A setting of the poem "The Kraken" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson for low voice and piano. The murky and menacing abode of the great monster is portrayed by a chromatic bass line that moves incessantly below the vocal melody. Twice Tennyson mentions the sunlight that just manages to penetrate the deep and dimly illuminates the wondrous scene that surrounds the beast. Twice the music faintly glimmers with the major mode, yet quickly recedes back into the shadowy minor. In the final bars, one can hear the fateful rise of the Kraken as a lumbering motif begins in the deepest register of the piano and rises to crashing chords as he emerges and hurls himself onto the shore.
