arch-fiend but a dwarf;
And at the towers of Erebus
Our striplings flung the scoff.
But the elders with foreboding
Mourned the days forever o’er,
And recalled the forest proverb,
The Iroquois’ old saw:
Grief to every graybeard
When young Indians lead the war.

by Herman Melville