Clarel's denouement on the Via Crucis

[Hardeman]

Scott,

A charming interpretation you have made of Clarel's grief. If the progression resonated with nature or Christian belief, the “acceptance denouement” would have returned Clarel to hope or at least some message of charity he could grasp.

We know he finds no comforter and calls upon death’s spirits so he does not seem free from his suffering as he takes up his cross to follow the train of “varied forms of fate”

“But, lagging after, who is he ⁠

Called early every hope to test,

And now, at close of rarer quest,

Finds so much more the heavier tree?

From slopes whence even Echo's gone,

Wending, [go in a specified direction, typically slowly or by an indirect route].

he murmurs in low tone: ⁠50

"They wire the world--far under sea

They talk; but never comes to me

A message from beneath the stone."

Nothing from Ruth’s grave as an image, dream or sweet memory gives him peace. Perhaps because he never had a real relationship or even a true commitment. His relationship’s energy came from his unconscious as the affect of an archetype for a loving woman. Without real experiences, the unfulfilled love leaves no legacy to reflect upon.

“Called early every hope to test” describes a mind, that when offered a viable human to fulfill the pull of love's “magic spell," hesitates, 

 “Absorbed in problems ill-defined,

Am I too curious in my mind;

And, baffled in the vain employ, ⁠

Foregoing many an easy joy”

It seems Clarel cannot escape his mind’s endless testing in searching for truth when all he had to do was trust his heart. Not being able to trust one’s heart in a potentially loving commitment because of an "ill-defined" mind, “Finds so much more the heavier” cross.  

The poet himself suffers a similar fate but that, as you say, is for later.

Hardeman