D. H. Lawrence

Snake


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,
i o 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

Lawrence's poem is the perfect presentation of a brief irrational moment, A moment that can or may have induced for the narrator, a life time of self loathing for the pointlessness of the act.

After reading "Snake" I couldn't help but wonder about narrator, Was this an old memory? or one of a recent past?. If the memory is an old one, it is likely one that is rarely if ever shared, its that personal, If chance has it as a more recent act, the narrator has little clue as to the life time of odd guilt that will haunt the back of his mind.

As outsiders what are we to think of the epiphany, the instant of self awareness?. How many people get to experience that internal and necessary shame that instills the profundity of life?. I wonder then, how long does that lesson last?

Interesting that this poem should be posted today. Last week, my wife, her brother and I were fishing in one on the stock tanks on our farm. Suddenly, one of them said "Snake." I looked and a water snake, about 18 inches in length, was swimming out from the bank; it moved parallel to the bank for several feet, then turned and swam out towards the middle of the tank. It was close enough to us that I could discern it was non-poisonous, so I said "Let it alone." Several minutes later, another snake, almost a twin to the first, followed, taking a slightly different course. Over the next half hour, about six or seven y identical virtually snakes came out and swam away. It was fascinating. We all ruminated over what had inspired this 'migration.' Had their parent told them it was time to "leave the nest,"? Was it our presence on this section of the bank? While a bit of a mystery, it was in interesting diversion.

My dad phoned me last night to catch up. He is an old friend of the famous Australian author David Malouf, and had yesterday hosted David at a discussion in the Blue Mountains of David’s recent trilogy of essays, which include his collection of unpublished writings over the last fifty years. A review at http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/boo ... 16vwo.html says “An essay on the influence of Walt Whitman on D.H. Lawrence describes the shock of encountering the subversive ideas in Lawrence's poem Snake in a school reader.” Dad gave me a copy of The Writing Life for Christmas, and I got David to sign it when I visited him with my brother Bill.

I catch up with David every now and then, since I saw a lot of him when I was a boy and we manage to have great conversations. I identify with the boy in An Imaginary Life. Anyway, my dad mentioned this Snake poem which David had discussed at the event in the mountains. Since DH Lawrence was one of my favourite authors I looked it up and posted it here.

I see this poem Snake as symbolising our connection with nature. One of my favourite sacred places is a spring at Ahimsa in Cheltenham near where I grew up in Epping. When I was a boy we used to catch frogs and crayfish there. Sadly it seems the frogs are now extinct, and the old crayfish pool has eroded, but the yabbies still survive to sing to the moon, as I saw when I visited last week.

When I found the yabbie pool had eroded, about thirty years ago, I sat down on the sand to contemplate it, and a snake came out to say hello. The snake looked me in the eye with a hypnotic gaze, a magical sense of eternity, as though the earth itself was in contact and speaking to me. A swirling beam of consciousness connected us.

For myself as a representative of the white invaders of Australia, the shudder of reproach in Lawrence’s poem Snake made me think of how the Aboriginal people must have tended the yabbie pond for thousands of years but a century of white indifference had smashed it.

I also once threw a rock at a brown snake sunning itself on my front lawn. I was with my young daughter Diana, and a tradesman came but avoided the snake. Brown snakes are among the most venomous in the world, but my slightly crazy regret afterwards was that maybe my emotional reaction and the fear of a bruised heel cut me off from a possible relationship.

I wrote a song Rainbow Snake which picks up on the theology of the collision of myths, recognising Australian indigenous respect for snakes.

Robert, as I may have mentioned before, I was in your wonderful country in 1992 on a combination business/pleasure trip. One of the highlights was a visit to the Blue Mountains. It was an unforgettable experience. Prior to studying law, I received my B.S. in biology, so snakes (all animals) fascinate me. I recall reading that Australia has more species of poisonous snake than any other country. I can see your caution, especially with your young daughter present. Your connection with Lawrence through Malouf is interesting. I have never read Malouf, but I will be sure to look him up. Liked the picture of the Moon (that is a Tarot card, isn't it?). One question; what is a 'yabbie'? A dingo, perhaps?

It's a grand poem that ends on a surprising note with the speaker saying he needs to expiate "a pettiness," rather than, I suppose, a crime, if he had done what his "human education" urged him to do, which would have been to kill the snake as our ancient adversary. But as it is, he only makes a half-hearted, desperate attempt to show that he has it in for the reptile, as all good people do.

I like how Lawrence depicts the snake as supremely self-composed.

The theme of the dominance over nature that we believe is our birthright reminded me a well-known poem by William Stafford.

Traveling through the Dark
By William E. Stafford

Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.

Cattleman wrote:Robert, as I may have mentioned before, I was in your wonderful country in 1992 on a combination business/pleasure trip. One of the highlights was a visit to the Blue Mountains. It was an unforgettable experience. Prior to studying law, I received my B.S. in biology, so snakes (all animals) fascinate me. I recall reading that Australia has more species of poisonous snake than any other country. I can see your caution, especially with your young daughter present. Your connection with Lawrence through Malouf is interesting. I have never read Malouf, but I will be sure to look him up. Liked the picture of the Moon (that is a Tarot card, isn't it?). One question; what is a 'yabbie'? A dingo, perhaps?

Yes I love the Blue Mountains too, and have done a lot of bushwalking there. I added the Tarot card of the Moon to illustrate the yabbie singing to it - our Australian name for crayfish. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_yabby

That reminds me of another story. In the same house where the snake visited, we lived opposite a paddock which had sheep and a dam. I took my son to catch yabbies in the dam, and once we put some in our fish tank in the dining room. It gave me a fright when I woke up at 2am to find the yabbies had escaped and were wandering up the corridor. We also had a swimming pool, and after rain we would always find big fat frogs in it.

I've always rated Lawrence's poems higher than his novels. Your discussion about Lawrence, poetry and Australia reminds of his poem "Kangaroo" (not the novel of the same name).

Delicate mother Kangaroo
Sitting up there rabbit-wise, but huge, plump-weighted,
And lifting her beautiful slender face, oh! so much more
gently and finely lined than a rabbit's, or than a hare's,
Lifting her face to nibble at a round white peppermint drop
which she loves, sensitive mother Kangaroo.

Her sensitive, long, pure-bred face.
Her full antipodal eyes, so dark,
So big and quiet and remote, having watched so many
empty dawns in silent Australia.

Her little loose hands, and drooping Victorian shoulders.
And then her great weight below the waist, her vast pale belly,
With a thin young yellow little paw hanging out, and
straggle of a long thin ear, like ribbon,
Like a funny trimming to the middle of her belly, thin
little dangle of an immature paw, and one thin ear.

Her belly, her big haunches
And, in addition, the great muscular python-stretch of her tail.

There, she shan't have any more peppermint drops.
So she wistfully, sensitively sniffs the air, and then turns,
goes off in slow sad leaps
On the long flat skis of her legs,
Steered and propelled by that steel-strong snake of a tail.

Stops again, half turns, inquisitive to look back.
While something stirs quickly in her belly, and a lean little
face comes out, as from a window,
Peaked and a bit dismayed,
Only to disappear again quickly away from the sight of the
world, to snuggle down in the warmth,
Leaving the trail of a different paw hanging out.

Still she watches with eternal, cocked wistfulness!
How full her eyes are, like the full, fathomless, shining
eyes of an Australian black-boy
Who has been lost so many centuries on the margins of
existence!
She watches with insatiable wistfulness.
Untold centuries of watching for something to come,
For a new signal from life, in that silent lost land of the
South.

Where nothing bites but insects and snakes and the sun,
small life.
Where no bull roared, no cow ever lowed, no stag cried,
no leopard screeched, no lion coughed, no dog barked,
But all was silent save for parrots occasionally, in the
haunted blue bush.

Wistfully watching, with wonderful liquid eyes.
And all her weight, all her blood, dropping sackwise down
towards the earth's centre,
And the live little-one taking in its paw at the door of her
belly.