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The Desert truly is here—Moral and Natural Wastes.—Gray stunted trees in wintry mourning—draped with moss. Chill winds wail,—wild beasts howl,—and my heart echoes, ‘Far—lone—forgot.’
--March 1853 Scenes Beyond the Western Border and Scenes and Adventures
"That may not be, said then the ferryman,
Least we unweeting hap to be fordonne;
For those same islands seeming now and than,
Are not firme land, nor any certein wonne,
But stragling plots which to and fro do ronne
In the wide waters; therefore are they hight
The Wandering Islands; therefore do them shonne;
For they have oft drawne many a wandring wight
Into most deadly daunger and distressed plight;
For whosoever once hath fastened
His foot thereon may never it secure
But wandreth evermore uncertain and unsure."
"Darke, dolefull, dreary, like a greedy grave,
That still for carrion carcasses doth crave;
On top whereof ay dwelt the ghastly owl,
Shrieking his baleful note, which ever drave
Far from that haunt all other cheerful fowl,
And all about it wandring ghosts did wayle and howl."
-- Epigraph to The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles (Sketch First, The Isles at Large) from Spenser's Faerie Queene. Melville adapted the first part from 2.11-12 on the Wandering Islands which he then melds with 1.33 on the Cave of Despair.
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