Journal – November 18, 1873
Should I ever find myself lost at sea I shall likely confront the realities of my certain demise forthwith. I decline to think that after the twentieth or twenty-first day any passing vessel shall rescue me. With this, I will confront such certain expiration as one would face a first day at a new career or an insufferable address to a great gathering of condemnatory constituents.
First, the note. In the event that one should happen by and find my lowly receptacle of refuge, I should like to leave he or she at least some words of my once inhabitance. Accordingly:
“This mighty stretch of swirling blue
Left me here stranded as upon a shelf.
Although the seas may decide fate for you,
‘Tis the depths below I sentence myself!”
Second, I shall scan the horizons in one last and final effort of locating deliverance. Finding none, I would secure some form of hemp twine to an object of extraordinary size: a barrel, a block, a blivet of water, anything within reach that would facilitate an assured sinking. Its opposite end secured to my ankle.
Lastly, I would stand upon the bow, with anchor in hand, and I would shake a fist at the heavens and curse the many gods of the great seas for their failed attempts to take me at their will! The seawater would enter my lungs and endow a sincere degree of satisfaction as the fluid within my mother’s womb once did. I shall smile at the withdrawing light above, knowing that upon such a day man beat the sea!
-- J. Worth
“This mighty stretch of swirling blue
Left me here stranded as upon a shelf.
Although the seas may decide fate for you,
‘Tis the depths below I sentence myself!”
Second, I shall scan the horizons in one last and final effort of locating deliverance. Finding none, I would secure some form of hemp twine to an object of extraordinary size: a barrel, a block, a blivet of water, anything within reach that would facilitate an assured sinking. Its opposite end secured to my ankle.
Lastly, I would stand upon the bow, with anchor in hand, and I would shake a fist at the heavens and curse the many gods of the great seas for their failed attempts to take me at their will! The seawater would enter my lungs and endow a sincere degree of satisfaction as the fluid within my mother’s womb once did. I shall smile at the withdrawing light above, knowing that upon such a day man beat the sea!
-- J. Worth
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