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the ceyba and the yaguey.
While downward it drops an hundred feet,
And as many arms coil up and meet
And clasp the giant, neck and limb,
And strain him in their embrace with grim
And deadly love; and here and there
Under the sick'ning foliage, peer
Keen heads like serpents' heads, intent,
And new, strange hues flop insolent
From bough to bough, till one might see
How ill it fared with the noble tree!
How, breathless and with eager strain,
Out of its falling mantle, in vain
It lifted its hundred wasted hands
To the sun and the winds, and the journeying bands
Of sky-immortals; 'las! the dead moon shone
On the peering serpents' heads alone,
Or flecked it with many a ghastly fleck—
The sun glared in on the spectral wreck
Unmindful, and fierce, and wonderingly:
And then the life-blood drearily
And as many arms coil up and meet
And clasp the giant, neck and limb,
And strain him in their embrace with grim
And deadly love; and here and there
Under the sick'ning foliage, peer
Keen heads like serpents' heads, intent,
And new, strange hues flop insolent
From bough to bough, till one might see
How ill it fared with the noble tree!
How, breathless and with eager strain,
Out of its falling mantle, in vain
It lifted its hundred wasted hands
To the sun and the winds, and the journeying bands
Of sky-immortals; 'las! the dead moon shone
On the peering serpents' heads alone,
Or flecked it with many a ghastly fleck—
The sun glared in on the spectral wreck
Unmindful, and fierce, and wonderingly:
And then the life-blood drearily
