The Toad

A song in a windless night. . .
-The moon plates in metal bright
The cut-out images of dark green .

... A song; sudden as an echo, quick,
Buried, there, under the thick
Clump. It stops. Come, it's there, unseen.

-A toadl -There in shadow. Why this terror
Near me, your faithful soldier? -Spring!Look
at him, poet clipped, no wing,
Nightingale of the mud . . . Horror!-

... He sings. Horror! -Horrorl But why?
Don't you see that eye of light, his own?
No: he goes, chilled, beneath his stone.
Good night. That toad you heard is I.