- description
- # TO NED
## Overview
"TO NED" is a chapter-level entity, identified as a poem, extracted from the larger work [John Marr and Other Poems](arke:01KG8AJ5CWVMSM9AY2938E996H). It spans lines 1319 to 1359 of its source text.
## Context
This poem is part of the [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection. It was programmatically extracted from the plain text file [john_marr_and_other_poems.txt](arke:01KG89J19Y3FNVN5KWASY78BP4). Within [John Marr and Other Poems](arke:01KG8AJ5CWVMSM9AY2938E996H), "TO NED" follows the poem [THE MALDIVE SHARK](arke:01KG8AJFSHRXVRBV58DE9M8BZZ) and precedes [CROSSING THE TROPICS](arke:01KG8AJFSE9ZE0XN0RRZ9EWD41).
## Contents
The poem, addressed to "Ned Bunn," reflects on a past world of exploration and untouched natural beauty, contrasting it with a present influenced by "Pelf and Trade." The speaker reminisces about "Marquesas and glenned isles" and "Typee-truants," evoking a sense of lost "Authentic Edens in a Pagan sea." It questions whether future "pleasure-hunters" or "tourists" will find these islands in the same pristine state, concluding that "Adam advances, smart in pace, / But scarce by violets that advance you trace." The poem ends with a contemplation of finding paradise both "Here and hereafter."
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:09.520Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- TO NED
- end_line
- 1359
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:32.310Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1319
- text
- TO NED
Where is the world we roved, Ned Bunn?
Hollows thereof lay rich in shade
By voyagers old inviolate thrown
Ere Paul Pry cruised with Pelf and Trade.
To us old lads some thoughts come home
Who roamed a world young lads no more shall roam.
Nor less the satiate year impends
When, wearying of routine-resorts,
The pleasure-hunter shall break loose,
Ned, for our Pantheistic ports:—
Marquesas and glenned isles that be
Authentic Edens in a Pagan sea.
The charm of scenes untried shall lure,
And, Ned, a legend urge the flight—
The Typee-truants under stars
Unknown to Shakespere’s _Midsummer-Night;_
And man, if lost to Saturn’s Age,
Yet feeling life no Syrian pilgrimage.
But, tell, shall he, the tourist, find
Our isles the same in violet-glow
Enamoring us what years and years—
Ah, Ned, what years and years ago!
Well, Adam advances, smart in pace,
But scarce by violets that advance you trace.
But we, in anchor-watches calm,
The Indian Psyche’s languor won,
And, musing, breathed primeval balm
From Edens ere yet overrun;
Marvelling mild if mortal twice,
Here and hereafter, touch a Paradise.
- title
- TO NED