As when a vulture lunges at a corpse.
And silent and more silent grew the room;
All eyes were fixed upon the silent guest,
And on the woman squatted, strange to see.
“She is quite young”—a whispering round me went;
And with a child’s greed she was drinking milk.
Yet almost old she seemed to me, whenever
Her tongue shot through a gap in her black teeth,
Her pointed tongue out of her hissing mouth,
While her gray, eager glance took in the room;