Sudden upon the shore 'mid dark, dark slime,
Lengthened a mass most frightful to behold:
Slowly it came, out of the foaming waves.
A breath inflated wide its livid flanks,
And its huge viscid back, with seaweeds sown,
Rose, like a mountain drifted, high in air.
It rose! It rose! It covered all the coast;
Under its wrinkled belly rang the shells;
Its monstrous feet, its big toes hard and scaled,
Were spread out heavy on the shingles wet.
To sounds of far-off winds sometimes the shape
Turned its thin muzzle and its head deformed;
Bristled with hair, dilated like dark caves,
Its nostrils seemed to suck the whole world up
And to despise th' immensities of space;
While its eyes round, rimmed with metallic plates,
Senseless and glassy, swam like two dead moons.
Hideous, it stopped upon the salt sand's edge,
While in long folds its tail still dragged the sea.
Then grinding fierce its large unmeasured teeth,
And wrinkling on its back its serried scales,
Page:A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields.djvu/319
286
A SHEAF GLEANED
