The cock shook sparkles from his golden plumage. The cock seemed in a rapture of benevolent delight. Leaping from the hoop, he strode up majestically to the pile of old clothes, where the wood-sawyer lay, and planted himself, like an armorial supporter, at his side. Then raised one long, musical, triumphant, and final sort of crow, with throat heaved far back, as if he meant the blast to waft the wood-sawyer’s soul sheer up to the seventh heaven. Then he strode, king-like, to the woman’s bed. Another upturned and exultant crow, mated to the former. The pallor of the children was changed to radiance. Their faces shone celestially through grime and dirt. They seemed children of emperors and kings, disguised. The cock sprang upon their bed, shook himself, and crowed, and crowed again, and still and still again. He seemed bent upon crowing the souls of the children out of their wasted bodies. He seemed bent upon rejoining instanter this whole family in the upper air. The children seemed to second his endeavours. Far, deep, intense longings for release transfigured them into spirits before my eyes. I saw angels where they lay. They were dead. The cock shook his plumage over them. The cock crew. It was now like a Bravo! like a Hurrah! like a Three-times-three! hip! hip! He strode out of the shanty. I followed. He flew upon the apex of the dwelling, spread wide his wings, sounded one supernatural note, and dropped at my feet. The cock was dead. If now you visit that hilly region, you will see, nigh the railroad track, just beneath October Mountain, on the other side of the swamp--there you will see a gravestone, not with skull and cross-bones, but with a lusty cock in act of crowing, chiselled on it, with the words beneath:-- ‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’ The wood-sawyer and his family, with the Signor Beneventano, lie in that spot; and I buried them, and planted the stone, which was a stone made to order; and never since then have I felt the doleful dumps, but under all circumstances crow late and early with a continual crow. Cock-a-doodle-doo!--oo!--oo!--oo!--oo! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE TWO TEMPLES (_Dedicated to Sheridan Knowles_) [The following letter from the Editor of _Putnam’s Monthly_ was kept by Melville with the rejected MS. of the ‘Two Temples.’ It is now published together with the Essay to which it refers, both for its intrinsic interest and as evidence of the date at which the ‘Two Temples’ was written.] OFFICE OF ‘PUTNAM’S MONTHLY,’ 10 PARK PLACE, NEW YORK, _May 12, 1854_.