And changed his colour as his pace he changed;
The nimble lizard ran from bough to bough,
Glancing through light, in shadow disappearing;
The scorpion, many-eyed, with sting of fire,
Bred there,--the legion-fiend of creeping things;
Terribly beautiful, the serpent lay,
Wreath'd like a coronet of gold and jewels,
Fit for a tyrant's brow; anon he flew
Straight as an arrow shot from his own rings,
And struck his victim, shrieking ere it went
Down his strain'd throat, that open sepulchre.
Amphibious monsters haunted the lagoon;
The hippopotamus, amidst the flood,
Flexile and active as the smallest swimmer;
But on the bank, ill balanced and infirm,
He grazed the herbage, with huge, head declined,
Or lean'd to rest against some ancient tree.
The crocodile, the dragon of the waters,
In iron panoply, fell as the plague,
And merciless as famine, cranch'd his prey,
While, from his jaws, with dreadful fangs all serried,
The life-blood dyed the waves with deadly streams.
The seal and the sea-lion, from the gulf
Came forth, and couching with their little ones.
Slept on the shelving rocks that girt the shores,
Securing prompt retreat from sudden danger;
The pregnant turtle, stealing out at eve,
With anxious eye, and trembling heart, explored
The loneliest coves, and in the loose warm sand
Deposited her eggs, which the sun hatch'd: