Clarel/Part 4/Canto 15
15. Symphonies[edit]
Meanwhile with Vine there, Clarel stood
Aside in friendly neighborhood,
And felt a flattering pleasure stir
At words--nor in equivocal tone
Freakish, or leaving to infer, 5
Such as beforetime he had known--
Breathed now by that exceptional one
In unconstraint:
"'Tis very much
The cold fastidious heart to touch 10
This way; nor is it mere address
That so could move one's silver chord.
How he transfigured Ungar's sword!
Delusive is this earnestness
Which holds him in its passion pale-- 15
Tenant of melancholy's dale
Of mirage? To interpret him,
Perhaps it needs a swallow-skim
Over distant time. Migrate with me
Across the years, across the sea.-- 20
How like a Poor Clare in her cheer
(Grave Sister of his order sad)
Showed nature to that Cordelier
Who, roving in the Mexic glade,
Saw in a bud of happy dower 25
Whose stalk entwined the tropic tree,
Emblems of Christ's last agony:
In anthers, style, and fibers torn,
The five wounds, nails, and crown of thorn;
And named it so the passion-flower. 30
What beauty in that sad conceit!
Such charm, the title still we meet.
Our guide, methinks, where'er he turns
For him this passion-flower burns;
And all the world is elegy. 35
A green knoll is to you and me
But pastoral, and little more:
To him 'tis even Calvary
Where feeds the Lamb. This passion-flower--
But list!" 40
Hid organ-pipes unclose
A timid rill of slender sound,
Which gains in volume--grows, and flows
Gladsome in amplitude of bound.
Low murmurs creep. From either side 45
Tenor and treble interpose,
And talk across the expanding tide:
Debate, which in confusion merges--
Din and clamor, discord's hight:
Countering surges--paeans--dirges-- 50
Mocks, and laughter light.
But rolled in long ground-swell persistent,
A tone, an under-tone assails
And overpowers all near and distant;
Earnest and sternest, it prevails. 55
Then terror, horror--wind and rain--
Accents of undetermined fear,
And voices as in shipwreck drear:
A sea, a sea of spirits in pain!
The suppliant cries decrease-- 60
The voices in their ferment cease:
One wave rolls over all and whelms to peace.
But hark--oh, hark!
Whence, whence this stir, this whirr of wings?
Numbers numberless convening-- 65
Harps and child-like carolings
In happy holiday of meaning:
To God be glory in the hight,
For tidings glad we bring;
Good will to men, and peace on earth 70
We children-cherubs sing!
To God be glory in the depth,
As in the hight be praise;
He who shall break the gates of death
A babe in manger rays. 75
Ye people all in every land,
Embrace, embrace, be kin:
Immanuel's born in Bethlehem,
And gracious years begin!
It dies; and, half around the heavenly sphere, 80
Like silvery lances lightly touched aloft--
Like Northern Lights appealing to the ear,
An elfin melody chimes low and soft.
That also dies, that last strange fairy-thrill:
Slowly it dies away, and all is sweetly still. 85