land?

Shall I tell how the Neversink was at last stripped of spars, shrouds,
and sails--had her guns hoisted out--her powder-magazine, shot-lockers,
and armouries discharged--till not one vestige of a fighting thing was
left in her, from furthest stem to uttermost stern?

No! let all this go by; for our anchor still hangs from our bows,
though its eager flukes dip their points in the impatient waves. Let us
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 ba