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A strain of Jonah the Prophet.
After the living, aye-enduring death
Of
Sodom and Gomorrah; after fires
Penal,
attested by time-frosted plains
Of
ashes; after fruitless apple-growths,
5
Born but to feed the eye; after the death
Of
sea and brine, both in like fate involved;
While
whatsoe'er is human still retains
In
change corporeal its penal badge:1
A
city-Nineveh-by stepping o'er
10
The path of justice and of equity,
On
her own head had well-nigh shaken down
More
fires of rain supernal. For what dread2
Dwells
in a mind subverted? Commonly
Tokens
of penal visitations prove
15
All vain where error holds possession. Still,
Kindly
and patient of our waywardness,
And
slow to punish, the Almighty Lord
Will
launch no shaft of wrath, unless He first
Admonish
and knock oft at hardened hearts,
20
Rousing with mind august presaging seers.
For
to the merits of the Ninevites
The
Lord had bidden Jonah to foretell
Destruction;
but he, conscious that He spare;
The
subject, and remits to suppliants
25
The dues of penalty, and is to good
Ever
inclinable, was loth to face
That
errand; lest he sing his seerly strain
In
vain, and peaceful issue of his threats
Ensue.
His counsel presently is flight:
30
(If, howsoe'er, there is at all the power
God
to avoid, and shun the Lord's right hand
'Neath
whom the whole orb trembles and is held
In
check: but is there reason in the act
Which
in3 his
saintly heart the prophet dares?)
35
On the beach-lip, over against the shores
Of
the Cilicians, is a city poised,4
Far-famed
for trusty port-Joppa her name.
Thence
therefore Jonah speeding in a barque
Seeks
Tarsus,5 through
the signal providence
40
Of the same God;6 nor marvel is's, I ween,
If,
fleeing from the Lord upon the lands,
He
found Him in the waves. For suddenly
A
little cloud had stained the lower air
With
fleecy wrack sulphureous, itself7
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By the wind's seed excited: by degrees,
Bearing
a brood globose, it with the sun
Cohered,
and with a train caliginous
Shut
in the cheated day. The main becomes
The
mirror of the sky; the waves are dyed so
50
With black encirclement; the upper air
Down
rushes into darkness, and the sea
Uprises;
nought of middle space is left;
While
the clouds touch the waves, and the waves all
Are
mingled by the bluster of the winds
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In whirling eddy.'Gainst the renegade,
'Gainst
Jonah, diverse frenzy joined to rave,
While
one sole barque did all the struggle breed
'Twixt
sky and surge. From this side and from that
Pounded
she reels; 'neath each wave-breaking blow
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The forest of her tackling trembles all;
As,
underneath, her spinal length of keel,
Staggered
by shock on shock, all palpitates;
And,
from on high, her labouring mass of yard
Creaks
shuddering; and the tree-like mast itself
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Bends to the gale, misdoubting to be riven.
Meantime
the rising8 clamour of the crew
Tries
every chance for barque's and dear life's sake:
To
pass from hand to hand9 the tardy coils
To
tighten the girth's noose: straitly to bind
70
The tiller's struggles; or, with breast opposed,
T'
impel reluctant curves. Part, turn by turn,
With
foremost haste outbale the reeking well
Of
inward sea. The wares and cargo all
They
then cast headlong, and with losses seek
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Their perils to subdue. At every crash
Of
the wild deep rise piteous cries; and out
They
stretch their hands to majesties of gods,
Which
gods are none; whom might of sea and sky
Fears
not, nor yet the less from off their poops
80
With angry eddy sweeping sinks them down.
Unconscious
of all this, the guilty one
'Neath
the poop's hollow arch was making sleep
Re-echo
stertorous with nostril wide
Inflated:
whom, so soon as he who guides
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The functions of the wave-dividing prow
Saw
him sleep-bound in placid peace, and proud
In
his repose, he, standing o'er him, shook,
And
said, "Why sing's", with vocal nostril, dreams,
In
such a crisis? In so wild a whirl,
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Why keep'st thou only harbour? Lo! the wave
Whelms
us, and our one hope is in the gods.
Thou
also, whosoever is thy god,
Make
vows, and, pouring prayers on bended knee,
Win
o'er thy country's Sovran!" Then they vote
95
To learn by lot who is the culprit, who
The
cause of storm; nor does the lot belie
Jonah:
whom then they ask, and ask again,
"Who?
whence? who in the world? from what abode,
What
people, hail'st thou?" He avows himself
100
A servant, and an over-timid one,
Of
God, who raised aloft the sky, who based
The
earth, who corporally fused the whole:
A
renegade from Him he owns himself,
And
tells the reason. Rigid turned they all
105
With dread."What grudge, then, ow'st thou us? What now
Will
follow? By what deed shall we appease
The
main?" For more and far more swelling grew
The
savage surges. Then the seer begins
Words
prompted by the Spirit of the Lord:10
110"Lo!
I your tempest am; I am the sum
Of
the world's11 madness: 'tis in me," he says,
"That
the sea rises, and the upper air
Down
rushes; land in me is far, death near,
And
hope in God is none! Come, headlong hurl
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Your cause of bane: lighten your ship, and cast
This
single mighty burden to the main,
A
willing prey!" But they-all vainly!-strive
Homeward
to turn their course; for helm refused
To
suffer turning, and the yard's stiff poise
120
Willed not to change. At last unto the Lord
They
cry: "For one soul's sake give us not o'er
Unto
death's maw, nor let us be besprent
With
righteous blood, if thus Thine own right hand
Leadeth."
And from the eddy's depth a whale
125
Outrising on the spot, scaly with shells,12
Unravelling
his body's train, 'gan urge
More
near the waves, shocking the gleaming brine,
Seizing-at
God's command-the prey; which, rolled
From
the poop's summit prone, with slimy jaws
130
He sucked; and into his long belly sped
The
living feast; and swallowed, with the man,
The
rage of sky and main. The billowy waste
Grows
level, and the ether's gloom dissolves;
The
waves on this side, and the blasts on that,
135
Are to their friendly mood restored; and, where
The
placid keel marks out a path secure,
White
traces in the emerald furrow bloom.
The
sailor then does to the reverend Lord
Of
death make grateful offering of his fear;13
140
Then enters friendly ports. Jonah the seer
The
while is voyaging, in other craft
Embarked,
and cleaving 'neath the lowest waves
A
wave: his sails the intestines of the fish,
Inspired
with breath ferine; himself, shut in;
145
By waters, yet untouched; in the sea's heart
And
yet beyond its reach; 'mid wrecks of fleets
Half-eaten,
and men's carcasses dissolved
In
putrid disintegrity: in life
Learning
the process of his death; but still -
150
To be a sign hereafter of the Lord14 -
A
witness was he (in his very self),15
Not of
destruction, but of death's repulse.
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