noon
While I was at Liverpool , a fine ship that lay near us in the docks , having got her cargo on board , went to sea , bound for India , with a good breeze ; and all her crew felt sure of a prosperous voyage . But in about seven days after , she came back , a most distressing object to behold . All her starboard side was torn and splintered ; her starboard anchor was gone ; and a great part of the starboard bulwarks ; while every one of the lower yard-arms had been broken , in the same direction ; so that she now carried small and unsightly jury-yards . When I looked at this vessel , with the whole of one side thus shattered , but the other still in fine trim ; and when I remembered her gay and gallant appearance , when she left the same harbor into which she now entered so forlorn ; I could not help thinking of a young man I had known at home , who had left his cottage one morning in high spirits , and was brought back at noon with his right side paralyzed from head to foot . It seems that this vessel had been run against by a strange ship , crowding all sail before a fresh breeze ; and the stranger had rushed past her starboard side , reducing her to the sad state in which she now was . Sailors can not be too wakeful and cautious , when keeping their night look-outs ; though , as I well know , they too often suffer themselves to become negligent , and nod . And this is not so wonderful , after all ; for though every seaman has heard of those accidents at sea ; and many of them , perhaps , have been in ships that have suffered from them ; yet , when you find yourself sailing along on the ocean at night , without having seen a sail for weeks and weeks , it is hard for you to realize that any are near .