Moby Dick

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the arm at the oar, and the iron, and the lance? how the richer or
better is Ahab now? Behold. Oh, Starbuck! is it not hard, that with this
weary load I bear, one poor leg should have been snatched from under
me? Here, brush this old hair aside; it blinds me, that I seem to weep.
Locks so grey did never grow but from out some ashes! But do I look
very old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel deadly faint, bowed, and
humped, as though I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled
centuries since Paradise. God! God! God!--crack my heart!--stave my
brain!--mockery! mockery! bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs, have
I lived enough joy to wear ye; and seem and feel thus intolerably old?
Close! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is
better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God. By
the green land; by the bright hearth-stone! this is the magic glass,
man; I see my wife and my child in thine eye. No, no; stay on board, on
board!--lower not when I do; when branded Ahab gives chase to Moby Dick.
That hazard shall not be thine. No, no! not with the far away home I see
in that eye!"