The best of them are 'The Stone Fleet,' 'In the Prison Pen,' 'The College Colonel,' 'The March to the Sea,' 'Running the Batteries,' and 'Sheridan at Cedar Creek.' Some of these had a wide circulation in the press, and were preserved in various anthologies.

'Clarel, a Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land' (1876), is a long mystical poem requiring, as some one has said, a dictionary, a cyclopaedia, and a copy of the Bible for its elucidation.

In the two privately printed volumes, the arrangement of which occupied Mr.Melville during his last illness, there are several fine lyrics.

The titles of these books are, 'John Marr and Other Sailors' (1888), and 'Timoleon' (1891).
There is no question that Mr.Melville's absorption in philosophical studies was quite as responsible as the failure of his later books for his cessation from literary productiveness.

That he sometimes realised the situation will be seen by a passage in 'Moby Dick':-- 'Didn't I tell you so ?' said Flask.