With great grasshoppers by brigades intruded;

Therein the tortoise had his homely stall;

Green flies and blue slept nightly in their notches,

Save when a serpent, in the middle watches,

Came and disturbed us all.

There, where the sun, the senseless sun, kept pouring,

And dust-clouds smothered one about the chest,

While secret waters filtered through the flooring

(In case the heat should leave one too oppressed),

Always I lay in those sad fevered seasons