"After The Pleasure Party; Lines Traced Under An Image Of Amor Threatening" by Herman Melville

After The Pleasure Party;
Lines Traced Under
An Image Of Amor Threatening
By Herman Melville

Fear me, virgin whosoever

Taking pride from love exempt,

Fear me, slighted. Never, never

Brave me, nor my fury tempt:

Downy wings, but wroth they beat

Tempest 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 reverie'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 baffied 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 Cassiopeia 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

Selfhood 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 Cassiopeia?

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 à 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.