3. David Herbert Richards Lawrence (11 September 1885 2 March
1930) was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary
critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected
works, among other things, represent an extended reflection upon
the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialisation. In
them, some of the issues Lawrence explores are emotional health,
vitality, spontaneity and instinct. Lawrence's opinions earned him
many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and
misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half
of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile which he
called his "savage pilgrimage. At the time of his death, his public
reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his
considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice,
challenged this widely held view, describing him as, "The greatest
imaginative novelist of our generation.Later, the influential
Cambridge critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic
integrity and his moral seriousness, placing much of Lawrence's
fiction within the canonical "great tradition" of the English
novel.
4. THE POEM
5. 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
6. 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, 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.
7. 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?
8. 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 honored. 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,
9. And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air, And
slowly turned his head, And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice a
dream, 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
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. The poem begins about an encounter with a snake on a hot
day when the poet was in his pajamas and was going to fill his
pitcher. The snake was ahead of the poet and it was there to drink
water from the trough. When the poet came towards the Carob tree,
spreading its strange scent, he saw the snake and had to stand and
wait. The poet stood there watching the snake which slithered down
from the crack in the earthen wall and slipped over the edge of the
trough of water. The poet describes the snake as having a soft
yellow-brown belly. Lawrence stands there watching the snake as the
snake sips the water that is dripping from the trough SUMMARY
13. The snake stood there sipping water from the trough which
was entering his mouth straight and into its gums. The poet waited
and watched over the snake. The snake then lifted his head, looked
at the poet vaguely, flickered his two-forked tongue, stopped for a
moment and then drank a little more. The poet then goes on to
describe that very hot day of July in the city of Sicily and Etna
with the smoky volcano that aggravates the heat. The poet then
hears a voice of his education that tells him to kill the snake as
black snakes in Sicily are not poisonous as yellow snakes are. That
was a yellow bellied snake. The voice in his head provokes him by
saying that if he was a man, he would have taken a stick and killed
the snake. Finish him off is what the voice urged him to do. But
the poet confesses that he liked the snake. The poet was glad that
the snake paid a visit to his water-trough. The snake went back
into the burning bowels of the earth without thanking him.
14. The poet questions himself that was it cowardice that kept
him from killing the snake? Or was it his obstinacy that urged him
to talk to it? The poet contemplates if it was his humility that
made him feel so honored. A voice then challenges him that if he
was not afraid, he would have killed the snake. The poet confesses
that he was truly afraid. He was afraid that he let the dangerous
snake to go and feelings of honoUr that the snake sought the poets
hospitality. The poet describes the pacified snake in these lines
who lifted his head, drank water as if he was drunken state,
flickered his tongue, licked his lips and looked around like god
and slowly turned his head. After quenching his thirst, the snake
climbed back the wall and disappeared into the earth.
15. As the snake was slithering back into the hole, the poet
suddenly felt a sense of protest and horror and hastily he puts
down his pitcher, picks up a log and hurls at the water trough
where the snake was stranded. The snake was unhurt. The poet saw
its slow retreating body of the snake, disappearing into the hole
from where it once appeared. The poet regrets for his foolish act
of trying to kill the snake. For a moment, his emotions were
different and he hated himself and the voices that urged him to do
so. He despised the accursed human education. The poet thinks of
the albatross and wishes that the snake would visit him again
16. The snake seemed like a king to the poet, a king in exile
and the one who lost his crown waiting to be crowned again. The
poet regrets that he missed to spend time with one of the lords of
life. He is left with something to expatiate and that is his
pettiness.
17. ANALYSIS D.H Lawrence has used a simple, lucid, colorful,
descriptive and imaginative diction in the poem. All these elements
make the poem picturesque. The verses of Snake are unrhymed and
written in free verse. The first segment of the poem talks about
the arrival and description of the snake, the second talks about
the drinking from the water trough. The third segment is about the
poets feeling and his sudden desire to kill the snake. In the final
segment, we find the poets remorse.
18. POETIC DEVICES Alliteration: Alliteration is the close
repetition of the consonant sounds at the beginning of words to
facilitate narration. Simile: A simile is a figure of speech in
which two dissimilar objects are compared and the comparison is
made clear by the use of terms like like, such as and so on.
19. Allusion: Allusion refers to some mythical character. Here
the Sicilian July and Albatross are examples of allusion.
Personification: Personification is a figure of speech in which
inanimate objects or abstract ideas are given human attributes or
feelings. The soft yellow-brown bellied snake is personified
throughout the poem. Sometimes like a human drinking water from the
trough, licking its lips turning it head or sometimes as the king,
the lords of life.