No More Learning

And down this terrible aisle,
While heaven's ranges roar aghast,
Pours a vast file of strange and hidden things:
Forbidden monsters, crocodiles with wings
And perfumed flesh that sings and glows
With more fresh colors than the rainbow knows. . . .
The _reem_, those great beasts with eighteen horns,
Who mate but once in seventy years and die
In their own tears which flow ten stadia high.
The _shamir_, made by God on the sixth morn,
No longer than a grain of barley corn
But stronger than the bull of Bashan and so hard
It cuts through diamonds. Meshed and starred
With precious stones, there struts the shattering _ziz_
Whose groans are wrinkled thunder. . . .
For thrice three hundred years the full parade
Files past, a cavalcade of fear and wonder.
And then the vast aisle clears.

Now comes our constantly increased reward.
The Lord commands that monstrous beast,
Leviathan, to be our feast.
What cheers ascend from horde on ravenous horde!
One hears the towering creature rend the seas,
Frustrated, cowering, and his pleas ignored.
In vain his great, belated tears are poured--
For this he was created, kept and nursed.
Cries burst from all the millions that attend:
_"Ascend, Leviathan, it is the end!
We hunger and we thirst! Ascend! " . . . _

Observe him first, my friend.

_God's deathless plaything rolls an eye
Five hundred thousand cubits high.
The smallest scale upon his tail
Could hide six dolphins and a whale.
His nostrils breathe--and on the spot
The churning waves turn seething hot.
If he be hungry, one huge fin
Drives seven thousand fishes in;
And when he drinks what he may need,
The rivers of the earth recede.
Yet he is more than huge and strong--
Twelve brilliant colors play along
His sides until, compared to him,
The naked, burning sun seems dim.
New scintillating rays extend
Through endless singing space and rise
Into an ecstasy that cries:
"Ascend, Leviathan, ascend! "_

God now commands the multi-colored bands
Of angels to intrude and slay the beast
That His good sons may have a feast of food.