Snake

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, ______ day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To ______ there.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great ______ carob tree
I came down the steps with my ______
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there ______ was at the trough before me.

He reached down ______ a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And ______ his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of ______ stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, ______ a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
______ 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 ______ drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, ______ drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from ______ lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank ______ little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels ______ the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with ______ smoking.

The voice of my education said to me
______ must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black ______ are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in ______ said, if you were a man
You would take ______ stick and break him now, and finish him off.

______ must I confess how I liked him,
How glad ______ was he had come like a guest in quiet, ______ 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, ______ I longed to talk to him?
Was it humility, ______ feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet ______ voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid,
______ even so, honoured still more
That he should seek ______ hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as ______ who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a ______ night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick ______ lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into ______ air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow ______ curving round
And climb again the broken bank of ______ wall-face.

And as he put his head into that ______ hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort ______ protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
______ going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
______ me now his back was turned.

I looked round, ______ put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy ______
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

______ think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that ______ 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 ______ intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately ______ regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what ______ mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of ______ accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross,
______ I wished he would come back, my snake.

For ______ seemed to me again like a king,
Like a ______ in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to ______ crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with ______ of the lords
Of life.
And I have something ______ expiate:
A pettiness.

And But But Deliberately Etna He I I I I Overcame Softly a a a as be dark dreadful drink forked from he he his his his hot in king length log me my my my of of one one part pitcher snakes that the the the those to to to trailed