A serpent lives inside of me,
Its poison coursing through my veins.
It’s numbing me to earthly pains--
This serpent deep inside of me.

I moves, it grows, it slowly kills.
I know no more of lively thrills,
And soon I’ll rest-- I’ll sleep for good
As serpent’s poison floods my blood.

My heart begins to slow its beat,
It’s rhythm growing soft and weak.
No more I move, no more I seek.
My heart begins to cease its beat.

I wondered once the reason why
This blood-- my own-- would have me die,
And why no more it runs its course
Through my now cold and weary corpse.

A serpent lives inside of me:
This serpent aptly called disease,
And soon I’ll poison mighty trees.
The sickness grows inside of me.

Those trees will bear such sickly fruit
From poison now in ev’ry root--
A poison from the human skin:
It’s wrought by hatred, wrought by sin.

This poison deep will kill the land.
No more will it spread through our blood,
For it will slaughter as a flood.
This poison now lives in the land.

And all for curiosity.
And all for one atrocity.
We let the poison touch our hands.
From mortal fingers it expands.

It’s serpent’s poison in the blood,
And I am but the newest dead.
All’s tainted now I’ve done and said
From sinner’s poison in the blood.