Megalosaurus Poem by Babette Deutsch

A MONSTER like a mountain, leathern limbed,
With eyes of sluggish ore and claws of stone,
He heaved his thunder-throated body, rimmed
By marsh fires human eyes have never known.
A monolith carved out of savage night,
He hid in his impenetrable hide
Muscle and blood, and nerves to sense delight
And agony that tore him when he died.

The clumsy terror of his frame has gone
The way of his blind, simple savagery.
Out of his casual bones men build the dawn
That bore and bred such brutish game as he.
But still endures his dull, confounding shape:
In wars of the wise offspring of the ape.