Give way unto your drowsiness; it is
Not sleep, but rest and relaxation. There!
I'll keep you company.
Dimsdell. Do.
Roger. [Pouring wine and drinking.] This wine is liquid gold.
I quaff to your good health and ease of mind.
This is good wine. It warms my chilly blood
With all the dreamy heat of Spain. I hear
The clack of th' castinet and th' droning twang
Of stringéd instruments; while there before
Mine eyes brown, yielding beauties dance in time
To the pulsing music of a saraband!
And yet there is a flavor of the sea,
[Sipping wine.
The long-drawn heaving of the ocean wave,
The gentle cradling of a tropic tide;
Its native golden sun—I fear you sleep?
Or do the travels of the wine so rock
[top] Your soul that self is lost in revery?
Why, man, dream not too much of placid bliss;
Nor wine, nor man, can reach this clear perfection
Until they pass the rack of thunder and
Of hurricane.—'Tis on us now! Awake!
[Shouting in Dimsdell's ear.
My friend, awake! Dost thou not hear the storm?
Oh! how it shrieks and whistles through the shrouds!
The awful guns of heaven boom in our ears—
Nay, that was the mainsail gone by the board,
Flapping with cannon roar.
You do not follow me. O, come, I say!
This is no sermon. You cannot be asleep,
Yet feign you are to cheat me of my story.
Wake up, my friend. You carry the jest too far.
Roger cautiously shakes Dimsdell.