THE SERPENT IN LITERATURE 199 



Even dying he cannot stay away ; the fascina- 

 tion of the lost power is too strong on him ; even 

 dying he rises and goes forth, creeping from tree to 

 tree, to the familiar sunlit green spot of earth, 



where 



Bewildered at the pool he lies, 



And sees as through a serpent's eyes ; 



his tawny, trembling hand still fingering, his feeble 

 lips still quivering, on the useless flute. He cannot 

 draw the old potent music from it : 



The witching air 



That tamed the snake, decoyed the bird, 

 Worried the she- wolf from her lair. 



It is all fantasy, a mere juggling arrangement 

 of brain -distorted fact and ancient fiction ; the 

 essence of it has no existence in Nature and the 

 soul for the good naturalist, who dwells in a glass 

 house full of intense light without shadow ; but 

 the naturalists are not a numerous people, and for 

 all others the effect is like that which Nature itself 

 produces on our twilight intellect. It is snaky in 

 the extreme ; reading it we are actually there in 

 the bright smiling sunshine ; ours is the failing 

 spirit of the worn-out old man, striving to drown 

 the hissing sounds of death in our ears, as of a 

 serpent that hisses. But the lost virtue cannot be 

 recovered ; our eyes too 



are swimming in a mist 

 That films the earth like serpent's breath ; 



and the shadows of the waving boughs on the 

 sward appear like hollow, cast-off coils rolled before 



