Did he, Ahab, suppose that he and wife 

Would pass their golden years before the hearth, 

He content to scrim his ivory peg, 

To carve the whale in imagery within 

Its murky grave and judge the score èven? 

Revenge by nature sweet, or sweeter is 

The dream of such—Ahab, by visions wracked, 

Gone unavenged, galled by pain that might breach 

And breach again unto eternity. 

So sweet it was to be, by nature or 

By dream, his death a trifling act anon

The barb, the lance, the cutting spade, the chain, 

The hoist, the boiling pots to try—his wrath

He swears, before a spiked and golden oath— 

I look, you look, he looks; we look, assuage 

The bitten pain, that for a pious man 

Gone foul, afoul of parted lines, that all 

Would die but one, while sweet revenge rolls on.

~

"I look, you look, he looks; we look,"

~Herman Melville, "Moby Dick"