(Excerpt from CLAREL written by MOBY DICK author Herman Melville. CLAREL is the longest American poem ever written in classic American literature that is 18,000 lines long! Longer than both John Miltons PARADISE LOST and Alfred Tennsysons IDYLLS OF THE KING.) Yes, long as children feel affright In darkness, men shall fear a God; And long as daisies yield delight Shall see His footprints in the sod. Ist ignorance? This ignorant state Science doth but elucidate -- Deepen, enlarge. But though twere made Demonstrable that God is not -- What then? It would not change this lot: The ghost would haunt, nor could be laid. Yea, ape and angel, strife and old debate -- The harps of heaven and the dreary gongs of hell; Science the feud can only aggravate -- No umpire she betwixt the chimes and knell: The running battle of the star and clod Shall run for ever -- if there be no God. But through such strange illusions have they passed Who in lifes pilgrimage have baffled striven -- Even death may prove unreal at the last, And stoics be astounded into heaven. Then keep thy heart, though yet but ill-resigned -- Clarel, thy heart, the issues there but mind; That like the crocus budding through the snow -- That like a swimmer rising from the deep -- That like a burning secret which doth go Even from the bosom that would hoard and keep; Emerge thou mayst from the last whelming sea, And prove that death but routs life into victory.
Posted on: Wed, 01 Oct 2014 01:37:56 +0000
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