Arlo Bates

Metempsychosis

'Mid the seal-silt and the sea-sand,
    Sinuous and sinister, fold on fold,
Sliding and winding tortuously,
    Slips the sea-snake, weird and old;
Longing, with gleams of slumberous fire
In her dull eyes, and fierce desire
In her slow brain, for that far time
When, rising lotus-like from ooze and slime,
    Her sinuate litheness changed to supple grace,
Her sibilance melted to witching speech,
She shall the heights of glorious being reach.
    And lure her prey with woman's form and face.