By them had slimy paths been trailed and scraped
18 lines✦
rom gloom's last dregs these long-strung creatures crept,And vanished out of dawn down hidden holes. (And smell came up from those foul openingsAs out of mouths, or deep wounds deepening.) On dithering feet upgathered, more and more,Brown strings towards strings of gray, with bristling spines,All migrants from green fields, intent on mire. Those that were gray, of more abundant spawns,Ramped on the rest and ate them and were eaten. I saw their bitten backs curve, loop, and straighten,I watched those agonies curl, lift, and flatten. Whereat, in terror what that sight might mean,I reeled and shivered earthward like a feather. And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan.And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hidIts bruises in the earth, but crawled no further,Showed me its feet, the feet of many men,And the fresh-severed head of it, my head.
✦