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To think to
know the country and now know
The hillside on the day
the sun lets go
Ten million silver lizards out of
snow!
As often as I've seen it done before
I can't
pretend to tell the way it's done.
It looks as if
some magic of the sun
Lifted the rug that bred them
on the floor
And the light breaking on them made them
run.
But if I though to stop the wet stampede,
And
caught one silver lizard by the tail,
And put my foot
on one without avail,
And threw myself wet-elbowed
and wet-kneed
In front of twenty others' wriggling
speed,--
In the confusion of them all aglitter,
And birds that joined in the excited fun
By doubling
and redoubling song and twitter,
I have no doubt I'd
end by holding none.
It takes the moon for this.
The sun's a wizard
By all I tell; but so's the moon a
witch.
From the high west she makes a gentle cast
And suddenly, without a jerk or twitch,
She has her
speel on every single lizard.
I fancied when I looked
at six o'clock
The swarm still ran and scuttled just
as fast.
The moon was waiting for her chill effect.
I looked at nine: the swarm was turned to rock
In
every lifelike posture of the swarm,
Transfixed on
mountain slopes almost erect.
Across each other and
side by side they lay.
The spell that so could hold
them as they were
Was wrought through trees without a
breath of storm
To make a leaf, if there had been
one, stir.
One lizard at the end of every ray.
The
thought of my attempting such a stray!
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