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Snake
by Emily Dickinson
 
 A narrow fellow in the grass
 Occasionally rides;
 You may have met him, -did you not?
 His notice sudden is.
 
 The grass divides as with a comb,
 A spotted shaft is seen;
 And then it closes at your feet
 And opens further on.
 
 He likes a boggy acre,
 A floor too cool for corn.
 Yet when a child, and barefoot,
 I more than once, at morn,
 
 Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
 Unbraiding in the sun, 
 When, stooping to secure it,
 It wrinkled, and was gone.
 
 Several of nature's people
 I know, and they know me;
 I feel for them a transport
 Of cordiality;
 
 But never met this fellow,
 Attended or alone,
 Without a tighter breathing,
 And zero at the bone.
 
 
 
 
 
 
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