All civil charms
And priestly spells which late held hearts in awe—
Fear-bound, subjected to a better sway
Than sway of self; these like a dream dissolve,
And man rebounds whole aeons back in nature.

Melville’s lines imagine a moment when the social and religious structures that once commanded obedience—“civil charms” (the allure/authority of civic order) and “priestly spells” (religious sanction and ritual)—suddenly lose their power. What had kept people “fear-bound” and governed by something “better” than mere self-will (i.e., external moral restraint) evaporates “like a dream.” The consequence is not liberation into enlightened autonomy but regression: “man rebounds whole aeons back in nature,” suggesting a fall into older, more primal impulses once institutional awe and taboo dissolve. The passage reflects Melville’s recurring preoccupation with the fragility of moral order and the uneasy boundary between civilization and the elemental forces beneath it.