Beyond the dunes what monstrous shapes are these Like Titans rearing out of the abyss To menace heaven? Terrible they loom Upheaving with their shoulders till the sky Is warped and yielding, and the trampled sea Pales into death white foam. Impending doom Sweeps to engulf the world, when flash on flash, As far heat lightnings glint on burnished arms, The wild Valkyries come! Their jet black steeds Outpace the furious winds; and hark, the stroke Of Thor, the Thunder God! His hammer dread Splinters the silence, crashing downward, stuns The firmament. That glare that blinds the eye Is Woden’s Sword! It pierces coil on coil Night’s writing dragon, pouring forth its flood Of venomed gloom. Redoubled is the din The powers of Tartarus and Heaven locked, In mortal strife. The adamantine base Foundationing the everlasting hills, And the resounding archways of the sky, Reverberate and tremble! Wildly burst Like pent up tears, the rains that hurtle down Sodden with chill; while whimpering, the surge All tempest frayed and besomed, choked with sobs, Fingers the whining sands. Ages it seems, Tumultuous aeons, e’er the torrents cease And tides of blackness ebb. Far out to sea The mighty conflict drifts, the thunders die As scorpion whips of forked lightnings scourge The cringing giants of the cloud that flee Down to their dungeons in the vasty deep; While o’er their tatters rides the full orbed moon Glorious, resplendent like the shield of Mars, Triumphant o’er the terrors of the storm. TO A SCRIMSHAWED WHALE’S TOOTH Quaint relic that the mellowing years Have tinged with Autumn’s ripened gold, What scene of olden time veneers Your ivory surface smooth and cold! Hard bitten by some huge sperm whale You often gored the giant squid, That nightmare of the deep, amid Unfathomed gulfs of crag and vale. Remotest seas, their bounds unknown, That old bull whale was wont to cross By ways uncharted, he alone, Shared with the wandering albatross. Marauder savage and morose, He spurned the waves in pride and wrath, No killer dared dispute the path The monarch of the ocean chose. Then came the whaler’s crew - and this Lone carven fragment now remains Of all his bulk, that the abyss Long since engulfed. Yet it explains A graphic story. Clothed with life Its dead white surface - line by line - Unfolds in intricate design A sailor’s dreams - etched by his knife.