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Home  »  The English Poets  »  Extracts from New Symbols: The Snake-charmer

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

Thomas Gordon Hake (1809–1895)

Extracts from New Symbols: The Snake-charmer

I
THE FOREST rears on lifted arms

A world of leaves, whence verdurous light

Shakes through the shady depths and warms

Proud tree and stealthy parasite,

There where those cruel coils enclasp

The trunks they strangle in their grasp.

II
An old man creeps from out the woods,

Breaking the vine’s entangling spell;

He thrids the jungle’s solitudes

O’er bamboos rotting where they fell;

Slow down the tiger’s path he wends

Where at the pool the jungle ends.

III
No moss-greened alley tells the trace

Of his lone step, no sound is stirred,

Even when his tawny hands displace

The boughs, that backward sweep unheard:

His way as noiseless as the trail

Of the swift snake and pilgrim snail.

IV
The old snake-charmer,—once he played

Soft music for the serpent’s ear,

But now his cunning hand is stayed;

He knows the hour of death is near.

And all that live in brake and bough,

All know the brand is on his brow.

V
Yet where his soul is he must go:

He crawls along from tree to tree.

The old snake-charmer, doth he know

If snake or beast of prey he be?

Bewildered at the pool he lies

And sees as through a serpent’s eyes.

VI
Weeds wove with white-flowered lily crops

Drink of the pool, and serpents hie

To the thin brink as noonday drops,

And in the froth-daubed rushes lie.

There rests he now with fastened breath

’Neath a kind sun to bask in death.

VII
The pool is bright with glossy dyes

And cast-up bubbles of decay:

A green death-leaven overlies

Its mottled scum, where shadows play

As the snake’s hollow coil, fresh shed,

Rolls in the wind across its bed.

VIII
No more the wily note is heard

From his full flute—the riving air

That tames the snake, decoys the bird,

Worries the she-wolf from her lair.

Fain would he bid its parting breath

Drown in his ears the voice of death.

IX
Still doth his soul’s vague longing skim

The pool beloved: he hears the hiss

That siffles at the sedgy rim,

Recalling days of former bliss,

And the death-drops, that fall in showers,

Seem honied dews from shady flowers.

X
There is a rustle of the breeze

And twitter of the singing bird;

He snatches at the melodies

And his faint lips again are stirred;

The olden sounds are in his ears;

But still the snake its crest uprears.

XI
His eyes are swimming in the mist

That films the earth like serpent’s breath:

And now,—as if a serpent hissed,—

The husky whisperings of Death

Fill ear and brain—he looks around—

Serpents seem matted o’er the ground.

XII
Soon visions of past joys bewitch

His crafty soul; his hands would set

Death’s snare, while now his fingers twitch

The tasselled reed as ’twere his net.

But his thin lips no longer fill

The woods with song; his flute is still.

XIII
Those lips still quaver to the flute,

But fast the life-tide ebbs away;

Those lips now quaver and are mute,

But nature throbs in breathless play:

Birds are in open song, the snakes

Are watching in the silent brakes.

XIV
In sudden fear of snares unseen

The birds like crimson sunset swarm,

All gold and purple, red and green,

And seek each other for the charm.

Lizards dart up the feathery trees

Like shadows of a rainbow breeze.

XV
The wildered birds again have rushed

Into the charm,—it is the hour

When the shrill forest-note is hushed,

And they obey the serpent’s power,—

Drawn to its gaze with troubled whirr,

As by the thread of falconer.

XVI
As ’twere to feed, on slanting wings

They drop within the serpent’s glare:

Eyes flashing fire in burning rings

Which spread into the dazzled air;

They flutter in the glittering coils;

The charmer dreads the serpent’s toils.

XVII
While Music swims away in death

Man’s spell is passing to his slaves:

The snake feeds on the charmer’s breath,

The vulture screams, the parrot raves,

The lone hyena laughs and howls,

The tiger from the jungle growls.

XVIII
Then mounts the eagle—flame-flecked folds

Belt its proud plumes; a feather falls:

He hears the death-cry, he beholds

The king-bird in the serpent’s thralls,

He looks with terror on the feud,—

And the sun shines through dripping blood.

XIX
The deadly spell a moment gone—

Birds, from a distant Paradise,

Strike the winged signal and have flown,

Trailing rich hues through azure skies:

The serpent falls; like demon wings

The far-out branching cedar swings.

XX
The wood swims round; the pool and skies

Have met; the death-drops down that cheek

Fall faster; for the serpent’s eyes

Grow human, and the charmer’s seek.

A gaze like man’s directs the dart

Which now is buried at his heart.

XXI
The monarch of the world is cold:

The charm he bore has passed away:

The serpent gathers up its fold

To wind about its human prey.

The red mouth darts a dizzy sting,

And clenches the eternal ring.