TNPSC English Study Material
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 corner, 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, honored 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.
NOTE: Poem is taken from Tamil Nadu Text book.
