noon
We are blind to the real sights of this world ; deaf to its voice ; and dead to its death . And not till we know , that one grief outweighs ten thousand joys , will we become what Christianity is striving to make us . `` Off Cape Cod ! '' said the steward , coming forward from the quarter-deck , where the captain had just been taking his noon observation ; sweeping the vast horizon with his quadrant , like a dandy circumnavigating the dress-circle of an amphitheater with his glass . `` Off Cape Cod ! '' and in the shore-bloom that came to us -- even from that desert of sand-hillocks -- methought I could almost distinguish the fragrance of the rose-bush my sisters and I had planted , in our far inland garden at home . Delicious odors are those of our mother Earth ; which like a flower-pot set with a thousand shrubs , greets the eager voyager from afar .