But I had not got that lesson quite so well learned then, and so lay cultivating my wretchedness for nearly an hour, picturing our future wanderings among these northern solitudes, and our final starvation.

"Perchance," I groaned to myself, "in after-years, some party of adventurers may come upon our white bones, what the gluttons leave of them." I even went farther; for I was presuming enough to imagine that our melancholy disappearance might become the subject of some future ballad.

How would it begin?
What would they say of _me_?
What had I done in the world to deserve any thing by way of a line of praise or a tear of pity?
Nothing that I could think of.

At best, the ballad, if written at all (and of that I was beginning to have my doubts the more I thought it over), could but run,-- "Whilom in Boston town there dwelt a youth Who ne'er did well except in dying young." That was as far as I could get with it: in fact, that was about all there was to be said by way of eulogy.

The sea seemed to get hold of those two lines somehow, and kept repeating them with its eternal _swish-swash, swash-swish_.
The rain pattered it out in its heroic pentameters,-- _Pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat, pit-pat!_ _Pity-pat, pat-pit, pat-pit, pity-pit, pit-pat!_ All at once the regular rhythm of the sea was broken by a slight splash out of time.