The day was clear as fire,the birds sang frail as glass,when thirsty I came to the creekand fell by its side in the grass.
My breast on the bright mossand shower-embroidered weeds,my lips to the live waterI saw him turn in the reeds.
Black horror sprang from the darkin a violent birth,and through its cloth of grassI felt the clutch of earth.
O beat him into the ground.
O strike him till he dies-or else your life itselfdrains through those colourless eyes.
I struck again and
Slender in black and redhe lies, and his icy glanceturns outward clear and dead.
But nimble my enemyas water is, or wind.
He has slipped from his death asideand vanished into my
He has vanished whence he came,my nimble enemy;and the ants come out to the snakeand drink at his shallow eye.
