Question

Write the summary of the poem "Snake, by D. H. Lawrence".
Literature Reader - Class X

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Answer 1

Here is your answer
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This the poem written by American poet and novelist D H Lawrence.In the poem, the poet is at his water-trough to fetch a pitcher of water when he sees the snake drinking from the trough.


*The text of the poem is divided into nineteen stanzas of irregular length

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Stanza 1

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

==>>>
when he was wearing his pajamas. He says that a snake came to his water trough that very day to drink water.


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Stanza 2

=> 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.”


===>>>>>
The trough was shaded by a dark carob tree and the place had a strange smell.stand aside as there was a snake already at the trough.

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Stanza 3
=>
“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.”


====>>>>>
The snake slowly slithered towards the bottom of the stone trough and started drinking he again says ‘the snake drank water through his slack gums into his slack long body silently.’



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Stanza 4

=>
“Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.”


======>>>>>>

1. The poet here emphasizes that someone was at ‘His’ water trough

2. This suggests that the snake’s presence.


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Stanza 5
=>


“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.”


=======>>>>>>>

He further says that it was a very hot day in the month of July in Sicily. The Mount Etna was smoking. 



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Stanza 6

=>
“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.”



=====>>>>>
The poet too knows from his experience that golden snakes are venomous and thus he calls it ‘the voice of (my) education.’



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Answer 2

The poem revolves around an Earth-brown colored snake, who came to poet's water trough on a hot summer afternoon to quench his thirst. The poet had also gone there to fill water in his pitcher. He decided to wait as the snake came to the trough before the poet. The snake sipped the water into his long body. As the snake was drinking the voice of poet's education reminded him, that in Sicily the Earth brown colored snakes are considered poisonous, so it must be killed. 

However, the poet instinctively started like the snake, he thought that he was honored to have the snake to his water trough and treated him like a guest and thus decided not to kill the snake. But the voice of his education that the poet was coward and was afraid to kill the snake.

After satisfying his thirst, the snake raised his head, looked around and began to move away from the trough. As he put his head in a small aperture to retreat back to the earth, the poet got filled with this idea of the snake to withdraw from to the burrow.

The poet put down his pitcher, picked a log of wood and dashed it to the snake. The snake twisted as fast as lightning and moved into the hole.

The poet instantly started feeling miserable for this act and cursed his voice of education that urged him to do such a sinful act. He felt like the Ancient Mariner who killed the albatross for no reason. He wished that the snake would come back. He regretted that he have missed the opportunity of knowing one of the Lords of life. He was in remorse and felt that he had to compensate for the measure of his sinful action of throwing a log at the snake.

Hope this helps.