"Snake" has been composed by D. H. Lawrence. His full name is David Herbert Lawrence. He was born in 11 September, 1885 in Eastwood, United Kingdom and died in 2 March, 1930 in Vence, France. He was an English writer and poet. His important works are:- "Sons and Lovers", "The white peacock", "The Rainbow", etc.

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 carobtree

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,

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 an undignified haste.

Writhed like lightening, 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.

1. water-trough: जल कुंडा

2. carob tree: कैरब ट्री

3. fissure: दरार

4. gloom: उदासी

5. trailed: पिछड़

6. vaguely: थोड़ा

7. flickered: टिमटिमाया हुआ

8. mused: म्युज्ड

9. Sicilian july... Etna smoking: सिसिली जुलाई... एटना धूम्रपान

10. venomous: विषैला

11. bowels: आंत

12. cowardice: कायरता

13. perversity: प्रतिकूलता

14. longed: इंतज़ार

15. humility: विनम्रता

16. hospitality: विनम्रता

17. horrid: भयंकर

18. clumsy: अनाड़ी

19. clumsy log: अनाड़ी लॉग

20. clatter: दस्तक

21. convulsed: आक्षेपित

22. writhed: लिखा हुआ

23. fascination: सम्मोहन

24. paltry: तुच्छ

25. vulgar: अशिष्ट

26. despised: तुच्छ

27. accursed: शापित

28. albatross: भारी अड़चन

29. expiate: प्रयाश्चित्त करना

30. pettiness: संकीर्णता