84 The Poets and Nature. 



Critics (a particular aversion of poets), as in Goldsmith and 



Crabbe : 



" His wand's a modern author's pen ; 

 The serpents round about it twined 

 Denote him of the reptile kind, 

 Denote the rage with which he writes, 

 His frothy slaver venomed bites." 



Or 



" The serpent Critic's rising hiss." 



And Harlots so when Dalila leaves the crippled hero's 

 presence with a taunt, the Chorus cry : 



" She's gone, a manifest serpent by her sting, 

 Discovered in the end, till now concealed ; " 



and many others, down to the " unfortunate " of the London 

 streets, against whom Mackay launches this exhortation to 

 the "fool:" 



" A serpent, woman headed, 

 With loose and floating hair, 

 Beware, O fool ! how you touch it, 

 Beware for your soul ! Beware ! 

 'Tis beautiful to look at 

 As it rustles through the street, 

 But its eyes, though bright as sunshine, 

 Have the glow of hell's own heat. 



'Twill murmur soft sweet music 

 To draw you to its mesh, 

 And coil about you fondly 

 To feed upon your flesh ; 

 Beware of this flaunting Gorgon 

 With the snakes in her wavy hair 1 

 Beware, O fool ! how you touch her, 

 Beware for your soul, beware ! " 



So, too, in Savage, Lawyers : 



" Not a gay serpent glittering to the eye, 

 But more than serpent or than harlot sly, 

 For lawyer-like, a fiend no wit can 'scape, 

 The demon stands confessed in human shape. 



And in Coleridge's " Devil's Thoughts : " 



