SELECTIONS IN ENGLISH POETRY
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning
bowels of the earth 2o
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The Voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the
gold are venomous.
And voices in me said, If you were a man 25
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish
him off.
But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet to
drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth? 30
Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him ?
Was it perversity that I longed to talk to him ?
Was it humility, to feel so honoured ?
I felt so honoured.
And yet those voices: 35
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!
And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid,
But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth, 40
He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
"And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the
air, so black,
355 23*