Chapter Chapter 37 · 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 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!