The moods and movements of the snake are not the same. In the beginning, he seems to be in a relaxed mood. So are his movements. He rests his throat upon the stone and ‘softly’ drinks through his straight gums into his ‘slack long body’. He is not at all in ‘undignified haste’. He lifts his head from his drinking looking vaguely at the poet as drinking cattle do. He drinks enough. No doubt, he is conscious of the poet’s presence but he doesn’t seem to be worried or scared. He leisurely withdraws his long body and enters his head into the black hole. But his mood and movement are changed the moment the poet throws a log of wood at him. Suddenly that part which is left behind makes a ‘violent’ movement. He is in ‘undignified haste’. He twists and turns like lightning and disappears at once into the black hole.
The poet also shows different emotions at different occasions. He is fascinated by the presence of the snake at his water-trough. He waits for his turn as the snake came first at the trough. But his voices of education tell him that the yellow-brown snake is poisonous and must be killed. No doubt, he is afraid of him but he feels honoured that the snake has come to seek his hospitality. The poet is enraged when the snake prepares to go back in to the blackness. He protests and in a fit of anger throws a log of wood at the snake. The poet regrets immediately at his ‘vulgar’ and ‘mean’ act. He starts ‘despising’ himself. He wishes the snake to come back.In the end the poet feels that he has ‘something to ‘expiate’ and it is his ‘pettiness’.
