There are many expressions in the poem which clearly show that the poet loved, admired and even respected the snake. First, ‘like a seconder’ he kept waiting for his turn as the snake had come before him at the trough. He ‘confessed’ how he ‘liked him’. He ‘had come like a guest’ to ‘seek’ his ‘hospitality’. He looked around ‘like a god’. The poet ‘immediately ... regretted’ his ‘vulgar’ and ‘mean act’ of throwing a log at the snake. The snake was like ‘a king in exile’ and needed ‘to be crowned again’. He had ‘something to expiate’—his ‘pettiness’.
