Classic Poem

" CANST thou with a weak angle strike the whale,
Catch with a hook, or with a noose enthrall?
Drag by a slender line unto the shore?
His huge jaw with a twig or bulrush bore?
Will he his pitiful complaints renew?
For freedom with afflicted language sue?
Become thy willing vassal? Canst thou still
Subject him to the service of thy will?
And like a sparrow, fetter'd in a string,
The play'd-with monster to the virgins bring?
Shall thy companions feast upon his spoil?
Or wilt thou to the merchant sell his oil?
Canst thou with fisgigs pierce him to the quick,
Or in his skull thy barbed trident stick?
Then hasten to the charge. Yet, soldier, fear;
Think of the battle, and in time forbear.
Vain are their hopes who seek by force or flight
To vanquish him who conquers with his sight.
What mortal dare with such a foe contend,
Much less his hand against his Maker bend?
Can gifts My grace engage? when all below
The lofty sun is mine, what can I owe?
This wonder of the deep, his mighty force
And goodly form shall furnish our discourse.
Who can divest him of his waves? bestride
His monstrous back, and with a bridle ride?
His head's huge doors unlock, whose jaws with great
And dreadful teeth in treble ranks are set?
Arm'd with refulgent shields, together join'd,
And seal'd up to resist the ruffling wind;
The nether by the upper fortifi'd;
No force their combination can divide.
His sneezings set on fire the foaming brine,
His round eyes like the morning's eyelids shine;
Infernal lightning sallies from his throat,
Ejected sparks upon the billows float.
A cloud of smoke from his wide nostrils flies,
As vapours from a boiling furnace rise.
He burning coals exhales, and vomits flames;
His strength the empire of the ocean claims.
Loud tempests, roaring floods, and what affright
The trembling sailor, turn to his delight.
The flakes of his tough flesh so firmly bound,
As not to be divorced by a wound.
His heart a solid rock, to fear unknown;
And harder than the grinder's nether stone.
The sword his armed sides in vain assails;
No dart nor lance can penetrate his scales.
Who brass as rotten wood, and steel no more
Regards than reeds, that bristle on the shore.
Dreads he the twanging of the archer's string?
Or singing stones from the Phaenician sling?
Darts he esteems as straw, asunder torn;
The shaking of the jav'lin laughs to scorn.
He ragged stones beneath his belly spreads,
To his repose as soft as downy beds.
The seas before him like a caldron boil,
And in the fervour of their motion foil.
A light, struck from the floods, detects his way,
Who covers their aspiring heads with gray.
Of all whom ample earth's round shoulders bear,
None equal this, created without fear.
Whatever is exalted, he disdains;
And as a king among the mighty reigns. "