Herman Melville

Mardi Herman Melville

Book Excerpt: ...ns would be past; the mild equatorial breeze exchanged for cold, fierce squalls, and all the horrors of northern voyaging. I cast my eyes downward to the brown planks of the dull, plodding ship, silent from stem to stern; then abroad. In the distance what visions were spread! The entire western horizon high piled with gold and crimson clouds; airy arches, domes, and minarets; as if the yellow, Moorish sun were setting behind some vast Alhambra. Vistas seemed leading to worlds beyond. To and fro, and all over the towers of this Nineveh in the sky, flew troops of birds. Watching them long, one crossed my sight, flew through a low arch, and was lost to view. My spirit must have sailed in with it; for directly, as in a trance, came upon me the cadence of mild billows laving a beach of shells, the waving of boughs, and the voices of maidens, and the lulled beatings of my own dissolved heart, all blended together. Now, all this, to be plain, was but one of the many visions one has up aloft. But coming upon...