When the world was young, he walked this land;
Brave men fled when he took his stand.
Iron and brass were as straw to his might;
His eyes shone with the sun's own light.
No bridle could tame him, nor weapon harm;
His sighting alone spread fear and alarm.
His scales glistened like emerald jewels;
No spear could pierce them, no hammer or tool.
The hardest of rock was clay 'neath his feet;
The ocean would boil as it felt his great heat.
Flames rolled forth from his gaping jaws;
No foe could face him, he made his own laws.
Mightiest of all God's creatures was he;
At home on land or bottomless sea.
Greatest of beasts, unique and alone;
He reigns over them like a king on a throne.
Man struggled to master beasts great and small;
Now basks content in taming them all.
Yet one beast alone man could never slay;
Neither torture nor imprison, nor bring to bay.
Man rips from the earth what it would freely have given;
In greed and malice its skin he has riven.
He imprisoned and tortured the beasts of the field;
Now his doom is certain, his fate is sealed.
One day, all deeds will be brought to the light;
All actions judged, all wrongs put right.
When man's cruelty to the beasts he must pay,
I wonder what mighty Leviathan will say?