The Berkshires of Massachusetts and New York have been home to many of America’s greatest writers, and none more important than Herman Melville. The author of “Moby-Dick,” “Typee,” and “Billy Budd” was also an important poet, as we hope this column might show. And we are fortunate that Arrowhead, his beautifully maintained home on Holmes Road in Pittsfield, welcomes visits from the public. Here he worked on “Moby-Dick,” generally considered one of America’s greatest novels. More on that below.
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Herman Melville (1819 – 1891) is best-known as a novelist, but he wrote a great deal of poetry, especially in his later years. And perhaps not well known, he wrote the longest poem in American literature: His epic piece called “Clarel” is about a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. It has more than 18,000 lines and a print-length of 500 pages. A unique project, but then as he said “It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.”
One early conclusion to draw about Melville’s poetry is that he wrote principally out of experience rather than out of imagination. One is tempted to call him a participant-poet. Following are some examples.
After a series of jobs as a bank clerk and teacher, Melville took up life as a seaman on the merchant ship St. Lawrence, New York to Liverpool, and later wrote this:
Since as in night’s deck-watch ye show,
Why, lads, so silent here to me,
Your watchmate of times long ago?
Once, for all the darkling sea,
You your voices raised how clearly,
Striking in when tempest sung;
Hoisting up the storm-sail cheerly,
Life is storm–let storm! you rung.
Taking things as fated merely,
Childlike though the world ye spanned;
Nor holding unto life too dearly,
Ye who held your lives in hand–
Skimmers, who on oceans four
Petrels were, and larks ashore.
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Melville’s next maritime experience was a major one and ultimately led to the writing of “Moby-Dick.” (Incidentally, “Moby-Dick” the title has a hyphen. Moby Dick the whale doesn’t.) In 1841 he signed on as a crew member of the whaling ship Acushnet but jumped ship when it reached the Marquesas Islands. His subsequent adventures among the native islanders led to his first novel,”Typee.” Later, in “Moby-Dick,” the narrator Ishmael says “A Whaleship was my Yale College and my Harvard.” The experiences also led to Melville’s unusual poem about being swallowed by a whale.
“The ribs and terrors in the whale,
Arched over me a dismal gloom,
While all God’s sun-lit waves rolled by,
And lift me deepening down to doom.
“I saw the opening maw of hell,
With endless pains and sorrows there;
Which none but they that feel can tell—
Oh, I was plunging to despair.
“In black distress, I called my God,
When I could scarce believe him mine,
He bowed his ear to my complaints—
No more the whale did me confine.
“With speed he flew to my relief,
As on a radiant dolphin borne;
Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone
The face of my Deliverer God.
“My song for ever shall record
That terrible, that joyful hour;
I give the glory to my God,
His all the mercy and the power.”
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The most significant national event of Melville’s life was the American Civil War (1861-1865). Melville did not serve as a combat soldier, but he followed events closely and several times traveled to the front-lines. Shortly after the conflict ended, he published an extraordinary collection: seventy-two poems under the title: ”Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War.” The following may be his finest poem, certainly my favorite.
Skimming lightly, wheeling still,
The swallows fly low
Over the field in clouded days,
The forest-field of Shiloh —
Over the field where April rain
Solaced the parched one stretched in pain
Through the pause of night
That followed the Sunday fight
Around the church of Shiloh—
The church so lone, the log-built one,
That echoed to many a parting groan
And natural prayer
Of dying foemen mingled there —
Foemen at morn, but friends at eve —
Fame or country least their care:
(What like a bullet can undeceive!)
But now they lie low,
While over them the swallows skim,
And all is hushed at Shiloh.
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The most significant personal event of Melville’s life occurred on August 5, 1850. On this day a picnic party of ten men, seven of whom were literary men, climbed Monument Mountain in Great Barrington, Mass. Among them were Oliver Wendell Holmes and, meeting for the first time, Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
It began to rain on the picnic. Melville and Hawthorne, in fervent conversation, took cover, felt an immediate connection, and, in a highly emotional way, fell in love. There is no evidence of any physical manifestation in the ensuing relationship, but it was intellectual and intense, especially for Melville who called it “an infinite fraternity of feeling.” They exchanged visits frequently, and by way of introducing Melville’s home at Arrowhead, visitors can see the tiny bedroom off Melville’s study where Hawthorne would sleep over.
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Now to visit Arrowhead where it is said that Melville kept a harpoon near his hearth to use as a poker.
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A wonderful way to get to know Melville better is to step back into time with a visit to his perfectly preserved home on Holmes Avenue in Pittsfield. Each room is appropriately furnished with period pieces, and the conducted tour is like walking into history. On a recent visit I was truly moved when I looked out his study window, as he did every day, and wondered at the distant view of Mount Greylock, highest peak in Massachusetts.
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Ultimately there came a time when Melville, out of money and prospects, was forced to sell Arrowhead and move into Manhattan. He took a job as a customs inspector in New York harbor, checking ships’ cargoes against their paperwork, earning four dollars a day. Returning home at dinnertime, he would write poems into the night. I would like to picture him smiling as he unwound his day with this unexpectedly lyric verse:
Soft as the morning
When South winds blow,
Sweet as peach orchards
When blossoms are seen,
Pure as a fresco
Of roses and snow
Or an opal serene.
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VIDEO. The distinguished American composer/conductor Paul Phillips has composed a striking song-cycle for baritone and orchestra based on Melville’s
“Battle-Pieces.” Here is the first movement entitled “Reverie.” The soloist is Andrew Garland with the Pioneer Valley Symphony conducted by the composer.
CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR VIDEO: ARROWHEAD AND HERMAN MELVILLE
