University of Virginia Library

While Agath was his story telling
(Ere yet the ill thing worked surprise)
The officer with forest eyes
Still kept them dwelling, somber dwelling
On that mild merman gray. His mien
In part was that of one who tries
Something outside his own routine
Of memories, all too profuse
In personal pain monotonous.
And yet derived he little here,
As seemed, to soothe his mind—austere
With deep impressions uneffaced.
At chance allusion—at the hint
That the dragged tortoise bore the print
Of something mystic and debased,
How glowed the comment in his eyes:
No cynic fire sarcastic; nay,
But deeper in the startled sway
Of illustrations to surmise.

Ever on him they turned the look,
While yet the hearing not forsook
The salt seer while narration ran.
The desert march resumed, in thought
They dwell, till Rolfe the Druze besought
If he before had met this man—
So distant, though a countryman
By birth. Why, yes—had met him: see,
Drilling some tawny infantry
In shadow of a Memphian wall,
White-robed young conscripts up the Nile;
And, afterward, on Jaffa beach,
With Turkish captains holding speech
Over some cannon in a pile
Late landed—with the conic ball.
No more? No more the Druze let fall,
If more he knew.
Thought Rolfe: Ay me,
Ay me, poor Freedom, can it be
A countryman's a refugee?
What maketh him abroad to roam
Sharing with infidels a home?
Is it the immense charred solitudes
Once farms? and chimney-stacks that reign
War-burnt upon the houseless plain
Of hearthstones without neighborhoods?
Is it the wilds whose memories own
More specters than the woods bestrown
With Varus' legions mossy grown?
Is't misrule after strife? and dust
From victor heels? Is it disgust
For times when honor's out of date
And serveth but to alienate?
The usurping altar doth he scout—
The Parsee of a sun gone out?
And this, may all this mar his state?
His very virtues, in the blench
And violence of fortune's wrench,
Alas, serve but to vitiate?
Strong natures have a strong recoil
Whose shock may wreck them or despoil.
Oh, but it yields a thought that smarts,
To note this man. Our New World bold
Had fain improved upon the Old;
But the hemispheres are counterparts.

So inly Rolfe; and did incline
In briefer question there to Vine,
Who could but answer him with eyes
Opulent in withheld replies.

And here—without a thought to chide—
Feeling the tremor of the ground—
Reluctant touching on the wound
Unhealed yet in our mother's side;
Behooveth it to hint in brief
The rankling thing in Ungar's grief;
For bravest grieve.—That evil day,
Black in the New World's calendar—
The dolorous winter ere the war;
True Bridge of Sighs—so yet 'twill be
Esteemed in riper history—
Sad arch between contrasted eras;
The span of fate; that evil day
When the cadets from rival zones,
Tradition's generous adherers,
Their country's pick and flower of sons,
Abrupt were called upon to act—
For life or death, nor brook delay—
Touching construction of a pact,
A paper pact, with points abstruse
As theologic ones—profuse
In matter for an honest doubt;
And which, in end, a stubborn knot
Some cut but with the sword; that day
With its decision, yet could sway
Ungar, and plunging thoughts excite.
Reading and revery imped his pain,
Confirmed, and made it take a flight
Beyond experience and the reign
Of self; till, in a sort, the man
Grew much like that Pamphylian
Who, dying (as the fable goes)
In walks of Hades met with those
Which, though he was a sage of worth,
Did such new pregnancies implant,
Hadean lore, he did recant
All science he had brought from earth.
Herewith in Ungar, though, ensued
A bias, bitterness—a strain
Much like an Indian's hopeless feud
Under the white's aggressive reign.
Indian's the word; nor it impeach
For over-pointedness of speech;
No, let the story rearward run
And its propriety be shown: