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- 4658
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:26.981Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 4599
- text
- I had supposed he would. This Shanghai crowed till midday, at least.
Would he keep a-crowing all day? I resolved to learn. Again I ascended
the hill. The whole country was now bathed in a rejoicing sunlight. The
warm verdure was bursting all round me. Teams were afield. Birds, newly
arrived from the south, were blithely singing in the air. Even the crows
cawed with a certain unction, and seemed a shade or two less black than
usual.
Hark! there goes the cock! How shall I describe the crow of the Shanghai
at noontide? His sunrise crow was a whisper to it. It was the loudest,
longest, and most strangely musical crow that ever amazed mortal man. I
had heard plenty of cock-crows before, and many fine ones; but this one!
so smooth and flute-like in its very clamour; so self-possessed in its
very rapture of exultation; so vast, mounting, swelling, soaring, as if
spurted out from a golden throat, thrown far back. Nor did it sound like
the foolish, vain-glorious crow of some young sophomorean cock, who knew
not the world, and was beginning life in audacious gay spirits, because
in wretched ignorance of what might be to come. It was the crow of a
cock who crowed not without advice; the crow of a cock who knew a thing
or two; the crow of a cock who had fought the world and got the better
of it, and was now resolved to crow, though the earth should heave and
the heavens should fall. It was a wise crow; an invincible crow; a
philosophic crow; a crow of all crows.
I returned home once more full of reinvigorated spirits, with a
dauntless sort of feeling. I thought over my debts and other troubles,
and over the unlucky risings of the poor oppressed _peoples_ abroad, and
over the railroad and steamboat accidents, and over even the loss of my
dear friend, with a calm, good-natured rapture of defiance, which
astounded myself. I felt as though I could meet Death, and invite him to
dinner, and toast the Catacombs with him, in pure overflow of
self-reliance and a sense of universal security.
Toward evening I went up to the hill once more to find whether, indeed,
the glorious cock would prove game even from the rising of the sun unto
the going down thereof. Talk of Vespers or Curfew!--the evening crow of
the cock went out of his mighty throat all over the land and inhabited
it, like Xerxes from the East with his double-winged host. It was
miraculous. Bless me, what a crow! The cock went game to roost that
night, depend upon it, victorious over the entire day, and bequeathing
the echoes of his thousand crows to night.
After an unwontedly sound, refreshing sleep I rose early, feeling like a
carriage-spring--light, elliptical, airy, buoyant as sturgeon-nose--and,
like a football, bounded up the hill. Hark! Shanghai was up before me.
The early bird that caught the worm--crowing like a bugle worked by an
engine--lusty, loud, all jubilation. From the scattered farm-houses a
multitude of other cocks were crowing, and replying to each other’s
crows. But they were as flageolets to a trombone. Shanghai would
suddenly break in, and overwhelm all their crows with his one
domineering blast. He seemed to have nothing to do with any other
concern. He replied to no other crow, but crowed solely by himself, on
his own account, in solitary scorn and independence.
Oh, brave cock!--oh, noble Shanghai!--oh, bird rightly offered up by the
invincible Socrates, in testimony of his final victory over life.
As I live, thought I, this blessed day will I go and seek out the
Shanghai, and buy him, if I have to clap another mortgage on my land.
- title
- Chunk 23