They weave a slow andante as in sleep, <br />Scaled yellow, swampy black, plague-spotted white; <br />With blue and lidless eyes at watch they keep <br />A treachery of silence; infinite <br /> <br />Ancestral angers brood in these dull eyes <br />Where the long-lineaged venom of the snake <br />Meditates evil; woven intricacies <br />Of Oriental arabesque awake, <br /> <br />Unfold, expand, contract, and raise and sway <br />Swoln heart-shaped heads, flattened as by a heel, <br />Erect to suck the sunlight from the day, <br />And stealthily and gradually reveal <br /> <br />Dim cabalistic signs of spots and rings <br />Among their folds of faded tapestry; <br />Then these fat, foul, unbreathing, moving things <br />Droop back to stagnant immobility.<br /><br />Arthur Symons<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-andante-of-snakes-2/
