A very bright planet shone before him and drew a trenchant wake along the water.

He took that for his line and followed it.

That was the last earthly thing that he should look upon; that radiant speck, which he had soon magnified into a City of Laputa, along whose terraces there walked men and women of awful and benignant features, who viewed him with distant commiseration.

These imaginary spectators consoled him; he told himself their talk, one to another; it was of himself and his sad destiny.
From such flights of fancy, he was aroused by the growing coldness of the water.

Why should he delay?
Here, where he was now, let him drop the curtain, let him seek the ineffable refuge, let him lie down with all races and generations of men in the house of sleep.