Read "The Maldive Shark (Sea Pieces)" by Herman Melville online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
About the Shark, phlegmatical one, / Pale sot of the Maldive sea, / The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim, / How alert in attendance be.
From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw / They have nothing of harm to dread, / But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank / Or before his Gorgonian head: / Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth / In white triple tiers of glittering gates, / And there find a haven when peril's abroad, / An asylum in jaws of the Fates!
They are friends; and friendly they guide him to prey, / Yet never partake of the treat- / Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull, / Pale ravener of horrible meat.