And I thought I had caught a slight glimpse of one.
I saw, too, a rattlesnake creeping hard by,
And heard his tail clatter, and mark’d his red eye.
He coil’d himself up, for he spied me right soon,
And was wishing, no doubt, for a bit of raccoon;
Then, thinking the risk of a rifle in truth,
Was better by far than his poisonous tooth,
I hasten’d away from the much dreaded place,
That I might not be coil’d in his slimy embrace.
I rambled along to our nook in the beach,