A GNARLED and massive oak log, shapeless, old, Hewed down of late from yonder hillside gray, Grotesquely curved, across our hearthstone lay; About it, serpent-wise, the red flames rolled In writhing convolutions; fold on fold They crept and clung with slow portentous sway Of deadly coils; or in malignant play, Keen tongues outflashed, 'twixt vaporous gloom and gold. Lo! as I gazed, from out that flaming gyre There loomed a wild, weird image, all astrain With strangled limbs, hot brow, and eyeballs dire, Big with the anguish of the bursting brain: Laocoon's form, Laocoon's fateful pain. A frescoed dream on flickering walls of fire! |