The Poets Snakes. 87 



afford the poets incessant opportunity for metaphor. Thus, 

 the casting of their slough 



" So may my spirit cast, 

 Serpent like, off the past." Herbert. 



11 What shall I do ? Where go ? 

 When I have cast this serpent-skin of woe." Keats. 



" But time strips our illusions of their hue, 

 And one by one in turn, some grand mistake 

 Casts off its bright skin." Byron. 



" Warmed by health as serpents in the Spring 

 Aside their slough of indolence they fling." Crabbe. 



" They've tricks to cast their sins 

 As easy as serpents do their skins 

 That in a while grow out again." Butler, 



That the snake leaves a slimy track is a popular error, 

 already noticed as accepted by poets. Slander and envy, 

 therefore, are said to "befoul" as they go: the critic's 

 "frothy slaver," the parasite's path "snake-marked," the 

 traitor's " slimy clue," and other similar phrases have their 

 source in the same fiction : " the trail of the serpent is over 

 them all." 



The image of the snake lurking in the herbage is as old 

 as grass itself. Our earliest poets, therefore, had it : 



" I know under the green the serpent how he lurks ; " 



and 



" Ware fro the serpent that so slily creepeth 

 Under the grass, and stingeth subtelly." 



Equally ancient is the hiding of snakes beneath flowers, a 

 fact of nature of which primitive humanity, shoeless and un. 

 clad, had, no doubt, frequent sad experience. The " serpent 

 in red roses hissing," is, therefore, ubquitous in verse. 



