Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SERPENT, by THOMAS STURGE MOORE



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SERPENT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hail pytho! Thou lithe length of gleaming plates
Last Line: That charm efficiency must needs exert.
Alternate Author Name(s): Moore, T. Sturge


HAIL Pytho! thou lithe length of gleaming plates,
War's choicely finished work and instrument,
Ingenious death's device! what groping hates
Hast thou taught to evolve their dull intent?

Men treasonous from thee learn subtle skill,
Thou vision! Beauteous devil of the grass,
Quick-sighted and close-thoughted, what a thrill
Through conscious souls thine undulations pass!

With nicety applying gliding bark
To rigid serpent forms of trunk or bough,
Thou climbest, and canst sling thy length or yark
Thy small malignant head, and in all how

Well demonstrate the precise use of power,
Yet long wilt thou in lassitude lie gloomed;
Though lightning-swift to strike, wilt lose an hour
Watching, more still than indolent queen, thy doomed.

Relentless tautening cable, thou canst mangle
Bull-bison, snap off those raised arms of trees
Where sloth bears hang, or from a tortuous tangle
Be self-resolved with smooth unfaltering ease.

Thou dancest..art more fatal than our young
Women whose lascive limbs yet tyrannise..
Fascinatest with tiny flickering tongue,
And tigers quail before those beads, thine eyes.

Five hundred forms thou hast, five hundred lengths
Stretched from a span long to a fabled mile;
As many hues as diverse mails; and strengths
Of venom to match every depth of guile..

The innocent blindworm like love's deceit,
And then the snake, the adder, viper, asp,
Whose bites, like common injuries, defeat
Not leechcraft, or the hand's repentant clasp.

Cobras there are too, as their mortal foes
Are, from whom poison can be taken; nay,
That can be charmed by the spell music throws;
Their friendly service shall the vermin slay.

There is the boa-constrictor, that ne'er will
Untighten, but envelopes and consumes;
And doubt absorbs with nightmare coils of ill
Hope and the room for heaven, while life fumes,

And sweet affections fret, and all looks drear
Till youth's fair morning seem a flux of dreams,
And time and space and power be symboled clear
In age-long serpents black, with baneful gleams,

Wound like the orbits wherein planets move
Through spectral convolutions purposeless,
Devoid of joy, devoid of warmth, of love,
The vast digesters of man's vain distress.

Limbless and surging thine invasion sweeps
And loops itself the towering height of night;
Or through the water-conduit flows; or creeps
Like the round darkness of a pipe to light;

Emerged, proceedeth through the city dead,
Contented. Jungle vines have curtained all
Those pillared halls, where Solitude is fed,
And Stillness mute and dreadful hears thee crawl.

Rank vegetation preys on fane and tomb,
Muffles the tower and revels on the roof,
One woven extravagance of gaudy bloom
That, caved in o'er some court, has strained its woof.

There-through the sun's ray probes at sultry noon,
Across mosaic feels with scorching stealth.
Thou waitest its caress, approaching boon,
The slow sole kiss that helps thee love thyself.

All other lives are banished: not a beast
Dares venture near the hall where thou dost lie;
No ferret filches at thy gloomy feast,
Nor bird nor ape dare wake thee with a cry.

That kiss received which mindeth thee of hell,
That lonely gluttony and torpid trance,
That smouldering fury or alertness fell,
That grandeur when thou dost to kill advance..

In all thy moods, thou virulence, we share:
Our forefathers have born thee on their shields,
Symbol of passions trusted to prepare
The delectable transport that all carnage yields.

Among our thoughts thou threadest well-worn ways;
And, though the recognition of thee hurt,
Discreet, thou hast for thy redeeming grace
That charm efficiency must needs exert.





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