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THE PLUMED SERPENT
And with a proud, white look of joy in his face, he turned again
to his work.
Ramón visited the adobe house, its yard fenced with cane and
overshadowed by a great mango-tree, where Manuel and his wife
and children, and two assistants, were spinning and weaving. Two
little girls were assiduously carding white wool and brown wool under a cluster of banana-trees: the wife and a young maiden were
spinning fi ne, fi ne thread. On the line hung dyed wool, red, and
blue, and green. And under the shed stood Manuel and a youth,
weaving at two heavy hand-looms.
‘How is it going?’ called Don Ramón.
‘Muy bien! Muy bien!’ answered Manuel, with that curious look
of transfi guration glistening in his black eyes and in the smile of his
face. ‘It is going well, very well, Señor!’
Ramón paused to look at the fi ne white serape on the loom. It had
a zig-zag border of natural black wool and blue, in little diamonds,
and the ends a complication of blackish and blue diamond-pattern.
The man was just beginning to do the centre – called the boca, the
mouth: and he looked anxiously at the design that was tacked to the
loom. But it was simple: the same as the iron symbol the smith was
making: a snake with his tail in his mouth, the black triangles on his
back being the outside of the circle: and in the middle, a blue eagle
standing erect, with slim wings touching the belly of the snake with
their tips, and slim feet upon the snake, within the hoop.
Ramón went back to the house, to the upper terrace, and round
to the short wing where his room was. He put a folded serape over
his shoulder, and went along the terrace. At the end of this wing,
projecting to the lake, was a square terrace with a low, thick wall and
a tiled roof, and a coral-scarlet bignonia dangling from the massive
pillars. The terrace, or loggia, was strewn with the native palm-leaf
mats, petates, and there was a drum in one corner, with the drum-
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
stick upon it. At the far inner corner went down an enclosed stone
staircase, with an iron door at the bottom.
Ramón stood a while looking out at the lake. The clouds were
dissolving again, the sheet of water gave off a whitish light. In the
distance he could see the dancing speck of a boat, probably Martin
with the two women.
He took off his hat and his blouse, and stood motionless, naked to the waist. Then he lifted the drum-stick, and after waiting
a moment or two, to become still in soul, he sounded the rhythmic
summons, rather slow, yet with a curious urge in its strong-weak,
one-two rhythm. He had got the old barbaric power into the drum.
For some time he stood alone, the drum, or tom-tom, lifted by
its thong against his legs, his right hand drumming, his face expressionless. A man entered, bareheaded, running from the inner terrace. He was in the white cotton clothes, snow white, but with a dark
serape folded on his shoulder, and he held a key in his hand. He
saluted Ramón by putting the back of his right hand in front of
his eyes for a moment, then he went down the stone stairway and
opened the iron door.
Immediately men were coming up, all dressed alike, in the white
cotton clothes and the huaraches, each with a folded serape over his
shoulder. But their sashes were all blue, and their sandals blue and
white. The sculptor came too, and Mirabal was there, also dressed in
the cotton clothes.
There were seven men, besides Ramón. At the top of the stairs,
one after another, they saluted. Then they took their serapes, dark
brown, with blue eyes fi lled with white, along the edges, and threw
them down along the wall, their hats beside them. Then they took
off their blouses, and fl ung them on their hats.
Ramón left the drum, and sat down on his own serape, that
was white with the blue and black bars, and the scarlet fringe. The
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THE PLUMED SERPENT
drummer sat down and took the drum. The circle of men sat crosslegged, naked to the waist, silent. Some were of a dark, ruddy coffeebrown, two were white, Ramón was of a soft creamy brown. They sat
in silence for a time, only the monotonous, hypnotic sound of the
drum pulsing, touching the inner air. Then the drummer began to
sing, in the curious, small, inner voice, that hardly emerges from the
circle, singing in the ancient falsetto of the Indians:
‘Who sleeps – shall wake! Who sleeps – shall wake! Who treads
down the path of the snake shall arrive at the place; in the path of the
dust shall arrive at the place and be dressed in the skin of the snake –’
One by one the voices of the men joined in, till they were all
singing in the strange, blind infallible rhythm of the ancient barbaric world. And all in the small, inward voices, as if they were singing from the oldest, darkest recess of the soul, not outwards, but
inwards, the soul singing back to herself.
They sang for a time in the peculiar unison like a fl ock of birds
that fl y in one consciousness. And when the drum shuddered for an
end, they all let their voices fade out, with the same broad, clapping
sound in the throat.
There was silence. The men turned, speaking to one another,
laughing in a quiet way. But their daytime voices, and their daytime
eyes had gone.
Then Ramón’s voice was heard, and the men were suddenly silent, listening with bent heads. Ramón sat with his face lifted, looking far away, in the pride of prayer.
‘There is no Before and After, there is only Now,’ he said, speaking in a proud, but inward voice.
‘The great Snake coils and uncoils the plasm of his folds, and
stars appear, and worlds fade out. It is no more than the changing
and easing of the plasm.
‘I always am, says his sleep.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
‘As a man in a deep sleep knows not, but is, so is the Snake of the
coiled cosmos, wearing its plasm.
‘As a man in a deep sleep has no to-morrow, no yesterday, nor
to-day, but only IS, so is the limpid, far-reaching Snake of the eternal
Cosmos, Now, and forever Now.
‘Now, and only Now, and forever Now.
‘But dreams arise and fade in the sleep of the Snake.
‘And worlds arise as dreams, and are gone as dreams.
‘And man is a dream in the sleep of the Snake.
‘And only the sleep that is dreamless breathes I Am!
‘In the dreamless Now, I Am.
‘Dreams arise as they must arise, and man is a dream arisen.
‘But the dreamless plasm of the Snake is the plasm of a man, of
his body, his soul, and his spirit at one.
‘And the perfect sleep of the Snake I Am is the plasm of a man,
who is whole.
‘When the plasm of the body, and the plasm of the soul, and the
plasm of the spirit are at one, in the Snake I Am.
‘I am Now.
‘Was-not is a dream, and shall-be is a dream, like two separate,
heavy feet.
‘But Now, I Am.
‘The trees put forth their leaves in their sleep, and fl owering
emerge out of dreams, into pure I Am.
‘The birds forget the stress of their dreams, and sing aloud in the
Now, I Am! I Am!
‘For dreams have wings and feet, and journeys to take, and efforts to make.
‘But the glimmering Snake of the Now is wingless and footless,
and undivided, and perfectly coiled.
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THE PLUMED SERPENT
‘It is thus the cat lies down, in the coil of Now, and the cow
curves round her nose to her belly, lying down.
‘In the feet of a dream the hare runs uphill. But when he pauses,
the dream has passed, he has entered the timeless Now, and his eyes
are the wide I Am.
‘Only man dreams, dreams, and dreams, and changes from dream
to dream, like a man who tosses on his bed.
‘With his eyes and his mouth he dreams, with his hands and his
feet, with phallos and heart and belly, with body and spirit and soul,
in a tempest of dreams.
‘And rushes from dream to dream, in the hope of the perfect
dream.
‘But I, I say to you, there is no dream that is perfect, for every
dream has an ache and an urge, an urge and an ache.
‘And nothing is perfect, save the dream pass out into the sleep,
I Am.
‘When the dream of the eyes is darkened, and encompassed with
Now.
‘And the dream of the mouth resounds in the last I Am.
‘And the dream of the hands is a sleep like a bird on the sea, that
sleeps and is lifted and shifted, and knows not.
‘And the dreams of the feet and the toes touch the core of the
world, where the Serpent sleeps.
‘And the dream of the phallos reaches the great I Know Not.
‘And the dream of the body is the stillness of a fl ower in the dark.
‘And the dream of the soul is gone in the perfume of Now.
‘And the dream of the spirit lapses, and lays down its head, and
is still with the Morning Star.
‘For each dream starts out of Now, and is accomplished in Now.
‘In the core of the fl ower, the glimmering, wakeless Snake.
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
‘And what falls away is a dream, and what accrues is a dream.
There is always and only Now, Now and I Am.’
There was silence in the circle of men. Outside, the sound of the
bullock-wagon could be heard, and from the lake, the faint knocking of oars. But the seven men sat with their heads bent, in the semitrance, listening inwardly.
Then the drum began softly to beat, as if of itself. And a man
began to sing, in a small voice:
The Lord of the Morning Star
Stood between the day and the night:
As a bird that lifts its wings, and stands
With the bright wing on the right
And the wing of the dark on the left,
The Dawn Star stood into sight.
Lo! I am always here!
Far in the hollow of space
I brush the wing of the day
And put light on your face.
The other wing brushes the dark.
But I, I am always in place.
Yea, I am always here. I am Lord
In every way. And the lords among men
See me through the fl ashing of wings.
They see me and lose me again.
But lo! I am always here
Within ken.
The multitudes see me not.
They see only the waving of wings,
The coming and going of things.
The cold and the hot.
But ye that perceive me between
The tremors of night and the day,
I make you the Lords of the
Way Unseen.
The path between gulfs of the dark and the steeps of the light;
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THE PLUMED SERPENT
The path like a snake that is gone, like the length of a fuse
to ignite
The substance of shadow, that bursts and explodes into sight.
I am here undeparting. I sit tight
Between wings of the endless fl ight,
At the depths of the peace and the fi ght.
Deep in the moistures of peace,
And far down the muzzle of the fi ght
You shall fi nd me, who am neither increase
Nor destruction, different quite.
I am far beyond
The horizons of love and strife.
Like a star, like a pond
That washes the lords of life.
‘Listen!’ said Ramón, in the stillness. ‘We will be masters among
men, and lords among men. But lords of men and masters of men we
will not be. Listen! We are lords of the night. Lords of the day and
night. Sons of the Morning Star, sons of the Evening Star. Men of the
Morning and the Evening Star.
‘We are not lords of men: how can men make us lords? Nor are
we masters of men, for men are not worth it.
‘But I am the Morning and the Evening Star, and lord of the
day and the night. By the power that is put in my left hand, and the
power that I grasp in my right, I am lord of the two ways.
‘And my fl ower on earth is the jasmine fl ower, and in heaven the
fl ower Hesperus.
‘I will not command you, nor serve you, for the snake goes
crooked to his own house.
‘Yet I will be with you, so you depart not from yourselves.
‘There is no giving, and no taking. When the fi ngers that give
touch the fi ngers that receive, the Morning Star shines at once, from
the contact, and the jasmine gleams between the hands. And thus
there is neither giving nor taking, nor hand that proffers nor hand
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DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE
that receives, but the star between them is all, and the dark hand
and the light hand are invisible on each side. The jasmine takes the
giving and the receiving in her cup, and the scent of the oneness is
fragrant on the air.
‘Think neither to give nor to receive, only let the jasmine fl ower.
‘Let nothing spill from you in excess, let nothing be reived from
you.
‘And reive nothing away. Not even the scent from the rose, nor
the juice from the pomegranate, nor the warmth from the fi re.
‘But say to the rose: Lo! I take you away from your tree, and your
breath is in my nostrils, and my breath is warm in your depths. Let it
be a sacrament between us.
‘And beware when you break the pomegranate; it is sunset you
take in your hands. Say: I am coming, come thou. Let the Evening
Star stand between us.
‘And when the fi re burns up and the wind is cold and you spread
your hands to the blaze, listen to the fl ame saying: Ah! Is it thou?
Comest thou to me? Lo, I was going the longest journey, down the
path of the greatest snake. But since thou comest to me, I come to
thee. And where thou fallest into my hands, fall I into thine, and
jasmine fl owers on the burning bush between us. Our meeting is the
burning bush, whence the jasmine fl owers.
‘Reive nothing away, and let nothing be reived from you. For
reiver and bereaved alike break the root of the jasmine fl ower, and
spit upon the Evening Star.
‘Take nothing, to say: I have it! For you can possess nothing, not
even peace.
‘Nought is possessible, neither gold, nor land, nor love, nor life,
nor peace, nor even sorrow nor death, nor yet salvation.
‘Say of nothing: It is mine.
‘Say only: It is with me.
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THE PLUMED SERPENT
‘For the gold that is with thee lingers as a departing moon, looking across space thy way, saying: Lo! We are beholden of each other.
Lo! for this little while, to each other thou and I are beholden.
‘And thy land says to thee: Ah, my child of a far-off father! Come,
lift me, lift me a little while, that poppies and wheat may blow on
the level wind that moves between my breast and thine! Then sink
with me, and we will make one mound.
‘And listen to thy love saying: Beloved! I am mown by thy sword
like mown grass, and darkness is upon me, and the tremble of the
Evening Star. And to me thou art darkness and nowhere. Oh thou,
when thou risest up and goest thy way, speak to me, only say: The
star rose between us.
‘And say to thy life: Am I thine? Art thou mine? Am I the blue
curve of day around thine uncurved night? Are my eyes twilight of
neither of us, where the star hangs? Is my upper lip the sunset and
my lower lip the dawn, does the star tremble inside my mouth?
‘And say to thy peace: Ah! risen, deathless star! Already the waters of dawn sweep over thee, and wash me away on the fl ood!
‘And say to thy sorrow: Axe, thou art cutting me down!
‘Yet did a spark fl y from out of thy edge and my wound!
‘Cut then, while I cover my face, father of the Star.
‘And say to thy strength: Lo, the night is foaming up my feet and
my loins, day is foaming down from my eyes and my mouth to the
sea of my breast. Lo, they meet! My belly is a fl ood of power, that
races in down the sluice of bone at my back, and a star hangs low on
the fl ood, over a troubled dawn.
‘And say to thy death: Be it so! I, and my soul, we come to thee,
Evening Star. Flesh, go thou into the night. Spirit, farewell, ’tis thy
day. Leave me now. I go in last nakedness now to the nakedest Star.’
CHAPTER XII
THE FIRST WATERS
The men had risen and covered themselves, and put on their
hats, and covered their eyes for a second, in salute before Ramón, as
they departed down the stone stair. And the iron door at the bottom
had clanged, the doorkeeper had returned with the key, laid it on
the drum, and softly, delicately departed.
Still Ramón sat on his serape, leaning his naked shoulders on
the wall, and closing his eyes. He was tired, and in that state of extreme separateness which makes it very hard to come back to the
world. On the outside of his ears he could hear the noises of the
hacienda, even the tinkle of tea-spoons, and the low voice of women,
and later, the low, labouring sound of a motor-car struggling over
the uneven road, then swirling triumphantly into the courtyard.
It was hard to come back to these things. The noise of them
sounded on the outside of his ears, but inside them was the slow,
vast, inaudible roar of the cosmos, like in a sea-shell. It was hard to
have to bear the contact of commonplace daily things, when his soul
and body were naked to the cosmos.
He wished they would leave him the veils of his isolation awhile.
But they would not: especially Carlota. She wanted him to be present to her: in familiar contact.
She was calling: ‘Ramón! Ramón! Have you fi nished? Cipriano is
here.’ And even so, in her voice was fear, and an overriding temerity.
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