Sea anemonies, purple, red, orange, and green,
That with petal-like fingers waylay the small fry
Who gaze on their hues, but gaze only to die;
[p21]
Like the flower that buries a fly in its cup,
They draw in their feelers, and swallow them up.
One day, after lingering long in that place,
The cuttlefish spurted some ink in my face,
As it enter’d my eyes, for a time I was blind,
From a fish with three hearts this was very unkind.
“In the course of my travels I often have seen