Snake
by David Herbert Lawrence
A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.
He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.
Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.
He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.
And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.
But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?
Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.
And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!
And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.
He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.
And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.
I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.
I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.
And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.
And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.
For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.
And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.
Taormina, 1923
Snakes and more Snakes
Snakes and more Snakes
"Life is too short to ski with ugly men"
Snakes and more Snakes
The Brown Snake
by Douglas Stewart
The Brown Snake
I walked to the green gum-tree
Because the day was hot;
A snake could be anywhere
But that time I forgot.
The Duckmaloi lazed through the valley
In amber pools like tea
From some old fossicker's billy,
And I walked under the tree.
Blue summer smoked on Bindo,
It lapped me warm in its waves,
And when that snake hissed up
Under the shower of leaves
Huge, high as my waist,
Rearing with lightning's tongue,
So brown with heat like the fallen
Dry sticks it hid among,
I thought the earth itself
Under the green gum-tree,
All in the sweet of summer
Reached out to strike at me.
by Douglas Stewart
The Brown Snake
I walked to the green gum-tree
Because the day was hot;
A snake could be anywhere
But that time I forgot.
The Duckmaloi lazed through the valley
In amber pools like tea
From some old fossicker's billy,
And I walked under the tree.
Blue summer smoked on Bindo,
It lapped me warm in its waves,
And when that snake hissed up
Under the shower of leaves
Huge, high as my waist,
Rearing with lightning's tongue,
So brown with heat like the fallen
Dry sticks it hid among,
I thought the earth itself
Under the green gum-tree,
All in the sweet of summer
Reached out to strike at me.
"Life is too short to ski with ugly men"
Snakes and more Snakes
The Snake by David Herbert Lawrence. I never read it but thank you for posting it. Beautifully poignant!
Snakes and more Snakes
I read that at school, Zapata, and have never forgotten it. It's a bit long and rambling, but wonderfully atmospheric.
"Life is too short to ski with ugly men"
Snakes and more Snakes
I hadn't seen it before. It's beautifully written. So illustrative.