THE SERPENT IN LITERATURE 195 



vividly for an instant, then changing to dull grey 

 and fading from sight. 



It is because the poet does not see his subject 

 apart from its surroundings, deprived of its atmo- 

 sphere — a mere fragment of beggarly matter — does 

 not see it too well, with all the details which be- 

 come visible only after a minute and, therefore, 

 cold examination, but as a part of the picture, a 

 light that quivers and quickly passes, that we, 

 through him, are able to see it too, and to experi- 

 ence the old mysterious sensations, restored by his 

 magic touch. For the poet is emotional, and in a 

 few verses, even in one verse, in a single well- 

 chosen epithet, he can vividly recall a forgotten 

 picture to the mind and restore a lost emotion. 



Matthew Arnold probably knew very little about 

 the serpent scientifically ; but in his solitary walks 

 and communings with Nature he, no doubt, became 

 acquainted with our two common ophidians, and 

 was familiar with the sight of the adder, bright and 

 glistening in its renewed garment, reposing peace- 

 fully in the spring sunshine ; seeing it thus, the 

 strange remoteness and quietude of its silent life 

 probably moved him and sank deeply into his mind. 

 This is not the first and most common feeling 

 of the serpent - seer — the feeling which Matthew 

 Arnold himself describes in a ringing couplet : 



Hast thou so rare a poison ? — let me be 

 Keener to slay thee lest thou poison me. 



When no such wildly improbable contingency is 

 feared as that the small drop of rare poison in the 



