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- 2026-01-30T20:48:36.278Z
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- leave the ship on the sea—still with the land out of sight—still with
brooding darkness on the face of the deep. I love an indefinite,
infinite background—a vast, heaving, rolling, mysterious rear!
It is night. The meagre moon is in her last quarter—that betokens the
end of a cruise that is passing. But the stars look forth in their
everlasting brightness—and _that_ is the everlasting, glorious Future,
for ever beyond us.
We main-top-men are all aloft in the top; and round our mast we circle,
a brother-band, hand in hand, all spliced together. We have reefed the
last top-sail; trained the last gun; blown the last match; bowed to the
last blast; been tranced in the last calm. We have mustered our last
round the capstan; been rolled to grog the last time; for the last time
swung in our hammocks; for the last time turned out at the sea-gull
call of the watch. We have seen our last man scourged at the gangway;
our last man gasp out the ghost in the stifling Sick-bay; our last man
tossed to the sharks. Our last death-denouncing Article of War has been
read; and far inland, in that blessed clime whither-ward our frigate
now glides, the last wrong in our frigate will be remembered no more;
when down from our main-mast comes our Commodore’s pennant, when down
sinks its shooting stars from the sky.
“By the mark, nine!” sings the hoary old leadsman, in the chains. And
thus, the mid-world Equator passed, our frigate strikes soundings at
last.
Hand in hand we top-mates stand, rocked in our Pisgah top. And over the
starry waves, and broad out into the blandly blue and boundless night,
spiced with strange sweets from the long-sought land—the whole long
cruise predestinated ours, though often in tempest-time we almost
refused to believe in that far-distant shore—straight out into that
fragrant night, ever-noble Jack Chase, matchless and unmatchable Jack
Chase stretches forth his bannered hand, and, pointing shoreward,
cries: “For the last time, hear Camoens, boys!”
“How calm the waves, how mild the balmy gale!
The Halcyons call, ye Lusians spread the sail!
Appeased, old Ocean now shall rage no more;
Haste, point our bowsprit for yon shadowy shore.
Soon shall the transports of your natal soil
O’erwhelm in bounding joy the thoughts of every toil.”
THE END.
As a man-of-war that sails through the sea, so this earth that sails
through the air. We mortals are all on board a fast-sailing,
never-sinking world-frigate, of which God was the shipwright; and she
is but one craft in a Milky-Way fleet, of which God is the Lord High
Admiral. The port we sail from is for ever astern. And though far out
of sight of land, for ages and ages we continue to sail with sealed
orders, and our last destination remains a secret to ourselves and our
officers; yet our final haven was predestinated ere we slipped from the
stocks at Creation.
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