Edwin John Dove Pratt (Эдвин Джон Дав Пратт)

The Shark

He seemed to know the harbor,
So leisurely he swam;
His fin,
Like a piece of sheet-iron,
Three-cornered,
And with knife-edge,
Stirred not a bubble
As it moved
With its base-line on the water.

His body was tubular
And tapered
And smoke-blue,
And as he passed the wharf
He turned,
And snapped at a flat-fish
That was dead and floating.
And I saw the flash of a white throat.
And a double row of white teeth,
And eyes of metallic grey,
Hard and narrow and slit.

Then out of the harbor,
With that three-cornered fin
Shearing without a bubble the water,
Lithely,
Leisurely,
He swam—
That strange fish,
Tubular, tapered, smoke-blue,
Part vulture, part wolf.
Part neither—for his blood was cold.

1. Ode to December, 1917
2. The Toll of the Bells
3. Dawn!
4. In Absentia
5. Loss of the Steamship Florizel

Alfred Douglas (Альфред Дуглас) The Shark ("A treacherous monster is the Shark")

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