All 3 Uses of
serpent
in
Leaves of Grass
- …the streets in a phallic procession, rapt and austere in the woods a gymnosophist, Drinking mead from the skull-cap, to Shastas and Vedas admirant, minding the Koran, Walking the teokallis, spotted with gore from the stone and knife, beating the serpent-skin drum, Accepting the Gospels, accepting him that was crucified, knowing assuredly that he is divine, To the mass kneeling or the puritan's prayer rising, or sitting patiently in a pew, Ranting and frothing in my insane crisis, or…†
Chpt 3 *
- …withheld—some voice, in huge monotonous rage, of freedom-lover pent, Some vast heart, like a planet's, chain'd and chafing in those breakers, By lengthen'd swell, and spasm, and panting breath, And rhythmic rasping of thy sands and waves, And serpent hiss, and savage peals of laughter, And undertones of distant lion roar, (Sounding, appealing to the sky's deaf ear—but now, rapport for once, A phantom in the night thy confidant for once,) The first and last confession of the globe,…†
Chpt 34
- "The Rounded Catalogue Divine Complete" The devilish and the dark, the dying and diseas'd, The countless (nineteen-twentieths) low and evil, crude and savage, The crazed, prisoners in jail, the horrible, rank, malignant, Venom and filth, serpents, the ravenous sharks, liars, the dissolute; (What is the part the wicked and the loathesome bear within earth's orbic scheme?†
Chpt 34
Definition:
-
(serpent) a snake