To A Scrimshawed Whale’s Tooth
Quaint relic that the mellowing years
Have tinged with Autumn’s ripened gold,
What scene of olden time veneers
Your ivory surface smooth and cold!
Hard bitten by some huge sperm whale
You often gored the giant squid,
That nightmare of the deep, amid
Unfathomed gulfs of crag and vale.
Remotest seas, their bounds unknown,
That old bull whale was wont to cross
By ways uncharted, he alone,
Shared with the wandering albatross.
Marauder savage and morose,
He spurned the waves in pride and wrath,
No killer dared dispute the path
The monarch of the ocean chose.
Then came the whaler’s crew - and this
Lone carven fragment now remains
Of all his bulk, that the abyss
Long since engulfed. Yet it explains
A graphic story. Clothed with life
Its dead white surface - line by line -
Unfolds in intricate design
A sailor’s dreams - etched by his knife.
Through many an hour of summer haze
While the long swells rocked languidly
His patient fingers graved that maze
Of intertwining tracery.
And that sweet face with hair so trim,
Love’s arrow, and two hearts that bleed,
What touching romance we may read
In “H to J” - to Her from Him.
Old Time united them we trust -
Initials linked but separate -
Though both long mingled with the dust
Their story we may still translate
From this rude sketch. Devotedly
They passed a lifetime richly blest
And safe at home, together rest
In sad, sweet graves beside the sea.
Or did perchance, Fate intervene
To bow that head in sorrow low
For lover lost - what came between
Those twain we cannot hope to know.
The sadness of a far off day
The fading of a golden dream
Dim memories, how fresh they seem
To ever youthful H and J!
Enshrined as on a magic page
A clasp knife for his only aid,
Still fondly lingers age by age
The love a sailor bore a maid.
His name, nor hers, no one can say,
No evidence besides, endures,
But silent eloquence like yours
Immortalizes H and J!