In the poem "Snake" by D.H Lawrence what does the snake symbolize?

In the poem, "The Snake," by D.H. Lawrence, the snake
might be seen as symbolic of evil or death—as is the snake of
Genesis in the Bible that is so appealing, and yet so "deadly;" and the trees and plants
and water of the poem may bring to mind the Garden of
Eden.

The snake is presented as something powerful and
admirable:

I
felt so honoured...

For he seemed to me again like a
king,

Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the
underworld,

Now due to be crowned
again...

And so, I missed my chance with one of the
lords

Of
life.

The snake is
beautiful:

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Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning
bowels of the earth...

We get
the sense that despite the glory of the snake's color, the ease with which it moves, the
captivation that the speaker feels in sharing the same space, and time spent with such
an unusual creature, the snake is literally
deadly—

For in
Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are
venomous.

And as captivated
as the speaker is, his "gut" is telling him that he should be
afraid, while his ego accuses him that he is
afraid.

The
voice of my education said to me

He must be
killed...

But...

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Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill
him?…

And yet those
voices:

If you were not afraid, you would kill
him!

Whether we
think of the biblical snake in the Garden of Eden who brought death to mankind, or
simply remember the speaker's memories of Sicily that have taught him that this snake is
deadly—obviously the more beautiful, the more deadly—the snake is symbolic of evil or
death. For this reason, even as the speaker greatly admires the snake, his instinct
drives him to kill it.

The poem may speak, also, to some
innate inhumanity that man must practice against other creatures, but for me, his fear
of death outweighs his appreciation for the snake's beauty, and the speaker listens to
the warning voices from the past.