- description
- # EPILOGUE
## Overview
This entity is the "EPILOGUE" chapter, a poetic work extracted from the larger collection [John Marr and Other Poems](arke:01KG8AJ5CWVMSM9AY2938E996H). It spans lines 3967 to 4013 of its source text.
## Context
The "EPILOGUE" is the final chapter in the collection [John Marr and Other Poems](arke:01KG8AJ5CWVMSM9AY2938E996H). It follows the chapter titled [DIRGE](arke:01KG8AJKEMP8M1ENR7TCAJ5P7G). The text was extracted from the digital file [john_marr_and_other_poems.txt](arke:01KG89J19Y3FNVN5KWASY78BP4) and is part of the broader [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection.
## Contents
The "EPILOGUE" is a reflective poem that contemplates themes of faith, despair, science, and the human condition. It opens with a couplet questioning the relationship between "Luther's day" and "Darwin's year," suggesting a tension between religious belief and scientific advancement. The poem personifies Despair and Faith, depicting their interactions with an "ancient Sphinx." It explores the ongoing "running battle of the star and clod" and the idea of human suffering and ultimate redemption, concluding with a message of enduring hope and the possibility of life triumphing over death.
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:09.465Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- EPILOGUE
- end_line
- 4013
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:32.310Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 3967
- text
- EPILOGUE
_If Luther’s day expand to Darwin’s year,_
_Shall that exclude the hope—foreclose the fear?_
Unmoved by all the claims our times avow,
The ancient Sphinx still keeps the porch of shade;
And comes Despair, whom not her calm may cow,
And coldly on that adamantine brow
Scrawls undeterred his bitter pasquinade.
But Faith (who from the scrawl indignant turns)
With blood warm oozing from her wounded trust,
Inscribes even on her shards of broken urns
The sign o’ the cross—_the spirit above the dust!_
Yea, ape and angel, strife and old debate—
The harps of heaven and dreary gongs of hell;
Science the feud can only aggravate—
No umpire she betwixt the chimes and knell:
The running battle of the star and clod
Shall run forever—if there be no God.
Degrees we know, unknown in days before;
The light is greater, hence the shadow more;
And tantalized and apprehensive Man
Appealing—Wherefore ripen us to pain?
Seems there the spokesman of dumb Nature’s train.
But through such strange illusions have they passed
Who in life’s pilgrimage have baffled striven—
Even death may prove unreal at the last,
And stoics be astounded into heaven.
Then keep thy heart, though yet but ill-resigned—
Clarel, thy heart, the issues there but mind;
That like the crocus budding through the snow—
That like a swimmer rising from the deep—
That like a burning secret which doth go
Even from the bosom that would hoard and keep;
Emerge thou mayst from the last whelming sea,
And prove that death but routs life into victory.
- title
- EPILOGUE