And where was Enoch? prosperously sail'd The ship Good Fortune, tho' at setting forth The Biscay,[214] roughly ridging eastward, shook525 And almost overwhelm'd her, yet unvext She slipt across the summer of the world,[215] Then after a long tumble about the Cape And frequent interchange of foul and fair, She passing thro' the summer world again,530 The breath of heaven came continually And sent her sweetly by the golden isles, Till silent in her oriental haven.
There Enoch traded for himself, and bought Quaint monsters for the market of those times,535 A gilded dragon, also, for the babes.
Less lucky her home-voyage: at first indeed Thro' many a fair sea-circle, day by day, Scarce-rocking her full-busted figure-head Stared o'er the ripple feathering from her bows:540 Then follow'd calms, and then winds variable, Then baffling, a long course of them; and last Storm, such as drove her under moonless heavens Till hard upon the cry of "breakers" came The crash of ruin, and the loss of all545 But Enoch and two others. Half the night, Buoy'd upon floating tackle and broken spars, These drifted, stranding on an isle at morn Rich, but the loneliest in a lonely sea.
No want was there of human sustenance,550 Soft fruitage, mighty nuts, and nourishing roots; Nor save for pity was it hard to take The helpless life so wild that it was tame. There in a seaward-gazing mountain-gorge They built, and thatch'd with leaves of palm, a hut,555 Half hut, half native cavern. So the three, Set in this Eden of all plenteousness, Dwelt with eternal summer, ill-content.
For one, the youngest, hardly more than boy, Hurt in that night of sudden ruin and wreck,560 Lay lingering out a five-years' death-in-life. They could not leave him. After he was gone, The two remaining found a fallen stem[216]; And Enoch's comrade, careless of himself, Fire-hollowing this in Indian fashion, fell565 Sun-stricken, and that other lived alone. In those two deaths he read God's warning, "Wait."
The mountain wooded to the peak, the lawns And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven, The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes,570 The lightning flash of insect and of bird, The lustre of the long convolvuluses[217] That coil'd around the stately stems, and ran Ev'n to the limit of the land, the glows And glories of the broad belt of the world,[218]575 All these he saw; but what he fain had seen He could not see, the kindly human face, Nor ever hear a kindly voice, but heard The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl, The league-long roller thundering on the reef,580 The moving whisper of huge trees that branch'd And blossom'd in the zenith, or the sweep Of some precipitous rivulet to the wave, As down the shore he ranged, or all day long Sat often in the seaward-gazing gorge,585 A shipwreck'd sailor, waiting for a sail: No sail from day to day, but every day The sunrise broken into scarlet shafts Among the palms and ferns and precipices;590 The blaze upon the waters to the east: The blaze upon his island overhead; The blaze upon the waters to the west; Then the great stars that globed themselves in Heaven, The hollower-bellowing ocean, and again The scarlet shafts of sunrise—but no sail.595
There often as he watch'd or seem'd to watch, So still, the golden lizard on him paused, A phantom made of many phantoms moved Before him, haunting him, or he himself Moved haunting people, things and places, known600 Far in a darker isle beyond the line; The babes, their babble, Annie, the small house, The climbing street, the mill, the leafy lanes, The peacock-yewtree and the lonely Hall, The horse he drove, the boat he sold, the chill605 November dawns and dewy-glooming downs, The gentle shower, the smell of dying leaves, And the low moan of leaden-color'd seas.
Once likewise, in the ringing of his ears, Tho' faintly, merrily—far and far away—610 He heard the pealing of his parish bells; Then, tho' he knew not wherefore, started up Shuddering, and when the beauteous hateful isle Return'd upon him, had not his poor heart Spoken with That, which being everywhere615 Lets none who speaks with Him seem all alone, Surely the man had died of solitude.
Thus over Enoch's early-silvering head The sunny and rainy seasons came and went Year after year. His hopes to see his own,620 And pace the sacred old familiar fields, Not yet had perish'd, when his lonely doom Came suddenly to an end. Another ship (She wanted water) blown by baffling winds, Like the Good Fortune, from her destined course,625 Stay'd by this isle, not knowing where she lay: For since the mate had seen at early dawn Across a break on the mist-wreathen isle The silent water slipping from the hills, They sent a crew that landing burst away630 In search of stream or fount, and fill'd the shores With clamor. Downward from his mountain gorge[219] Stept the long-hair'd, long-bearded solitary, Brown, looking hardly human, strangely clad, Muttering and mumbling, idiot-like it seem'd,635 With inarticulate rage, and making signs They knew not what: and yet he led the way To where the rivulets of sweet water ran; And ever as he mingled with the crew, And heard them talking, his long-bounden tongue640 Was loosen'd, till he made them understand; Whom, when their casks were fill'd they took aboard And there the tale he utter'd brokenly, Scarce-credited at first but more and more, Amazed and melted all who listen'd to it;645 And clothes they gave him and free passage home; But oft he work'd among the rest and shook His isolation from him. None of these Came from his county, or could answer him, If question'd, aught of what he cared to know.650 And dull the voyage was with long delays, The vessel scarce sea-worthy; but evermore His fancy fled before the lazy wind Returning, till beneath a clouded moon He like a lover down thro' all his blood655 Drew in the dewy meadowy morning-breath Of England, blown across her ghostly wall: And that same morning officers and men Levied a kindly tax upon themselves, Pitying the lonely man, and gave him it:660 Then moving up the coast they landed him, Ev'n in that harbor whence he sail'd before.
There Enoch spoke no word to any one, But homeward—home—what home? had he a home? His home, he walk'd. Bright was that afternoon,665 Sunny but chill; till drawn thro' either chasm, Where either haven open'd on the deeps, Roll'd a sea-haze and whelm'd the world in gray; Cut off the length of highway on before, And left but narrow breadth to left and right670 Of wither'd holt[220] or tilth[221] or pasturage. On the nigh-naked tree the robin piped Disconsolate, and thro' the dripping haze The dead weight of the dead leaf bore it down: Thicker the drizzle grew, deeper the gloom;675 Last, as it seem'd, a great mist-blotted light Flared on him, and he came upon the place.