1 and stuff him in your creel?
2 or snag him with an anchor?
3 or flatter you with flowery speech?
4 to run errands and serve you the rest of your life?
5 Will you make him the mascot of the neighborhood children?
6 and have shoppers haggle over the price?
7 or drive harpoons into his huge head?
8 you won't live to tell the story.
9 Why, one look at him would do you in!
10 how, then, do you expect to stand up to me?
11 I'm in charge of all this—I run this universe!
12 his enormous bulk, his beautiful shape.
13 or putting those jaws into bit and bridle?
14 filled with row upon row of fierce teeth?
15 nothing can make a dent in that pride.
16 impervious to weapons and weather,
17 impenetrable!
18 he blinks and the dawn breaks.
19 fireworks arc and branch.
20 like steam from a boiling pot.
21 flames of fire stream from his mouth.
22 To meet him is to dance with death.
23 there's not a soft spot in his entire body—
24 rock-hard, invulnerable.
25 cowering before his tail-thrashing turbulence.
26 harpoons ricochet wildly.
27 bronze weapons beneath notice.
28 bullets make no more impression than raindrops.
29 he treats a brandished harpoon as a joke.
30 unstoppable as a barge.
31 he whips the sea like you'd whip an egg into batter.
32 you might think Ocean had grown a gray beard!
33 not an ounce of fear in that creature!
34 king of the ocean, king of the deep!"
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