Clarel/Part 4/Canto 34

by Herman Melville

34. Via Crucis

Some leading thoroughfares of man
In wood-path, track, or trail began;
Though threading heart of proudest town,
They follow in controlling grade
A hint or dictate, nature's own, 5
By man, as by the brute, obeyed.

Within Jerusalem a lane,
Narrow, nor less an artery main
(Though little knoweth it of din),
In part suggests such origin. 10
The restoration or repair,
Successive through long ages there,
Of city upon city tumbled,
Might scarce divert that thoroughfare,
Whose hill abideth yet unhumbled 15

Above the valley-side it meets.
Pronounce its name, this natural street's:
The Via Crucis--even the way
Tradition claims to be the one
Trod on that Friday far away 20
By Him our pure exemplar shown.

  'Tis Whitsun-tide. From paths without,
Through Stephen's gatc by many a vein
Convergent brought within this lane,
Ere sun-down shut the loiterer out-- 25
As 'twere a frieze, behold the train!
Bowed water-carriers; Jews with staves;
Infirm gray monks; over-loaded slaves;
Turk soldiers--young, with home-sick eyes;
A Bey, bereaved through luxuries; 30
Strangers and exiles; Moslem dames
Long-veiled in monumental white,
Dumb from the mounds which memory claims;
A half-starved vagrant Edomite;
Sore-footed Arab girls, which toil 35
Depressed under heap of garden-spoil;
The patient ass with panniered urn;
Sour camels humped by heaven and man,
Whose languid necks through habit turn
For easc for ease they hardly gain. 40
In varied forms of fate they wend--

Or man or animal, 'tis one:
Cross-bearers all, alike they tend
And follow, slowly follow on.

   But, lagging after, who is he 45
Called early every hope to test,
And now, at close of rarer quest,
Finds so much more the heavier tree?
From slopes whence even Echo's gone,
Wending, he murmurs in low tone: 50
"They wire the world--far under sea

They talk; but never comes to me
A message from beneath the stone."

  Dusked Olivet he leaves behind,
And, taking now a slender wynd, 55
Vanishes in the obscurer town.