From “Clarel” [Afterward]

“Seedsmen of old Saturn’s land,

Love and peace went hand in hand,

    And sowed the Era Golden!

“Golden time for man and mead:

Title none, nor title-deed, ⁠

   Nor any slave, nor Soldan.

“Venus burned both large and bright,

Honey-moon from night to night,

   Nor bride, nor groom waxed olden.

“Big the tears, but ruddy ones, ⁠

Crushed from grapes in vats and tuns

   Of vineyards green and golden!

“Sweet to sour did never sue,

None repented ardor true—

   Those years did so embolden. ⁠

“Glum Don Graveairs slunk in den:

Frankly roved the gods with men

   In gracious talk and golden.

“Thrill it, cymbals of my rhyme,

Power was love, and love in prime, ⁠

    Nor revel to toil beholden.

“Back, come back, good age, and reign,

Goodly age, and long remain—

     Saturnian Age, the Golden!”

The masquer gone, by stairs that climb, ⁠

In seemly sort, the friars withdrew;

And, waiting that, the Islesman threw

His couplets of the Arcadian time,

Then turning on the pilgrims: “Hoo!

   “The bird of Paradise don’t like owls: ⁠

     A handful of acorns after the cowls!”

  But Clarel, bantered by the song,

Sad questioned, if in frames of thought

And feeling, there be right and wrong;

Whether the lesson Joel taught ⁠

Confute what from the marble’s caught

In sylvan sculpture—Bacchant, Faun,

Or shapes more lax by Titian drawn.

Such counter natures in mankind—

Mole, bird, not more unlike we find: ⁠

Instincts adverse, nor less how true

Each to itself. What clew, what clew?