In the clean, anodyne Hotel room in Athens, I am suddenly homesick for The Indian night And my dark cell In Orissa Where I was visited By a white lizard With emerald eyes, By an articulate frog, And sometimes, very late, By a wandering shrew. The lizard chittered And danced; The shrew ran compulsively Along the wall; The frog, When I lifted him up, Gave a single heart-rending cry. In my unmysterious White room, I miss the chittering, The cry of despair, The silent, lunatic trot— It is too sane here for words.
