Shapes its images around his songs. 
He pipes a place to stand on, but no rocks, 
No floor: a wave of flickering-grass tongues 
 

Supports his foot.  He pipes a world of snakes, 
Of sways and coilings, from the snake-rooted bottom 
Of his mind.  And now nothing but snakes 

Is visible.  The snake-scales have become 
Leaf, become eyelid; snake-bodies, bough, breast 
Of tree and human.  And he within this snakedom 

Rules the writhings which make manifest 
His snakehood and his might with pliant tunes 
From his thin pipe.  Out of this green nest 

As out of Eden's navel twist the lines 
Of snaky generations: let there be snakes! 
And snakes there were, are, will be-till yawns 

Consume this piper and he tires of music 
And pipes the world back to the simple fabric 
Of snake-warp, snake-weft.  Pipes the cloth of snakes 
 

To a melting of green water, tiII no snake 
Shows its head, and those green waters back to 
Water, to green, to nothing like a snake. 
Puts up his pipe, and lids his moony eye.