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The Collected Works of William Morris

With Introductions by his Daughter May Morris

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And the crests of the worms have fallen, and their flickering tongues are still,
The Roller and the Coiler, and Greyback, lord of ill,
Grave-groper and Death-swaddler, the Slumberer of the Heath,
Gold-wallower, Venom-smiter, lie still, forgetting death,
And loose are coils of Long-back; yea, all as soft are laid
As the kine in midmost summer about the elmy glade;
—All save the Grey and Ancient, that holds his crest aloft,
Light-wavering as the flame-tongue when the evening wind is soft:
For he comes of the kin of the Serpent once wrought all wrong to nurse,
The bond of earthly evil, the Midworld's ancient curse.