"Hard by the lilied Nile I saw A duskish river-dragon stretched along, The brown habergeon of his limbs enamelled With sanguine almandines and rainy pearl: And on his back there lay a young one sleeping No bigger than a mouse; with eyes like beads, And a small fragment of its speckled egg Remaining on its harmless, pulpy snout; A thing to laugh at, as it gaped to catch The baulking, merry flies. In the iron jaws Of the great devil-beast, like a pale soul Fluttering in rocky hell, lightsomely flew A snowy troculus, with roseate beak Tearing the hairy leeches from his throat."
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Original Language: English
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"A Crocodile" (wr. 1823-5; pub. 1851), as anthologised by Christopher Ricks in The New Oxford Book of Victorian Verse (1987), no. 1
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Lovell_Beddoes
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Thomas Lovell Beddoes
Thomas Lovell Beddoes (June 30, 1803 – January 26, 1849) was an English poet and dramatist.
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