Snakecharmer Analysis

The Collected Poems1957As the gods began one world, and man another,

So the snakecharmer begins a snaky sphere

With moon-eye, mouth-pipe, He pipes. Pipes green. Pipes water.Pipes water green until green waters waver

With reedy lengths and necks and undulatings.

And as his notes twine green, the green riverShapes its images around his sons.

He pipes a place to stand on, but no rocks,

No floor: a wave of flickering grass tonguesSupports his foot. He pipes a world of snakes,

Of sways and coilings, from the snake-rooted bottom

Of his mind. And now nothing but snakesIs visible. The snake-scales have become

Leaf, become eyelid; snake-bodies, bough, breast

Of tree and human. And he within this snakedomRules the writhings which make manifest

His snakehood and his might with pliant tunes

From his thin pipe. Out of this green nestAs out of Eden's navel twist the lines

Of snaky generations: let there be snakes!

And snakes there were, are, will be--till yawnsConsume this pipe and he tires of music

And pipes the world back to the simple fabric

Of snake-warp, snake-weft. Pipes the cloth of snakesTo a melting of green waters, till no snake

Shows its head, and those green waters back to

Water, to green, to nothing like a snake.

Puts up his pipe, and lids his moony eye.

.: :.

personally, sylvia goes through satan's power. God may have created this world, man may have dominated the earth, being the strongest survivor and all... but satan have triumphed in seducing the society into becoming like him. thus he bask in his glory, till he gets bored of it...
then he demotes his glory back to square one.
Sylvia is saying that the earth is rooted with evil, and what goes around comes around. evil prevails.

| Posted on 2008-03-24 | by a guest