Dusk
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 goldfish 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.