Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CONGER EEL, by PATRICK MACGILL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CONGER EEL, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The waters dance on the ocean crest, or swirl in
Last Line: That vampire conger eel.
Subject(s): Arctic; Bones; Death; Marine Animals; Sailing & Sailors; Sea; Dead, The; Ocean


THE waters dance on the ocean crest, or swirl in the cyclone's breath,
But down below where the divers go, they sullenly sleep in death,
Where the slime is holding the cutter's stays, where the sailors' bones are
white,
Where the phantoms sweep through the eerie deep in realms of endless night,
'T is there it holds its sway supine, and plaits its every reel,
The silent, sibilant, sombre, sinuous, stealthy Conger eel,
The silky Conger eel, the solemn-eyed Conger eel —
It circles by where the dead men lie, the spectral Conger eel.

The devil fish, grim in its cavern dim, a sinister siren lies,
And the shark will seize on its frightened prey where the spumous surges rise,
The dolphin may play in its riotous way where the waters are calm and slow,
The whale may spout like a geyser out by the ice of an Arctic floe,
But down a hundred fathoms or more below the lance-edged keel,
It slily slides, 'neath the shifty tides, the sensuous Conger eel,
The lily-soft Conger eel, the green-eyed Conger eel,
It grovels in grime and the stagnant slime, the hideous Conger eel.

And there in its sluggish realms of woe it has reigned for unnumbered years.
It feasted of old on the vikings bold, and the Spanish buccaneers,
And kings and the sons of kings have gone to lie on its banquet board,
And many a lady young and fair from the arms of her drowning lord —
But down below no blush of shame comes to the lips that steal
The kisses soft from the lady fair; the passionless Conger eel
The cynical Conger eel, carnivorous Conger eel,
May lie on the breast of the maiden chaste and never a tremor feel —
That vampire Conger eel.





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