On each soft side--coincident with the parted swell,
that but once leaving him then flowed so wide away--on each
bright side, the whale shed off enticings. No wonder there
had been some among the hunters who namelessly transported
and allured by all this serenity, had ventured to assail it;
but had fatally found that quietude but the vesture of tornadoes.
Yet calm, enticing calm, oh, whale! thou glidest on, to all
who for the first time eye thee, no matter how many in that same
way thou mayst have bejuggled and destroyed before.
And thus, through the serene tranquillities of the tropical sea,
among waves whose hand-clappings were suspended by exceeding rapture,
Moby Dick moved on, still withholding from sight the full terrors of his
submerged trunk, entirely hiding the wrenched hideousness of his jaw.
But soon the fore part of him slowly rose from the water;
for an instant his whole marbleized body formed a high arch,
like Virginia's Natural Bridge, and warningly waving his bannered
flukes in the air, the grand god revealed himself, sounded and went
out of sight. Hoveringly halting, and dipping on the wing,
the white sea-fowls longingly lingered over the agitated pool
that he left.
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