I

The coiling creeks are dark and slow,
Are tortuous as the thoughts of men,
Unstable, twisting, black and slow:
But bright among the draggled ferns
The jewelled rattler basks and burns,
And dull along the water side
The stealthy moccasins abide,
And brood and glide and go.

II

The swamp, throughout the changing day,
Is changeling as the hearts of men,
It changes with the changeful day;
At morn the bayous stir and gleam
And strive to veil their evil dream,
They cloak their secret thought at noon ...
But midnights, underneath the moon,
Frank, monstrous moods have sway.

III

I crept that way through hovering mist
That wavered like the faith of men;
At moonrise, through the silver mist ...
I heard an eddy whimpering there
As if some trapped thing in despair,
Dreading the vast, uncovered sky,
Were cowering in the reeds to die,
As I stole to that tryst.

IV

The moon her herded vapours drove
As helpless as the tribes of men,
Her herds of cloud she swayed and drove
But now she bends, unveils her face,
And peers and glitters on that place ...
Her madness shook and searched me through,
My soul turned fire and glittered, too,
On her that was my love.

V

The living vines I pushed apart
Caught at me with the hands of men
And clung to me ... I flung apart
The flowering vines ... I struck, in scorn ...
I stabbed again, for love forlorn
And trust betrayed and desolate ...
But my third blow was edged with hate,
And hot, and to the heart.

VI

The swamp was still a little space ...
Amidst a multitude of men,
A terror trembles for a space,
They see what God sees and are still ...
The footless things that creep and pass
Lay still beside me in the grass ...
The moon's long fingers, loose and chill,
Lay dead across her face.

VII

The swamp lay still, and then ... a sigh,
As when along the veins of men
The held blood wakens and they sigh ...
A quickened sense of living things,
Of hidden eyes and stirring wings,
Envelops me; the ripples speak
With fed mouths down the charnel creek,
And monstrous shapes lurch by.

VIII

The bayou's dream I know, I see ...
It cloaks it, as the skill of men
Cloaks moods their neighbours should not see ...
It veils its secret thought at noon,
But, underneath the tigerish moon,
Lies coiled and crouched to leap and slay ...
And evil things creep forth to play
As once they played with me.