I have never marked the coin inspectingly. He goes below; let me read.
A dark valley between three mighty, heaven-abiding peaks,
that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint earthly symbol.
So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over all our gloom,
the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a hope.
If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil;
but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half way, to cheer.
Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture; and if, at midnight, we would
fain snatch some sweet solace from him, we gaze for him in vain!
This coin speaks wisely, mildly, truly, but still sadly to me.
I will quit it, lest Truth shake me falsely."
"There now's the old Mogul," soliloquized Stubb by the try-works,
"he's been twigging it; and there goes Starbuck from the same,
and both with faces which I should say might be somewhere
within nine fathoms long. And all from looking at a piece
of gold, which did I have it now on Negro Hill or in
Corlaer's Hook, I'd not look at it very long ere spending it.
Humph! in my poor, insignificant opinion, I regard this as queer.
I have seen doubloons before now in my voyagings; your doubloons
of old Spain, your doubloons of Peru, your doubloons of Chili,
your doubloons of Bolivia, your doubloons of Popayan;
with plenty of gold moidores and pistoles, and joes,
and half joes, and quarter joes.
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