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! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...INSCRIPTION ON THE MONUMENT OF A NEWFOUNDLAND DOG by GEORGE GORDON BYRON THE CREATION (A NEGRO SERMON) by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON SEAWEED by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW THE KNIGHTS: THE POET AND HIS RIVALS by ARISTOPHANES MAGDALEN by GEORGE KENYON ASHENDON VERSES WRITTEN IN AN ALCOVE by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE: 37 by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING |