________________________________________________
_ BY THE MAINMAST; STARBUCK LEANING AGAINST IT.
My soul is more than matched; she's overmanned; and by a madman!
Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such a field!
But he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! I
think I see his impious end; but feel that I must help him to it.
Will I, nill I, the ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows me with
a cable I have no knife to cut. Horrible old man! Who's over him,
he cries;--aye, he would be a democrat to all above; look, how he
lords it over all below! Oh! I plainly see my miserable office,--to
obey, rebelling; and worse yet, to hate with touch of pity! For in
his eyes I read some lurid woe would shrivel me up, had I it. Yet is
there hope. Time and tide flow wide. The hated whale has the round
watery world to swim in, as the small gold-fish has its glassy globe.
His heaven-insulting purpose, God may wedge aside. I would up
heart, were it not like lead. But my whole clock's run down; my
heart the all-controlling weight, I have no key to lift again.
[A BURST OF REVELRY FROM THE FORECASTLE.]
Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of
human mothers in them! Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea. The
white whale is their demigorgon. Hark! the infernal orgies! that
revelry is forward! mark the unfaltering silence aft! Methinks it
pictures life. Foremost through the sparkling sea shoots on the gay,
embattled, bantering bow, but only to drag dark Ahab after it, where
he broods within his sternward cabin, builded over the dead water of
the wake, and further on, hunted by its wolfish gurglings. The long
howl thrills me through! Peace! ye revellers, and set the watch!
Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to
knowledge,--as wild, untutored things are forced to feed--Oh, life!
'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but 'tis not me!
that horror's out of me! and with the soft feeling of the human in
me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! Stand by
me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed influences! _
Read next: CHAPTER 39 First Night Watch.
Read previous: CHAPTER 37 Sunset.
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