Jack o’ Lantern tall shouldered, One eye set higher than the other, Mouth cut like a scallop in a pie, Aslant showing powerful teeth. Swaying above the heads of others. Jubilant with fixed eyes, scarcely sparkling. Moving about rhythmically, exploding in laughter. Touching fingers together back and forth, Or toying with a handkerchief. And the eyes burn like a flame at the end of a funnel. And the ruddy face glows like a pumpkin On Halloween! Or else a gargoyle of bronze Turning suddenly to life And slipping suddenly down corners of stone To eat you: Full of questions, objections, Distinctions, instances. Contemptuous, ironical, remote, Cloudy, irreverent, ferocious, Fearless, grim, compassionate, yet hateful, Old, yet young, wise but virginal. To whom everything is new and strange: Whence he stares and wonders, Laughs, mocks, curses. Disordered, yet with a passion for order And classification--hence the habitual Folding into squares of a handkerchief. Or else a well cultivated and fruitful valley, But behind it unexplored fastnesses, Gorges, precipices, and heights Over which thunder clouds hang, From which lightning falls, Stirring up terrible shapes of prey That slink about in the blackness. The silence of him is terrifying As if you sat before the sphinx. The look of his eyes makes tubes of the air Through which you are magnified and analyzed. He needs nothing of you and wants nothing. He is alone, but content, Self-mastered and beyond friendship, You could not hurt him. If he would allow himself to have a friend He could part from that friend forever And in a moment be lost in wonder Staring at a carved rooster on a doorstep, Or at an Italian woman Giving suck to a child On a seat in Washington Square. Soul enwrapped demi-urge Walking the earth, Stalking Life! JOHN COWPER POWYS Astronomer and biologist And chemical analyst and microscopist, Observer of men’s involuted shells Where they conceal their hate and even their love Under insipid ooze or nacreous stuff. Tracer of criss-cross steps made when great hells Kept lime as soft as wax Which thereupon took the imprint of the air From gnat-like wings of joy or shadowy care. He makes hard secrets stand in the cul de sac’s Entrance and face him till he lays all bare That eyes hold or heart of blood contains, And curious traits in diverse curious brains, And starved desires in hearts and hopes forgot Under the sifting ashes of one’s lot.