37. CHAPTER XXXVII.
SUNSET.
The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and
gazing out.
I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks,
where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm
my track; let them; but first I pass.
Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves
blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver
sun—slow dived from noon,—goes down; my soul mounts up!
she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too
heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it
bright with many a gem; I, the wearer, see not its far flashings;
but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds.
'Tis iron—that I know—not gold. 'Tis split, too—
that I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to
beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort
that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight!
Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the
sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more.
This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to
me, since I can ne'er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I
lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly and
most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good
night—good night! (waving his hand, he moves from the
window.)
'Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at
the least; but my one cogged circle fits into all their various
wheels, and they revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills
of powder, they all stand before me; and I their match. Oh,
hard! that to fire others, the match itself must needs be
wasting! What I've dared, I've willed; and what I've willed,
I'll do! They think me mad—Starbuck does; but I'm
demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's
only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I
should be dismembered; and—Aye! I lost this leg. I now
prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then,
be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's more than ye, ye
great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players,
ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes!
I will not say as schoolboys do to bullies,—Take some one of
your own size; don't pommel me! No, ye've knocked me
down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden. Come
forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to
reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if
ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye
swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path
to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is
grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled
hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush!
Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!
