Skip to content
Linespedia

The Snake.

Topics: classic

A narrow fellow in the grass     Occasionally rides;     You may have met him, -- did you not,     His notice sudden is.     The grass divides as with a comb,     A spotted shaft is seen;     And then it closes at your feet     And opens further on.     He likes a boggy acre,     A floor too cool for corn.     Yet when a child, and barefoot,     I more than once, at morn,     Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash     Unbraiding in the sun, --     When, stooping to secure it,     It wrinkled, and was gone.     Several of nature's people     I know, and they know me;     I feel for them a transport     Of cordiality;     But never met this fellow,     Attended or alone,     Without a tighter breathing,     And zero at the bone.

AI analysis available. Enable JavaScript to interact.

About this line

"A narrow fellow in the grass..."

Exploring the themes of classic, Emily Elizabeth Dickinson delivers a powerful performance in "The Snake."... ### Why We Love This Line At Linespedia, we believe that poetry is the ultimate sanctuary for the soul...

Classified Tags

Related lines

"Her final summer was it,     And yet we guessed it not;     If tenderer industriousness     Pervaded her, we thought     A further force of l"

"I never lost as much but twice,     And that was in the sod;     Twice have I stood a beggar     Before the door of God!     Angels, twice de"

"It was not death, for I stood up,     And all the dead lie down;     It was not night, for all the bells     Put out their tongues, for noon."

"An altered look about the hills;     A Tyrian light the village fills;     A wider sunrise in the dawn;     A deeper twilight on the lawn;"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

Continue Reading

"Her final summer was it,     And yet we guessed it..."

Weekly Poetic Insight

Join our literary Sanctuary

Get the most inspiring lines, poetic analysis, and secret shayaris delivered to your inbox every Sunday.