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The Apparition
by Herman Melville
Convulsions came; and, where the field
Long slept in pastoral green,
A goblin-mountain was upheaved
(Sure the scared sense was all deceived),
Marl-glen and slag-ravine.
The unreserve of Ill was there,
The clinkers in her last retreat;
But, ere the eye could take it in,
Or mind could comprehension win,
It sunk!—and at our feet.
So, then, Solidity’s a crust—
The core of fire below;
all may go well for many a year,
But who can think without a fear
Of horrors that happen so?
________________________
The Apparition by novelist Herman Melville is a fifteen line poem, comprised of three equal five line stanzas. Each stanza has an ABCCB rhyme scheme.
The piece is philosophical, about the interplay between peace and war, safety and disaster. The title of the poem is suggestive of Melville’s intended message:
apparition /ăp″ə-rĭsh′ən/
noun
- A ghostly figure; a specter.
- A sudden or unusual sight.
- The act of appearing; appearance.
Melville’s “Apparition” are the “horrors” that happen suddenly and unexpectedly in our lives. He is not specific, though the piece evokes the idea of natural disaster, or the type of unexpected disaster that might afflict an army in wartime. Then as quickly as the bad thing appears, it vanishes once more.
Stanza One
Convulsions came; and, where the field
Long slept in pastoral green,
A goblin-mountain was upheaved
(Sure the scared sense was all deceived),
Marl-glen and slag-ravine.
The image we get here is of a green field turned abruptly into a “goblin-mountain” and the scene evokes the feeling of a sudden volcanic eruption.
Marl is a Middle English word. It refers to a type of soil with very fine grains – but one that you might not see unless you’re looking at a slope. This type of soil is often used as fertilizer. Perhaps Melville is indicating that the goblin-mountain (long slept implies occasionally awake) is what allowed the field to be green in those times when it is sleeping.
Stanza Two
The unreserve of Ill was there,
The clinkers in her last retreat;
But, ere the eye could take it in,
Or mind could comprehension win,
It sunk!—and at our feet.
Here we see a shift. If the first stanza introduced a suddenly appearing calamity, in stanza two it vanishes as quickly as it arrived. It was gone before “the eye could take it in.” This lets us know that what Melville is describing is a metaphor, though the imagery still works. The effect of the quick retreat is to create a sense of dread, or at least uncertainty, about even the ground beneath our feet. At the same time, though, Melville is not nihilistic. He presents calamity as a temporary problem, not a new normal to which we must adapt.
In that sense, as a metaphor, ‘The Apparition’ could be anything – a sudden job loss, a non-fatal car accident, or maybe passing really bad weather. His goblin-mountain is the sort of thing that is terrible and hard to believe – but you can move on from it.
Stanza Three
So, then, Solidity’s a crust—
The core of fire below;
all may go well for many a year,
But who can think without a fear
Of horrors that happen so?
This gets to his point. How should we then live if there might be horrors around the next corner? The poem prompts its readers to make this consideration. Melville does not provide us with answers, though I’ll provide my own thoughts below:
Implicit in the poem is the idea that when you’ve been visited by this type of calamity, you don’t ever go back to the way that things were before. The event changes you in one way or another. At the very least, going forward, we should live with knowledge. Does the fear resulting from that knowledge actually help? It might give one the motivation to plan ahead and for the worst, or in addition, to not take those good times for granted. That seems reasonable and wise to me.
What do you think?
