Classic and Contemporary Poetry
NAPLES IN THE TIME OF BOMBA, by HERMAN MELVILLE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Behind a span whose cheery pace Last Line: Ringing down the curtain on the rose. Subject(s): Ferdinand Ii, King Of Two Sicilies; Naples, Italy | ||||||||
Behind a span whose cheery pace Accorded well with gala trim -- Each harness, in arch triumphal reared, With festive ribbons fluttering gay; In Bomba's Naples sallying forth In season when the vineyards mellow, Suddenly turning a corner round -- Ha, happy to meet you, Punchinello! And, merrily there, in license free, The crowd they caper, droll as he; While, arch as any, rolled in fun, Such tatterdemalions, many a one! We jounced along till, just ahead, Nor far from shrine in niche of wall, A stoppage fell. His rug or bed In midmost way a tumbler spread, A posturing mountebank withall; Who, though his stage was out of doors, Brought down the house in jolly applause. "Signor," exclaims my charioteer, Turning, and reining up, the while Trying to touch his jaunty hat; But here, essaying to condense Such opposite movements into one Failing, and letting fall his whip, "His Excellency stops the way!" His Excellency there, meanwhile -- Reversed in stature, legs aloft, And hobbling jigs on hands for heels -- Gazed up with blood-shot brow that told The tension of that nimble play -- Gazed up as martyred Peter might; And, noting me in landeau-seat (Milor, there he opined, no doubt) Brisk somersetted back, and stood Urbanely bowing, then gave place; While, tickled at my puzzled plight, Yet mindful that a move was due, And knowing me a stranger there, With one consent the people part Yielding a passage, and with eyes Of friendly fun, -- how courteous too! Catching an impulse from their air, To feet I spring, my beaver doff And broadcast wave a blithe salute. In genial way how humorsome What pleased responses of surprise; From o'er the Alps, and so polite! They clap their hands in frank acclaim Matrons in door-ways nod and smile From balcony roguish girls laugh out Or kiss their fingers, rain their nosegays down. At such a shower -- laugh, clap, and flower -- My horses shy, the landeau tilts, Distractedly the driver pulls. But I, Jack Gentian, what reck I, The popular hero, object sole Of this ovation! -- I aver No viceroy, king, nor emperor, Panjandrum Grand, conquistador -- Not Caesar's self in car aloft Triumphal on the Sacred Way, No, nor young Bacchus through glad Asia borne, Pelted with grapes, exulted so As I in hackney-landeau here Jolting and jouncing thro' the waves Of confluent commoners who in glee Good natured past before my prow. II Flattered along by following cheers We sped; I musing here in mind, Beshrew me, needs be overdrawn Those shocking stories bruited wide, In England which I left but late, Touching dire tyranny in Naples. True freedom is to be care-free! And care-free seem the people here A truce indeed they seem to keep Gay truce to care and all her brood. But, look: what mean you surly walls? A fortress? and in heart of town? Even so. And rapt I stare thereon. The battlements black-beetling hang Over the embrasures' tiers of throats Whose enfilading tongues seem trained Less to beat alien foemen off Than awe the town. "Rabble!" they said, Or in dumb threatening seemed to say, "Revolt, and we will rake your lanes!" But what strange quietude of wall! While musing if response would be Did tourist on the clampt gate tap Politely there with slender cane -- Abrupt, to din condensed of drums And blast of thronged trumps trooping first, Right and left with clangor and clash The double portals outward burst Before streamed thronged bayonets that flash Like lightning's sortie from the cloud. Storming from the gloomy tower Tempestuous thro' the carverned arch, Like one long lance they lunge along, A thousand strong of infantry! The captains like to torches flaring, Red plumes and scarlet sashes blown, Bare sword in hand audacious gleaming; While, like ejected lava rolled, The files on files are vomited forth Eruptive from their crater belched! Sidelong, in vulpine craven sort, On either flank at louring brows Of tag-rag who before their sortie Divide in way how all unlike Their parting late before my wheels! Who makes this sortie? who? and why? Anon I learned. Sicilians, these -- Sicilians from Palermo shipped In meet exchange for hirelings lent From Naples here to hold the Isle; And daily thus in seething town From fort to fort are trooping streamed To threaten, intimidate, and cow. Flaunting the overlording flag, Thumping the domineering drum, With insolent march of blustering arms They clean put out the festive stir, Ay, quench the popular fun. The fun they quench, but scarce the hate In bridled imprecations pale Of brooding hearts vindictive there, The deadlier bent for rasping curb, Through mutterings like deep thunder low, Couched thunder ere the leaping bolt, The swaggering troops and bullying trumpets go. They fleet -- they fade. And, altered much, In serious sort my way I hold, Till revery, taking candor's tone With optimistic influence plead: Sad, bad, confess; but solace bides! For much has Nature done, methinks, In offset here with kindlier aim. If bayonets flash, what vineyards glow! Of all these hells of wrath and wrong How little feels the losel light Who, thrown upon the odorous sod In this indulgent clime of charm Scarce knows a thought or feels a care Except to take his careless pleasure: A fig for Bomba! life is fair Squandered in superabundant leisure! Ay, but ye ragamuffs cutting pranks About the capering mountebanks Was that indeed mirth's true elation? Or even in some a patched despair, Bravery in tatters debonair, True devil-may-care dilapidation? Well, be these rubs even how they may, Smart cock-plumes in yon headstalls dance, Each harness with ribbons flutters gay, I see at pole our wreath advance: Inodorous muslin garland -- true: Impostor, but of jocund hue! Ah, could one but realities rout A holiday-world it were, no doubt. But Naples, sure she lacks not cheer, Religion, it is jubilee here -- Feast follows festa thro' the year; And then such Nature all about! No surly moor of forge and mill, She charms us glum barbarians still, Fleeing from frost, bad bread, or duns, Despotic Biz, and devils blue, And there's our pallid invalid ones, Their hollow eyes the scene survey; They win this clime of more than spice, These myrtled shores, to wait the boat That ferries (so the pilots say), Yes, ferries to the isles afloat, The floating Isles of Paradise If God's AEgean far away! O, scarce in trival tenor all, Much less to mock man's mortal sigh, Those syllables proverbial fall, Naples, see Naples, and -- then die! But hark: you low note rising clear; A singer! -- rein up, charioteer! III "Name me, do, that dulcet Donna Whose perennial gifts engaging Win the world to dote upon her In meridian never ageing! Look, in climes beyond the palms Younger sisters bare young charms -- She the mellower graces! Ripened heart maturely kind, St. Martin's summer of the mind, And pathos of the years behind -- More than empty faces!" Who sings? Behold him under bush Of vintner's ivy nigh a porch, His rag-fair raiment botched and darned But face much like a Delphic coin's New disinterred with clinging soil. Tarnished Apollo! -- But let pass. Best here be heedful, yes, and chary, Sentiment nowadays waxeth wary, And idle the ever-cooked Alas. IV Advancing now, we passed hard by A regal court where under drill Drawn up in line the palace-guard Behind tall iron pickets spiked With gilded barbs, in martial din Clanged down their muskets on the pave. Some urchins small looked on, and men With eye-lids squeezed, yet letting out A flame as of quick lightning thin; The Captain of the guard meanwhile, A nervous corpulence, on these Stealing a restive sidelong glance. A curve. And rounding by the bay Nigh Edens parked along the verge, Brief halt was made amid the press; And, instantaneous thereupon, A buoyant nymph on odorous wing Alighting on the landeau-step, Half hovering like a humming-bird, A flower pinned to my lapelle, Letting a thrill from finger brush (Sure, unaware) the sensitive chin; Yes, badged me in a twinkling bright With O a red and royal rose; A rose just flowering from the bud Received my tribute, random coins, Beaming received it, chirped adieu, Twirled on her pivot and -- was gone! An opening came; and in a trice The horses went, my landeau rocked, The ribbons streamed; while, ruddy now, Flushed with the rose's reflex bloom, I dwelt no more on things amiss: Come, take thine ease; lean back, my soul; The world let spin; what signifies? Look, she, the flower-girl -- what recks she Of Bomba's sortie? what indeed! Fine sortie of her own, the witch, But now she made upon my purse, And even a craftier sally too! V "Signor, turn here?" And turn we did, Repassing scenes that charmed erewhile, Nor less could charm reviewed even now. What blandishment in clime, or else What subtler influence, my rose, From thee exhaled, thou Lydian one, Seductive here could flatter me Even in emotion not unfelt While fleeting from that warmish pair! If, taking tone indeed from them, No lightsome thought awhile prevailed Devious it drifted like a dream. I mused on Virgil, here inurned On Pausilippo, legend tells -- Here on the slope that pledges ease to pain, For him a pledge assuredly true If here indeed his ashes be -- Rome's laureat in Rome's palmy time; Nor less whose epic's undertone In volumed numbers rolling bland, Chafing against the metric bound, Plains like the South Sea ground-swell heaved Against the palm-isle's halcyon strand. What Mohawk of a mountain 'lours! A scalp-lock of Tartarian smoke Thin streaming forth from tawny brow, One heel on painted Pompeii set, And one on Hercules 'whelmed town! The Siren's seat for pleasurists lies Betwixt two threatening bombardiers Their mortars loaded, linstocks lit -- Vesuvius yonder -- Bomba here. Events may Bomba's batteries spike: But how with thee, sulphurious Hill Whose vent far hellward reaches down! Ah, funeral urns of time antique Inwrought with flowers in gala play, Whose form and bacchanal dance in freak, Even as of pagan time ye speak Type ye what Naples is alway? Yes, round these curved volcanic shores, Vined urn of ashes, bed on bed, Abandonment as thoughtless pours As when the revelling pagan led. And here again I droopt the brow, And, lo, again I saw the Rose, The red red ruddy and royal Rose! Expanded more from bud but late Sensuous it lured, and took the tone Of some light taunting Cyprian gay In shadow deep of college-wall Startling some museful youth afoot -- "Mooning in mind? Ah, lack-a-day!" VI I turned me short; and, timely now, Beheld this scene: damsels sun-burnt, In holiday garb with tinsel trimmed; And men and lads behind them ranged About a carpet on the beach, Whereon a juggler in brocade Made rainbows of his glittering balls, Cascading them with dexterous sleight; And as from hand to hand they flew With minglings of interior din, He trilled a ditty deftly timed To every lilted motion light: -- "The balls, hey! the balls, Cascatella of balls -- Baseless arches I toss up in air! Spinning we go, -- Now over, now under; High Jack is Jack low, And never a blunder! Come hither -- go thither: But wherefor nowhither? I lose them -- I win them, From hand to hand spin them, Reject them, and seize them, And toss them, and tease them, And keep them forever in air, All to serve but a freak of my glee! Sport ye thus with your spoonies, ye fair, For your mirth? nor even forbear To juggle with Nestors your thralls? Do ye keep them in play with your smiling and frowning, Your flirting, your fooling, abasing and crowning, And dance them as I do these balls?" With that, and hurrying his two hands, Arching he made his meteors play; When, lo, like Mercury dropped from heaven, Precipitate there a tumbler flew, Alighting on winged feet; then sang, Dancing at whiles, and beating time, Clicking his nimble heels together In hornpipe of the gamesome kid: "Over mines, by vines That take hot flavor From Vesuvius -- Hark, in vintage Sounds the tabor! "In brimstone-colored Tights or breeches There the Wag-fiend Dancing teaches; "High in wine-press Hoop elastic Pigeon-wings cut In rite fantastic; "While the black grape, Spirting, gushing, Into red wine Foameth rushing! "Which wine drinking, Drowning thinking, Every night-fall, Heard in Strada, Kiss the doves And coos the adder!" While yet I listened, vivid came A flash of thought that carried me Back to five hundred years ago. I saw the panoramic bay In afternoon beneath me spread -- All Naples from siesta risen Peopling the benches, barges, moles. Cooled over blue waves tinkling bland Came waftures from Sorrento's vines, And Queen Joanna, queen and bride, Sat in her casement by the sea, Twining three strands of silk and gold Into a cord how softly strung. "For what this dainty rope, sweet wife?" It was the bridegroom who had stolen Behind her chair, and now first spoke. "To hang you with, Andrea," she said Smiling. He shrugged his shoulders; "Nay, What need? I'll hang but on your neck." And straight caressed her; and when she Sat mutely passive, smiling still. For jest he took it? But that night A rope of twisted silk and gold Droopt from a balcony where vines In flower showed violently torn; And, starlit, thence what tassel swung! For offset to Eve's serpent twined In that same sleek and shimmering cord, Quite other scene recurred. In hall Of Naples here, withall I stood Before the pale mute-speaking stone Of seated Agrippina -- she The truest woman that ever wed In tragic widowhood transfixed; In cruel craft exiled from Rome To gaze on Naples' sunny bay, More sharp to feel her sunless doom. O ageing face, O youthful form, O listless hand in idle lap, And, ah, what thoughts of God and man! But intervening here, my Flower, Opening yet more in bloom the less, Maturing toward the wane, -- low-breathed, Again? and quite forgotten me? You wear an Order, me, the Rose, To whom the favoring fates allot A term that shall not bloom outlast; No future's mine, nor mine a past. Yet I'm the Rose, the flower of flowers. Ah, let time's present time suffice, No Past pertains to Paradise. Time present. Well, in present time It chanced a lilting note I heard, A fruit-girl's, and she fluted this: "Love-apples, love-apples! All dew, honey-dew, From orchards of Cyprus -- Blood-oranges too! "Will you buy? prithee, try! They grew facing south; See, mutely they languish To melt in your mouth! "'This now, take them now In the hey-day of flush, While the crisis is on, And the juices can gush! "Love-apples, love-apples, All dew, honey-dew, From orchards of Cyprus -- Blood-oranges, too!" Warbling and proffering them she went, And passed, and left me as erewhile, For the dun annals would not down. Murky along the sunny strand New spectres streamed from shades below, Spectres of Naples under Spain, Phantoms of that incensed Revolt With whose return Wrath threatens still Bomba engirt with guards. -- Lo, there, A throng confused, in arms they pass, Arms snatched from smithy, forge and shop: Craftsman and sailors, peasants, boys, And swarthier faces dusked between -- Brigands and outlaws; linked with these Salvator Rosa, and the fierce Falcone with his fiery school; Pell-mell with riff-raff, banded all In league as violent as the sway Of feudal claims and foreign lords Whose iron heel evoked the spark That fired the populace into flame. And, see, dark eyes and sunny locks Of Masaniello, bridegroom young, Tanned marigold-cheek and tasselled cap; The darling of the mob; nine days Their great Apollo; then, in pomp Of Pandemonium's red parade, His curled head Gorgoned on the pike, And jerked aloft for God to see. A portent. Yes, and typed the years Red after-years, and whirl of error When Freedom linkt with Furies raved In Carmagnole and cannibal hymn, Mad song and dance before the ark From France imported with The Terror! To match the poison, mock the clime, Hell's cornucopia crammed with crime! Scarce cheerful here the revery ran. Nor did my Rose now intervene, Full opening out in dust and sun Which hurried along that given term, She said would never bloom outlast. VII By marbles where a fountain rose In jubilant waters scurrying high To break in sleet against the blue, I saw a thing as freshly bright -- A boy, who holding up a shell, Enamelled part, with pinkish valve New dipped in rainbows of the spray, By mute appeal, with deference touched, As if invoking Naples' monarch, Not her mob, attention craved. A weed of life, a sea-weed he From the Levant adventuring out; A cruiser light, like all his clan Who, in repletion's lust for more, And penury's strife for daily bread, As licensed by compassionate heaven To privateer it on their wits, The Mid Sea rove from quay to quay, At home with Turban, Fez, or Hat; Ready in French, Italian, Greek -- Linguists at large; alert to serve As chance interpreters or guides; Suave in address, with winning ways -- Arch imps of Pandarus, a few; Others with improvising gift Of voweled rhyme in antic sort, Or passionate, spirited by their sun That ripens them in early teens; And some with small brown fingers slim Busier than the jackdaw's bill. But he, what gravity is his! Precociously sedate indeed In beauty sensuously serene. White-draped, and ranked aloft in choir A treble clear in rolling laud Meet would he look on Easter morn. The muster round him closing more, How circumspect he plays his part; His glance intelligent taking in The motley miscellaneous groups: Large-chested porters, swarthy dames In dress provincial that beseems; Fishermen bronzed, and barbers curled; Fat monk with paunched umbrella blue; The quack, magnific in brocade Chapeau and aigulets; the wight That cobbles shoes in public way; Mariners in red Phrygian caps. But, twinkling brief, his liquid glance Skims one poor figure limp that leans Listlessly deaf amid the hum. A purblind man, too, sly he views With staff before him, pattering thin; Informers these, perchance, and spies? So queries one, a craftsman there, Nudging his fellow, winking back. And, verily, rumor long has run That Bomba's blind men well can see, His deaf men hear, his dumb men talk. But never amid the varied throng The boy a stragging soldier notes In livery lace declaring him. Howbeit, some sombre garbs he views: A Jesuit grave, genteely sleek In dapper small-clothes and fine hose Of sable silk, and shovel-hat, Hard by a doctor of the law, In sables, too, with parchment cheek; A useful man to lawless power, Expert to legalise the wrong. The twain, brief tarrying there behind, Went sauntering off ere came the close. But now the lad, in posture grave, With sidelong leaning head intent, The shell's lips to his listening ear, In modulating tone began: "Metheglin befuddles this freak o' the sea, Humming, low humming -- in brain a bee! "Hymns it of Naples her myriads warming? Involute hive in fever of swarming. "What Hades of sighs in irruption suppressed, Suffused with huzzahs that buzz in arrest! "Neapolitans, ay, 'tis the soul of the shell Intoning your Naples, Parthenope's bell. "O, couch of the Siren renowned thro' the sea That enervates Salerno, seduces Baiae; "I attend you, I hear; but how to resolve The complex of conflux your murmurs involve!" He paused, as after prelude won; Abrupt then in recitative, he: "Hark, the stir The ear invading: "Crowds on crowds All promenading; "Clatter and clink Of cavalcading; "Yo-heave-ho! From ships unlading; "Funeral dole, Thro' arches fading; "All hands round! In masquerading; "Litany low -- High rodomontading; "Grapes, ripe grapes! In cheer evading; "Lazarus' plaint All vines upbraiding; "Crack-crick-crack Of fusillading! "Hurly-burly, late and early, Gossips prating, quacks orating, Daft debating: Furious wild reiteration And incensed expostulation! "Din condensed, All hubbub summing: Larking, laughing, Chattering, chaffing, Thrumming, strumming Singing, jingling All commingling -- Till the Drum, Rub-a-dub sounded, doubly pounded, Redundant in deep din rebounded, Deafning all this hive of noises Babel-tongued with myriad voices, Drubs them dumb! No more larking, No more laughing, No more chattering, Nay, nor chaffing -- All is glum! To blab the reason -- Were out of season, For, look, they come! Rub-a-dub, rub-a-dub, Rub-a-double-dub-dub, Rub-a-double-dub-dub- o' the drum!" Alert in his young senses five The lad had caught the wafted roll Of Bomba's barbarous tom-toms thumped, And improvised the beat. Anon The files wheeled into open view. A second troop a thousand strong With band and banners, flourished blades, Launched from second cannoned den And now in countermarch thereon; The great drum-major towering up In aigulets and tinsel tags -- Pagoda glittering in Cathay! Arch whiskerando and gigantic A grandiose magnifico antic Tossing his truncheon in the van. A hifalutin exaggeration, Barbaric in his bearskin shako, Of bullying Bomba's puffed elation And blood-and-thunder proclamation, A braggadocio Bourbon-Draco! VIII While yet the bayonets flashed along And all was silent save the drum, Then first it was I chanced to note Some rose-leaves fluttering off in air, While on my lap lay wilted ones. Ah, Rose, that should not bloom outlast Now leaf by leaf art leaving me? But here anew the lad broke in: -- "Lo, the King's men They go marching! O, the instep Haughty arching! -- Live the King! "What's the grin for -- Queer grimacing? Who, yon grenadiers Outfacing, Here dare sing Ironically -- Live the King?" But there, a comely wine-wife plump, A bustling motherly good body Who all along in fidgety sort Concern had shown, and tried her way To push up to this imp satiric, Got next him now, and clapping hand Across his mouth, she whispered him. He heard; then, turning toward the throng, "She says, Young chick come down a peg, Nor risk being pent anew in egg." Castel dell Ovo here was meant, The oval fortress on the bay, Hiving its captives in sea-cells; Nor patriots only, plotters deemed, But talkers, rhymesters, every kind Of indiscreetly innocent mind. Nor less the volatile audience -- late Grinding their teeth at Bomba's guards, Were tickled by the allusive pun, Howbeit, the boy here made an end; And dulcet now, with decent air, Of mild petitionary grace: "Carlo am I, some carlins then!" He twitched his sash up, scarlet rag, Blithely in bonnet caught the coins, Then disappeared beyond the marge To dice with other imps as young, Ere yet a little and his star Evanish like the Pleiad lost. IX The younker faded, voice and all -- He faded, and his carol died, Forgot anon in shifted scene; For, hark, what slender chimes are these On zephyr borne? And, look, the folk In one consent of strange accord, Part, and in expectation stand; Yet scarce as men who mirth await -- More like to crowds that wait eclipse, So gravely sobering seems to fall Those light lilt chimes now floating near, In harbinger of -- what behind? It comes; a corpulent form erect, And holds what looks a Titan stem Of lily-of-the-vale, the buds A congregation of small bells -- Small, silver, and of dulcet tone, Drooping from willowy light wires; Behind, in square, four boys in albs Whose staves uphold a canopy, And, under this, a shining priest Who to some death-bed bears the host In mystic state before him veiled. A hush falls; and the people drop Stilly and instantaneous all As plumps the apple ripe from twig And cushions motionless in sod. My charioteer reins short -- transfixed; The very mountebanks, they kneel; And idlers, all along and far, Bow over as the host moves on -- Bow over, and for time remain Like to Pompeiian masquers caught With fluttering garb in act of flight, For ages glued in deadly drift. But, look, the Rose, brave Rose, is where? Last petals falling, and its soul Of musk dissolved in empty air! And here this draught at hazard drawn, Like squares of fresco newly dashed, Cools, hardens, nor will more receive, Scarce even the touch that mends a slip: The plaster sets; quietus -- bide. Let bide; nor all the piece esteem A medley mad of each extreme; Since, in those days, gyved Naples, stung By tickling tantalising pain, Like tried St. Anthony giddy hung Betwixt the tittering hussies twain: She sobbed, she laughed, she rattled her chain; Till the Red Shirt proved signal apt Of danger ahead to Bomba's son, And presently freedom's thunder clapt, And lo, he fell from toppling throne -- Fell down, like Dagon on his face, And ah, the unfeeling populace! But Garibaldi -- Naples' host Uncovers to her deliverer's ghost, While down time's aisle, mid clarions clear Pale glory walks by valor's bier. AFTER-PIECE Pale "Glory-walks-by-Valor's-bier." Now why a catafalque in close? No relish I that stupid cheer Ringing down the curtain on the Rose. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...VIGNETTES OVERSEAS: 3. NAPLES by SARA TEASDALE SONG FOR THE NEAPOLITANS by JOHN CHALK CLARIS SONNET ON THE SUBMISSION OF THE NEAPOLITANS by JOHN CHALK CLARIS EASTER DAY: NAPLES, 1849 by ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH DA POSTA-CARD FROM NAPOLI by THOMAS AUGUSTINE DALY NAPLES AT SUNSET by ROWLAND EYLES EGERTON-WARBURTON NAPLES; A SONG OF THE SYREN by FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS NEAPOLITAN by ALFRED FRANCIS KREYMBORG FORMERLY A SLAVE' (AN IDEALIZED PORTRAIT, BY E. VEDDER) by HERMAN MELVILLE THE COMING STORM' (A PICTURE BY R. S. GIFFORD) by HERMAN MELVILLE A DIRGE FOR MCPHERSON; KILLED IN FRONT OF ATLANTA by HERMAN MELVILLE |
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