Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

WHALE by WILLIAM ROSE BENET

Poet Analysis

First Line: RAIN, WITH A SILVER FLAIL
Last Line: "AND THERE WAS WHALE!"
Subject(s): CREATION; GOD; JUDGMENT DAY; WHALES; END OF THE WORLD; DOOMSDAY; FALL OF MAN;
@3Rain, with a silver flail;
Sun, with a golden ball;
Ocean, wherein the whale
Swims minnow-small;

I heard the whale rejoice
And cynic sharks attend;
He cried with a purple voice,@1
"The Lord is my Friend!"

"With flanged and battering tail,
With huge and dark baleen,
He said, 'let there by Whale
In the Cold and Green!'

"He gave me a water spout,
A side like a harbor wall;
The Lord from cloud looked out
And planned it all.

"With glittering crown atilt
He leaned on a glittering rail;
He said, 'Where sky is spilt,
Let there be Whale."

"Tier upon tier of wings
Blushed and blanched and bowed;
Phalanxed fiery things
Cried in the cloud;

"Million-eyed was the mirk
At the plan not understood;
But the Lord looked on his work
And saw it was good.

"He gave me marvelous girth
For the curve of back and breast,
And a tiny eye of mirth
To hide His jest.

"He made me a floating hill,
A plunging deep-sea mine.
This was the Lord's will;
The Lord is Divine.

"I magnify his name
In earthquake and eclipse,
In weltering molten flame
And wrecks of ships,

"In waves that lick the moon;
I, the plough of the sea!
I am the Lord's boon,
The Lord made me!"

The sharks barked from beneath,
As the great whale rollicked and roared,
"Yes, and our grinning teeth,
Was it not the Lord?"

Then question pattered like hail
From fishes large and small.
"The Lord is mighty," said Whale,
"The Lord made all!

"His is a mammoth jest
Life may never betray;
He has laid it up in His breast
Till Judgment Day;

"But high when combers foam
And tower their last of all,
My power shall haul you home
Through Heaven wall.

"A trumpet then in the gates,
To the ramps a thundering drum,
I shall lead you where He waits
For His Whale to come.

"Where His cloudy seat is placed
On high in an empty dome,
I shall trail the Ocean abased
In chains of foam,

"Unwieldy, squattering dread;
Where the blazing cohorts stand
At last I shall lift my head
As it feels His hand.

"Then wings with a million eyes
Before mine eyes shall quail:
'Look you, all Paradise,
I was His Whale!'"

@3I heard the Whale rejoice,
As he splayed the waves to a fan@1;
"And the Lord shall say with His Voice,
'@3Leviathan!@1'

"The Lord shall say with His Tongue,
'Now let all Heaven give hail
To my Jest when I was young,
To my very Whale!'"

@3Then the Whale careered in the Sea,
He floundered with flailing tail;
Flourished and rollicked he@1,
"Aha! Mine Empery!
For the Lord said, 'Let Whale Be!'
And there Was Whale!"



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