Short Ode to a Squashed Lizard

O Lizard thou wast long and green,

With speckled skin and scaly sheen,

Thine eyes were beads of blackest coal,

Thine legs nimble to scale the pole.

And yet, O Lizard, at the last, thou wast slain,

Thou wast squashed full out of bone and brain,

And Lizard, fair one, green one, sweet,

Thine innards were strewn upon the street.

O Lizard how thou mortal insignificance 

Betrayéd mine immoral ignorance,

For until this present accurséd hour,

I had not paused in neither tree nor bower

To admire thou, O translucent glory,

Would that Death had not been so gory.

O Lizard thou hast taught me well

And from thine stony grave do tell

The fables of a wise one, dear,

One whom, when dead, I might go near.