Poem by Olga Hampel Briggs

Of Moby Dick, of Ahab, and of Melville 

"Ahab never thinks; he only feels, feels, feels;
that's tingling enough for mortal man!"

THERE lived (you wrote) a Triton who forsook
Thinking for feeling, tingling; mortal man
He was not, who matched hate with none less than
The Great White Whale; no simpleton, who took
Such foe for wife, for child; yet who could love
(He said himself) tall ships as he loved men.
Though you were slow in speech and thought, your pen
Was held by an archangel when you strove
To tell this tale of terror, struggle, death;
Of puny man, of brittle ship, harpoon
That turned to putty when it struck; of sail
Rent, ribboned, by the gale . . . or by the breath
Of Ahab's enemy . . . whom all men soon
Must meet, must conquer: Moby Dick, White Whale! 

Citation
"Of Moby Dick, of Ahab, and of Melville." New York Herald Tribune [European Edition], 30 Aug. 1951, p. 4. International Herald Tribune Historical Archive, 1887-2013, https://link-gale-com.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/apps/doc/YABLKJ907171398/GDCS?u=nypl&sid=GDCS&xid=e15d2087. Accessed 23 Jan. 2020.

Reprinted in The Lookout for October 1951, page 13:
http://www.seamenschurch-archives.org/sci/archive/files/e02b8ef17b815d9cec04488853a4dae9.pdf

Obituary for Olga Hampel Briggs Thu, Jan 9, 1997 – 6 · Daily Record (Morristown, New Jersey) · Newspapers.com