Crotalus - Shokran
No life in earth or air or sky
The sunbeams broken silently
On the bared rocks around me lie
Cold rocks with half warmed lichens scarred
And scales of moss and scarce a yard
Away one long strip yellow barred
Lost in a cleft tis but a stride
To reach it thrust its roots aside
And lift it on thy stick astride
For round thee thrilling air and space
A chattering terror fills the place
A sound as of dry bones that stir
In the dead valley by yon fir
The locust stops its noonday whir
The wild bird hears smote with the sound
Smote with the sound
As if by bullet brought to ground
On broken wing dips wheeling round
The hare transfixed with trembling lip
