Thou sleepest with unwaking heart,
While the frail body falls apart
In rags that unregarded lie,
Save by the Ant’s rapacious eye.
She, groping greedily, one day
Makes of thy shrivelled corpse her prey;
Dissects the trunk, gnaws limb from limb,
Concocts, according to her whim,
A salad such grim housewives know,
A tit-bit saved for hours of snow.