The Andante Of Snakes

They weave a slow andante as in sleep,

Scaled yellow, swampy black, plague-spotted white;

With blue and lidless eyes at watch they keep A treachery of silence; infinite Ancestral angers brood in these dull eyes Where the long-lineaged venom of the snake Meditates evil; woven intricacies Of Oriental arabesque awake,

Unfold, expand, contract, and raise and sway Swoln heart-shaped heads, flattened as by a heel,

Erect to suck the sunlight from the day,

And stealthily and gradually reveal Dim cabalistic signs of spots and rings Among their folds of faded tapestry;

Then these fat, foul, unbreathing, moving things Droop back to stagnant immobility.