وَإِذَا الْمَنِيَّةُ أَنْشَبَتْ أَظْفَارَهَا
When death sinks in its claws.
“Claws” assigns a predatory image to death; the point is not to assert a literal clawed being but to make the sudden force of death felt. A plain contrast such as “death arrived” conveys an event without the threatening picture.
An editor should account for the loss of imaginative force, not merely for greater simplicity. The figure depends on the relation across the expression; treating “claws” as a bare anatomical fact misses its personifying function.