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.

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