[00:04]Hear now a curious dream I dreamed last night
[00:06]Each word whereof is weighed and sifted truth.
[00:11]I stood beside Euphrates while it swelled
[00:16]Like overflowing Jordan in its youth:
[00:18]It waxed and coloured sensibly to sight;
[00:20]Till out of myriad pregnant waves there welled
[00:24]Young crocodiles, a gaunt blunt-featured crew,
[00:28]Fresh-hatched perhaps and daubed with birthday dew.
[00:32]The rest if I should tell, I fear my friend
[00:36]My closest friend would deem the facts untrue;
[00:38]And therefore it were wisely left untold;
[00:42]Yet if you will, why, hear it to the end.
[00:51]Each crocodile was girt with massive gold
[00:55]And polished stones that with their wearers grew:
[00:59]But one there was who waxed beyond the rest,
[01:01]Wore kinglier girdle and a kingly crown,
[01:05]Whilst crowns and orbs and sceptres starred his breast.
[01:10]All gleamed compact and green with scale on scale,
[01:14]But special burnishment adorned his mail
[01:16]And special terror weighed upon his frown;
[01:19]His punier brethren quaked before his tail,
[01:22]Broad as a rafter, potent as a flail.
[01:28]So he grew lord and master of his kin:
[01:32]But who shall tell the tale of all their woes?
[01:36]An execrable appetite arose,
[01:37]He battened on them, crunched, and sucked them in.
[01:40]He knew no law, he feared no binding law,
[01:43]But ground them with inexorable jaw:
[01:45]The luscious fat distilled upon his chin,
[01:47]Exuded from his nostrils and his eyes,
[01:49]While still like hungry death he fed his maw;
[01:54]Till every minor crocodile being dead
[01:56]And buried too, himself gorged to the full,
[02:01]He slept with breath oppressed and unstrung claw.
[02:08]Oh marvel passing strange which next I saw:
[02:12]In sleep he dwindled to the common size,
[02:15]And all the empire faded from his coat.
[02:20]Then from far off a wingèd vessel came,
[02:23]Swift as a swallow, subtle as a flame:
[02:25]I know not what it bore of freight or host,
[02:28]But white it was as an avenging ghost.
[02:31]It levelled strong Euphrates in its course;
[02:34]Supreme yet weightless as an idle mote
[02:37]It seemed to tame the waters without force
[02:39]Till not a murmur swelled or billow beat:
[02:44]Lo, as the purple shadow swept the sands,
[02:46]The prudent crocodile rose on his feet
[02:50]And shed appropriate tears and wrung his hands.
[02:53]What can it mean? you ask. I answer not
[02:57]For meaning, but myself must echo,
[03:04]And tell it as I saw it on the spot