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.
- Snake by Emily Dickinson
This fellow lives in our garden. Just look at his beautiful patterned scales! - But I can't pretend that having this bulk of serpent flesh centimetres away from my face didn't give me a slight clammy feeling under the skin. Though I know carpet snakes are generally considered harmless, there was a recent case of one nearly killing a kid in Brisbane.
Nevertheless, we let our "king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld" alone - did not touch him. D.H. Lawrence would be, I think, pleased.
