Born with a Halter

Again: as the profound calm which only apparently precedes and prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm itself; for, indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelope of the storm; and contains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless rifle holds the fatal powder, and the ball, and the explosion; so the graceful repose of the line, as it silently serpentines about the oarsmen before being brought into actual play - this is a thing which carries more of true terror than any other aspect of this dangerous affair. But why say more? All men live enveloped in whale-lines.  All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.  And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.

i go to this window

just as day dissolved

when it is twilight (and

looking up in fear

i see the new moon

thinner than a hair)

making me feel

how myself has been coarse and dull

compared with you, silently who are

and cling

to my mind always

but now she sharpens and becomes crisper

until i smile with knowing

- and all about

herself

the sprouting largest final air

plunges

inward with hurled

downward thousands of enormous dreams.

Desperado Philosophy

There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing... As for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker.

The Whiteness of the Whale

Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color, and it at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows - a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrank? And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues, every stately or lovely emblazoning - the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and they butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but the subtile deceits; not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge - pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful  travelers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him.  And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?

Spleen

Old Pluvius, month of rains, in peevish mood

Pours from his urn chill winter's sodden gloom

On corpses fading in the near graveyard,

On foggy suburbs pours life's tedium.

My cat seeks out a litter on the stones,

Her mangy body turning without rest.

An ancient poet's soul in monotones

Whines in the rain-spouts like a chilblained ghost.

A great bell mourns, a wet log wrapped in smoke

Sings in falsetto to the wheezing clock,

While from a rankly perfumed deck of cards

(A dropsicle old crone's fatal bequest)

The Queen of Spades, the dapper Jack of Hearts

Speak darkly of dead loves, how they were lost.