The Deeps

Down there is darkness such as never

Was on the surface of the earth,

And gulfs steeper than the steepest cliff-falls

Among the most giddying mountain heights.

Red clay and blue mud line its crevasses,

And millions and millions of little shells,

The remains of little lives, extinguished,

Forgotten as if they had never been.

Fittingly the sea is a symbol of eternity,

Where things are lost to sight, and inaccessible

To thought. There even the relics

Of humanity can be but a sparse scattering.

And of what value to itself or another

Is the huge immovable creature

Lying at the very bottom of the ocean, and waving

A faint luminosity to attract its prey?