Poet’s mother ask him not to get afraid of the garden snake because its harmless and only eats insects for its food. it did change the attitude of the child as the child decides to watch the snake pass by whenever he sees it.

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Following poetic devices have been used in the poem Garden Snake:

1. Alliteration: It is the occurrence of the same sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words. e.g. “I saw a snake”, “Some snakes are dangerous, they say”, “when he wiggles”.
2. Personification: it is the attribution of human characteristics to non-living things and animals. e.g. the poet uses “he” for the snake although “he” is used for humans.
3. Enjambment: It is  the continuation of a sentence or phrase from one line of poetry to the next. e.g. “So when he wiggles in the grass I’ll stand aside and watch him pass,”

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The message of the poem “Garden Snake” by Muriel L. Sonne is that snakes are not that dangerous and harmful as we humans think. Some of them are harmless and only eat insects as their food. Hence we should not afraid of them. In the poem the poet fears from snakes and considers them dangerous, but his views change which his mother tells him that the snake which he saw is harmless. The poem thus gives the message of “saving animals”.

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