"Then hail, for ever hail, O sea, in whose eternal tossings the wild
fowl finds his only rest. Born of earth, yet suckled by the sea;
though hill and valley mothered me, ye billows are my foster-brothers!"
CHAPTER 117
The Whale Watch
The four whales slain that evening had died wide apart;
one, far to windward; one less distant, to leeward; one ahead;
one astern. These last three were brought alongside ere nightfall;
but the windward one could not be reached till morning;
and the boat that had killed it lay by its side all night;
and that boat was Ahab's.
The waif-pole was thrust upright into the dead whale's spout-hole;
and the lantern hanging from its top, cast a troubled flickering glare
upon the black, glossy back, and far out upon the midnight waves,
which gently chafed the whale's broad flank, like soft surf upon a beach.
Ahab and all his boat's crew seemed asleep but the Parsee; who crouching
in the bow, sat watching the sharks, that spectrally played round
the whale, and tapped the light cedar planks with their tails.
A sound like the moaning in squadrons over Asphaltites of unforgiven
ghosts of Gomorrah, ran shuddering through the air.
Started from his slumbers, Ahab, face to face, saw the Parsee;
and hooped round by the gloom of the night they seemed the last men
in a flooded world.
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