Wherever met, an adder I would kill:
The race should be extinct if I'd my will.
WHY would'st thou, friend, said Atis, these destroy?
God meant that all should freely life enjoy.
The youthful knight for reptiles had, we find,
Less dread than what prevails with human kind;
He bore them in his arms:—they marked his birth;
From noble Cadmus sprung, who, when on earth,
At last, to serpent was in age transformed;
The adder's bush the clown no longer stormed;