Herman Melville

“ Several days passed, during which I made sundry excursions in the regions roundabout, but in vain sought the cock. Still, I heard him from the hill, and sometimes from the house, and sometimes in the stillness of the night. If at times I would relapse into my doleful dumps straightway at the sound of the exultant and defiant crow, my soul, too, would turn chanticleer, and clap her wings, and throw back her throat, and breathe forth a cheerful challenge to all the world of woes. ”

“ It lay in a very lonely part of the country, a densely-wooded mountain on one side (which I call October Mountain, on account of its bannered aspect in that month) , and a thicketed swamp on the other, the railroad cutting the swamp. Straight as a die the railroad cut it; many times a day tantalizing the wretched shanty with the sight of all the beauty, rank, fashion, health, trunks, silver and gold, drygoods and groceries, brides and grooms, happy wives and husbands, flying by the lonely door —no time to stop—flash! ”

“ Merrymusk was dead.
An awful fear seized me.
But the cock crew.
The cock shook his plumage as if each feather were a banner. The cock hung from the shanty roof as erewhile the trophied flags from the dome of St. Paul's. The cock terrified me with exceeding wonder.
I drew nigh the bedsides of the woman and children. They marked my look of strange affright ; they knew what had happened.
"My good man is just dead," breathed the woman lowly. "Tell me true?"
"Dead," said I.
The cock crew. ”

“ His name was Merrymusk. I had often thought how jolly a name for so unjolly a wight. I inquired of people whether they knew Merrymusk. But it was some time before I learned much about him. He was by birth a Marylander, it appeared, who had long lived in the country round about ; a wandering man ; until within some ten years ago, a thriftless man, though perfectly innocent of crime; a man who would work hard a month with surprising soberness, and then spend all his wages in one riotous night. ”

“ Look at the mist yonder; what soft curls and undulations round the hills, and the sun weaving his rays among them. See the azure smoke of the village, like the azure tester over a bridal-bed. How bright the country looks there where the river overflowed the meadows. The old grass has to knock under to the new. Well, I feel the better for this walk. Home now, and walk into that steak and crack that bottle of brown stout ; and by the time that's drank—a quart of stout—by that time, I shall feel about as stout as Samson. ”

“ Did ever such a blessed cock-crow so ring out over the earth before! Clear, shrill, full of pluck, full of fire, full of fun, full of glee. It plainly says— "Never say die!" My friends, it is extraordinary, is it not?
Unwittingly, I found that I had been addressing the two-year-olds—the calves—in my enthusiasm ; which shows how one's true nature will betray itself at times in the most unconscious way. ”

“ It was too heavy and lifeless to mount of itself; so there it lay, between the village and the sky, doubtless hiding many a man with the mumps, and many a queasy child.
My eye ranged over the capacious rolling country, and over the mountains, and over the village, and over a farmhouse here and there, and over woods, groves, streams, rooks, fells and I thought to myself, what a slight mark, after all, does man make on this huge great earth. Yet the earth makes a mark on him. ”

“ It is an enterprise to make the heart break. Vast pains squandered upon a vanity. For how can one make rotten rail-fences stand up on their rotten pins? By what magic put pitch into sticks which have lain freezing and baking through sixty consecutive winters and summers ? This it is, this wretched endeavor to mend rotten rail-fences with their own rotten rails, which drives many farmers into the asylum. ”

“ Oh, noble cock!
"But my dear and glorious cock," mused I, upon second thought, "one can't so easily send this world to pot; one can't so easily be jolly with civil-processes in his hat or hand."
Hark! the crow again. Plain as cock could speak, it said: "Hang the process, and hang the fellow that sent it! If you have not land or cash, go and thrash the fellow, and tell him you never mean to pay him. Be jolly!"
Now this was the way—through the imperative intimations of the cock—that I came to clap the added mortgage on my estate ”

“ Continually he crows it."
"Just the import I first ascribed to his crow, Merrymusk, when first I heard it from my hill. I thought some rich nabob owned some costly Shanghai; little weening any such poor man as you owned this lusty cock of a domestic breed."
"Poor man like me? Why call me poor? Don't the cock I own glorify this otherwise inglorious, lean, lantern-jawed land? Didn't my cock encourage you? And I give you all this glorification away gratis. I am a great philanthropist. I am a rich man a very rich man, and a very happy one. Crow, Trumpet." ”

“ And, for all the world, the proud pace of the cock seemed the very stage-pace of the Signor Beneventano.
Hark! suddenly the cock paused, lifted his head still higher, ruffled his plumes, seemed inspired, and sent forth a lusty crow. October Mountain echoed it; other mountains sent it back; still others rebounded it; it overran the country round. Now I plainly perceived how it was I had chanced to hear the gladdening sound on my distant hill.
"Good heavens ! do you own the cock ? Is that cock yours?" ”

“ The cock threw himself into a posture. The roof jarred.
"Does not this disturb Mrs. Merrymusk and the sick children?"
"Crow again, Trumpet."
The roof jarred.
"It does not disturb them, then?"
"Didn't you hear 'em ask for it?"
"How is it, that your sick family like this crowing?" said I. "The cock is a glorious cock, with a glorious voice, but not exactly the sort of thing for a sick chamber, one would suppose. Do they really like it?"
"Don't you like it? Don't it do you good? Ain't it inspiring? Don't it impart pluck? give stuff against despair?" ”

“ Though puzzled somewhat, yet I knew the general direction where the shanty lay, and on I trudged. As I advanced, I was surprised to hear the mysterious cock crow with more and more distinctness. Is it possible, thought I, that any gentleman owning a Shanghai can dwell in such a lonesome, dreary region? ”

“ Where lurked this valiant Shanghai—this bird of cheerful Socrates—the game-fowl Greek who died unappalled? Where lurked he? Oh, noble cock, where are you? Crow once more, my Bantam! my princely, my imperial Shanghai ! my bird of the Emperor of China! Brother of the sun! Cousin of great Jove! where are you?—one crow more, and tell me your number !
Hark! like a full orchestra of the cocks of all nations, forth burst the crow. But where from ? There it is ”

“ What? jumping on this rotten old log here, to flap my elbows and crow too? And just now in the doleful dumps. And all this from the simple crow of a cock. Marvelous cock! But soft—this fellow now crows most lustily ; but it's only morning; let's see how he'll crow about noon, and towards nightfall. Come to think of it, cocks crow most lustily in the beginning of the day. Their pluck ain't lasting, after all. Yes, yes; even cocks have to succumb to the universal spell of tribulation: jubilant in the beginning, but down in the mouth at the end. ”

“ And here I must say, that one cause of the sad fact why idiocy more prevails among farmers than any other class of people, is owing to their undertaking the mending of rotten rail-fences in warm, relaxing spring weather. The enterprise is a hopeless one. ”

“ OR THE CROWING OF THE NOBLE COCK BENEVENTANO
In all parts of the world many high-spirited revolts from rascally despotisms had of late been knocked on the head ; many dreadful casualties, by locomotive and steamer, had likewise knocked hundreds of high-spirited travelers on the head ( I lost a dear friend in one of them) ; my own private affairs were also full of despotisms, casualties, and knockings on the head, when early one morning in spring, being too full of hypoes to sleep, I sallied out to walk on my hillside pasture. ”

“ Who would take the trouble to make a fortune in it, when he knows not how long he can keep it, for the thousand villains and asses who have the management of railroads and steamboats, and innumerable other vital things in the world. ”

“ Hallo! here come the calves, the two-year-olds, just turned out of the barn into the pasture, after six months of cold victuals. What a miserable-looking set, to be sure! A breaking up of a hard winter, that's certain ; sharp bones sticking out like elbows ”

“ Here he comes, the chartered murderer! the death monopolizer! judge, jury, and hangman all together, whose victims die always without benefit of clergy. For two hundred and fifty miles that iron fiend goes yelling through the land, crying "More ! ”