Best Snake Poems

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
...

Let the snake wait under
his weed
and the writing
be of words, slow and quick, sharp
...

Translated into English in 1859 by Edward FitzGerald

I.
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
...

Well, my daddy left home when I was three,
and he didn't leave much to Ma and me,
just this old guitar and a bottle of booze.
...

'I will kill you like a snake',
'I will roast you like a chicken',
'I will fry you like a plantain',
So roll, roll, roll your boat when,
...

I weep for Adonais -he is dead!
O, weep for Adonais! though our tears
Thaw not the frost which binds so dear a head!
And thou, sad Hour, selected from all years
...

Ever let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home:
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
...

Mother doesn't want a dog.
Mother says they smell,
And never sit when you say sit,
Or even when you yell.
...

Earth, Ocean, Air, belovèd brotherhood!
If our great Mother has imbued my soul
With aught of natural piety to feel
Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;
...

There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
...

If down here I chance to die,
Solemnly I beg you take
All that is left of "I"
To the Hills for old sake's sake,
...

I walk; carry the weight of the sands, dust particles of gold
Beneath, lay the tomb, resurrected in chamber of seven
Headed snake, guarding the abandoned soul of Princess Tamara
From Hanaring, the city of guardian angel
...

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
...

There are sketches on the walls of men and women and ducks,
and outside a large green bus swerves through traffic like
insanity sprung from a waving line; Turgenev, Turgenev,
says the radio, and Jane Austin, Jane Austin, too.
...

Sometimes we collide, tectonic plates merging,
continents shoving, crumpling down into the molten
veins of fire deep in the earth and raising
tons of rock into jagged crests of Sierra.
...

Securely sunning in a forest glade,
A mild, well-meaning snake
Approved the adaptations he had made
For safety’s sake.
...

Your eyes are a thorn in my heart
Inflicting pain, yet I cherish that thorn
And shield it from the wind.
I sheathe it in my flesh, I sheathe it, protecting it from night and agony,
...

Thrill with lissome lust of the light,
O man ! My man !
Come careering out of the night
Of Pan ! Io Pan .
...

Green Snake, when I hung you round my neck
and stroked your cold, pulsing throat
as you hissed to me, glinting
arrowy gold scales, and I felt
...

Dinner at my Grandma's can drive a kid to fits,
The last time she fed me pig poo and olive pits!
This time was even worse; she cooked a big brown snake!
The food was a nightmare, though I was wide awake!
...

'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock
And the owls have awakened the crowing cock;
Tu-whit!- Tu-whoo!
And hark, again! the crowing cock,
...

Part I

INTRODUCTION. That it is as great a fault to judge ill as to write ill, and a more dangerous one to the public. That a true Taste is as rare to be found as a true Genius. That most men are born with some Taste, but spoiled by false education. The multitude of Critics, and causes of them. That we are to study our own Taste, and know the limits of it. Nature the best guide of judgment. Improved by Art and rules, which are but methodized Nature. Rules derived from the practice of the ancient poets. That therefore the ancients are necessary to be studied by a Critic, particularly Homer and Virgil. Of licenses, and the use of them by the ancients. Reverence due to the ancients, and praise of them.
...

His face was like a snake's -- wrinkled and loose
And withered--
...

This institution,
perhaps one should say enterprise
out of respect for which
one says one need not change one's mind
...

A was once an ant,
Tiny,
Busy,
Speedy
...

I saw a young snake glide
Out of the mottled shade
And hang, limp on a stone:
A thin mouth, and a tongue
...

He glides so swiftly
Back into the grass-
Gives me the courtesy of road
To let me pass,
...

The world`s great age begins anew,
The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
Her winter weeds outworn:
...

If an inaudible whistle
blown between our lips
can send him home to us,
then silence is perhaps
...

Bring down the moon for genteel Janet;
She's too refined for this gross planet.
She wears garments and you wear clothes,
You buy stockings, she purchases hose.
...

Wondering! ! ! ! !
Thoughts and fantasies reeling,
When asleep-things I wish
Wish no fear
...

hooray say the roses, today is blamesday
and we are red as blood.

hooray say the roses, today is Wednesday
...

NO more wine? then we'll push back chairs and talk.
A final glass for me, though: cool, i' faith!
We ought to have our Abbey back, you see.
It's different, preaching in basilicas,
...

'Oh, dear, this utterly sweltering season of the highly rampant sun is drawing nigh, and it will always be good enough to go on taking daytime baths, as the lakes and rivers will still be with plenteous waters, and at the end of the day, nightfall will be pleasant with fascinating moon, and in such nights Love-god can somehow be almost mollified...[who tortured us in the previous vernal season... but now without His sweltering us, we can happily enjoy the nights devouring cool soft drinks and dancing and merrymaking in outfields...]
...

How the mountains talked together,
Looking down upon the weather,
When they heard our friend had planned his
Little trip among the Andes
...

Man was made of social earth,
Child and brother from his birth;
Tethered by a liquid cord
Of blood through veins of kindred poured,
...

.
The river deep and dark
~~~flowing through the night
carrying flotsam and jetsam
...

The first ones were attached to my dress
at the waist, one on either side,
right at the point where hands could clasp you and
pick you up, as if you were a hot
...

I

I dream of journeys repeatedly:
Of flying like a bat deep into a narrowing tunnel
...

It was six men of Indostan, to learning much inclined,
who went to see the elephant (Though all of them were blind),
...

Round about the couldron go:
In the poisones entrails throw.
Toad,that under cold stone
...

1

In a shoe box stuffed in an old nylon stocking
Sleeps the baby mouse I found in the meadow,
...

I am back from up the country -- very sorry that I went --
Seeking for the Southern poets' land whereon to pitch my tent;
I have lost a lot of idols, which were broken on the track --
Burnt a lot of fancy verses, and I'm glad that I am back.
...

When sunset, a brass gong,
vibrate through Couva,
is then I see my soul, swiftly unsheathed,
like a white cattle bird growing more small
...

Grilled roasted or smoked chicken
Desire or money— which is more significant
Isn't important— if demand is sought
Putting food on tongue in imagination
...

There are who lord it o'er their fellow-men
With most prevailing tinsel: who unpen
Their baaing vanities, to browse away
The comfortable green and juicy hay
...

There's blood between us, love, my love,
There's father's blood, there's brother's blood,
And blood's a bar I cannot pass.
I choose the stairs that mount above,
...

Anger in its time and place
May assume a kind of grace.
It must have some reason in it,
...

FLOOD-TIDE below me! I watch you face to face;
Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I see you also face
to face.
...

Last night my soul cried, “O exalted sphere of Heaven, you hang indeed inverted, with flames in your belly.
“Without sin and crime, eternally revolving upon your body in its complaining is the indigo of mourning;
“Now happy, now unhappy, like Abraham in the fire; at once king and beggar like Ebrahim-e Adham.
“In your form you are terrifying, yet your state is full of anguish: you turn round like a millstone and writhe like a snake.”
...

I was sleeping when Namdeo and Vitthal Stepped into my dream.
'Your job is to make poems. Stop wasting time,' Namdeo said.
Vitthal gave me the measure and gently aroused me from a dream inside a dream.
Namdeo vowed to write one billion poems.
...

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
...

In the prologue to the Masnavi Rumi hailed Love and its sweet madness that heals all infirmities, and he exhorted the reader to burst the bonds to silver and gold to be free. The Beloved is all in all and is only veiled by the lover. Rumi identified the first cause of all things as God and considered all second causes subordinate to that. Human minds recognize the second causes, but only prophets perceive the action of the first cause. One story tells of a clever rabbit who warned the lion about another lion and showed the lion his own image in a well, causing him to attack it and drown. After delivering his companions from the tyrannical lion, the rabbit urges them to engage in the more difficult warfare against their own inward lusts. In a debate between trusting God and human exertion, Rumi quoted the prophet Muhammad as saying, "Trust in God, yet tie the camel's leg."8 He also mentioned the adage that the worker is the friend of God; so in trusting in providence one need not neglect to use means. Exerting oneself can be giving thanks for God's blessings; but he asked if fatalism shows gratitude.

God is hidden and has no opposite, not seen by us yet seeing us. Form is born of the formless but ultimately returns to the formless. An arrow shot by God cannot remain in the air but must return to God. Rumi reconciled God's agency with human free will and found the divine voice in the inward voice. Those in close communion with God are free, but the one who does not love is fettered by compulsion. God is the agency and first cause of our actions, but human will as the second cause finds recompense in hell or with the Friend. God is like the soul, and the world is like the body. The good and evil of bodies comes from souls. When the sanctuary of true prayer is revealed to one, it is shameful to turn back to mere formal religion. Rumi confirmed Muhammad's view that women hold dominion over the wise and men of heart; but violent fools, lacking tenderness, gentleness, and friendship, try to hold the upper hand over women, because they are swayed by their animal nature. The human qualities of love and tenderness can control the animal passions. Rumi concluded that woman is a ray of God and the Creator's self.
...

There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.
The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
...

They burned lime on the hill and dropped it down
here in an iron car
On a long cable; here the ships warped in
And took their loads from the engine, the water
...

One night I was in charge of the house
When my parents had gone out side
I was having loads of fun
With the radio blaring and paper planes that glide
...

1

Lo dì che han detto a' dolci amici addio. - Dante
Amor, con quanto sforzo oggi mi vinci! - Petrarca
...

Incarnate devil in a talking snake,
The central plains of Asia in his garden,
In shaping-time the circle stung awake,
In shapes of sin forked out the bearded apple,
...

To my friend George Fleming author of 'The Nile Novel' and
'Mirage')
...

GEORGIC I

What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star
...

A long time ago, when the earth was green
and there was more kinds of animals than you've ever seen,
...

I.
As I lay asleep in Italy
There came a voice from over the Sea,
...

So I go
…..smile all of friend and foe.
.….the time has come to depart
…..be off a must that do us part.
...

Lord, what a Beloved is mine! I have a sweet quarry; I possess
in my breast a hundred meadows from his reed.
When in anger the messenger comes and repairs towards me,
he says, “Whither are you fleeing? I have business with you.”
...

In a dim corner of my room for longer than
my fancy thinks
A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me
through the shifting gloom.
...

Canary-Birds feed on sugar and seed,
Parrots have crackers to crunch:
And, as for the poodles, they tell me the noodles
Have chickens and cream for their lunch.
...

I

Winter is long in this climate
and spring--a matter of a few days
...

THE SNAKE

At the right
...

I remember you, standing before me,
Lined up on the steps of the school,
Offering my insatiable young sight
The seductive vision of your harmonic figure;
...

Our storm is past, and that storm's tyrannous rage,
A stupid calm, but nothing it, doth 'suage.
The fable is inverted, and far more
A block afflicts, now, than a stork before.
...

As the sweet sweat of roses in a still,
As that which from chafed musk-cats' pores doth trill,
As the almighty balm of th' early East,
Such are the sweat drops of my mistress' breast,
...

And the first grey of morning fill'd the east,
And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream.
But all the Tartar camp along the stream
Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep;
...

There is one story and one story only
That will prove worth your telling,
Whether as learned bard or gifted child;
To it all lines or lesser gauds belong
...

We read in the press that Lord Northcote is here
To take up Lord Tennyson's mission.
'Tis pleasant to find they have sent us a Peer,
And a man of exalted position.
...

Dürer would have seen a reason for living
in a town like this, with eight stranded whales
to look at; with the sweet sea air coming into your house
on a fine day, from water etched
...

Upon a time, before the faery broods
Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods,
Before King Oberon's bright diadem,
...

Far from the Rappahannock, the silent
Danube moves along toward the sea.
The brown and green Nile rolls slowly
Like the Niagara's welling descent.
...

A storm was coming, but the winds were still,
And in the wild woods of Broceliande,
Before an oak, so hollow, huge and old
It looked a tower of ivied masonwork,
...

From noiseful arms, and acts of prowess done
In tournament or tilt, Sir Percivale,
Whom Arthur and his knighthood called The Pure,
Had passed into the silent life of prayer,
...

The day was warm and bright
The sky and the horizon
Were brilliant blue
I took my two dogs
...

When I woke, the town spoke.
Birds and clocks and cross bells
Dinned aside the coiling crowd,
...

Undoubtedly he will relent, and turn
From his displeasure; in whose look serene,
When angry most he seemed and most severe,
What else but favour, grace, and mercy, shone?
...

"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself."
(David, Psalms 50.21)
['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,
Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire,
...

Dzogbese Lisa has treated me thus

It has led me among the sharps of the forest
...

I've known ere now an interfering branch
Of alder catch my lifted axe behind me.
...

The snake slips out of its skin
but never changes
Its tongue makes me nervous
But it's harmless
...

I.
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
...

Strong and slippery, built for the midnight grass-party confronted by four cats,
he sleeps his time away -- the detached first claw on his foreleg which corresponds
to the thumb, retracted to its tip; the small tuft of fronds
or katydid legs above each eye, still numbering the units in each group;
...

THE world's great age begins anew,
   The golden years return,
The earth doth like a snake renew
   Her winter weeds outworn;
...

That second time they hunted me
From hill to plain, from shore to sea,
And Austria, hounding far and wide
Her blood-hounds thro' the country-side,
...

Why the sky azure
And the breeze cool
How the snake bops
But the lily calm
...

Mean while the heinous and despiteful act
Of Satan, done in Paradise; and how
He, in the serpent, had perverted Eve,
Her husband she, to taste the fatal fruit,
...

The ravings which my enemy uttered I heard within my heart;
the secret thoughts he harbored against me I also perceived.
His dog bit my foot, he showed me much injustice; I do not
bite him like a dog, I have bitten my own lip.
...

'Do you see over my shoulders falling,
Snake-like ringlets waving free?
Have no fear, for they are twisted
To allure you unto me.'
...

The morn when first it thunders in March,
The eel in the pond gives a leap, they say:
As I leaned and looked over the aloed arch
Of the villa-gate this warm March day,
...

ROSALIND, HELEN, and her Child.

SCENE. The Shore of the Lake of Como.
...

"As certain also of your own poets have said"--
(Acts 17.28)
Cleon the poet (from the sprinkled isles,
Lily on lily, that o'erlace the sea
...

Richard the First, Coeur-de-Lion,
Is a name that we speak of with pride,
Though he only lived six months in England
From his birth to the day that he died.
...

". . . our language, forged in the dark bycenturies of violent
pressure, underground,out of the stuff of dead life."

Thirsty and languorous after their long black sleep
...

HERE, while the Thracian bard's enchanting strain
Sooths beasts, and woods, and all the listn'ing
plain,
The female Bacchanals, devoutly mad,
...