To the Snake

dreamed around 1959 by Denise Levertov

Green Snake, when I hung you round my neck and stroked your cold, pulsing throat          as you hissed to me, glinting arrowy gold scales, and I felt          the weight of you on my shoulders, and the whispering silver of your dryness          sounded close at my ears-- Green Snake--I swore to my companions that certainly          you were harmless! But truly I had no certainty, and no hope, only desiring          to hold you, for that joy,                                              which left a long wake of pleasure, as the leaves moved and you faded into the pattern of grass and shadows, and I returned smiling and haunted, to a dark morning.