But Melville, after trying through the long middle years to die, put out a late, late bloom . . .
(scores & underscores, in a volume of Thomas Hood: “. . . the full extent of that poetical vigour which seemed to advance just in proportion as his physical health declined.”
. . . in his sixties and seventies, came to life:
“We the Lilies whose palor is passion . . .”
“. . . the winged blaze that sweeps my soul
Like prairie fires . . .”
“To flout pale years of cloistral life
And flush me in this sensuous strife.”
“The innocent bare-foot! young, so young!”
“The plain lone bramble thrills with Spring”
“The patient root, the vernal sense
Surviving hard experience . . .”
In a volume, transparently dedicated to Lizzie.
“. . . white nun, that seemly dress
Of purity pale passionless,
A May-snow is; for fleeting term,
Custodian of love’s slumbering germ . . .”
“I came unto my roses late.
What then? these gray hairs but disguise,
Since down in heart youth never dies . . .”
“Time, Amigo, does but masque us—
Boys in gray wigs, young . . .”
and elsewhere:
“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 . . .”
Sappho, and Hart Crane . . .
surely, if Melville died before he was born, then, too, he was born before he died . . .
. . . and on the 4th voyage, aging and ill, forbidden by the Sovereigns to enter San Domingo, Columbus set sail for that very port. Ovando, the new governor, busy with a fleet of 28 vessels embarking for Spain, refused to admit the Admiral . . . on board the fleet were Francisco Bobadilla, who earlier had chained Columbus; Francisco Roldan, archrebel; and a rich cargo of West Indian gold . . .
Columbus warned them not to sail, that a storm was brewing . . .
perhaps he noted an oily swell from the southeast, abnormal tides, oppressive air, veiled cirrus clouds, gusty winds on the water’s surface, brilliant sunset illuminating the sky, and large numbers of seal and dolphin on the surface . . .
(as well as twinges in rheumatic joints . . .
But the others laughed, called him a diviner and a prophet,
(Like Melville, in CLAREL, predicting for the New World:
(“Not only men, the state lives fast—
Fast breeds the pregnant eggs and shells,
The slumberous combustibles
Sure to explode . . .”
Ovando’s fleet set out boldly, under full sail: headed into the full blast of the storm . . .
Later, when all but 3 or 4 of the 28 ships had gone down, with all hands lost—his enemies accused the old discoverer of having raised the tempest himself, by magic art . . .