Theodore Roethke: Snake

I saw a young snake glide
Out of the mottled shade
And hang, limp on a stone:
A thin mouth, and a tongue
Stayed, in the still air.

It turned; it drew away;
Its shadow bent in half;
It quickened, and was gone.

I felt my slow blood warm.
I longed to be that thing,
The pure, sensuous form.

And I may be, some time.


Roethke, alcoholic, often unbalanced and hysterical, attracts very differing views. One criticism is that he imitates and appropriates other poets' attitudes without genuinely sharing in them, that he misuses them instead of using them well. But this poem seems successful to me: it may start from Blake and later poets writing of nature, but its own substance and technique coalesce convincingly.