37. 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 overrulings 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 wilful 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 tho' doled, and water stored
Ran low and lower — ceased. They burn —
They agonise 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. "
" I willed it, " 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 neighbours 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 tho' the winds aye moan.