“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?