To John Cowper Powys, on His “Confessions”

Old salamander basking in the fire, Winking your lean tongue at a coal or two, Lolling amid the maelstroms of desire, And envying the lot of none or few— Old serpent alien to the human race, Immune to poison, apples, and the rest, Examining like a microbe each new face And pawing, passionless, each novel breast— Admirer of God and of the Devil, Hater of Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell, Skeptic of good, more skeptic yet of evil— Knowing the sick soul sounder than the well— We mortals send you greeting from afar— How very like a human being you are!

Impenetrably isolate you stand, Tickling the world with a long-jointed straw. Lazy as Behemoth, your thoughts demand No cosmic plan to satisfy your maw; But as the little shining gnats buzz by You eat the brightest and spit out the rest, Then streak your front with ochre carefully And dance, a Malay with a tattooed breast. There are no sins, no virtues left for you, No strength, no weakness, no apostasy. You know the world, now old, was never new, And that its wisdom is a shameless lie. So in the dusk you sit you down to plan Some fresh confusion for the heart of man.

Lover of Chaos and the Sacred Seven! Scorner of Midas and St. Francis, too! Wearied of earth, yet dubious of Heaven, Fain of old follies and of pastures new— Why should the great, whose spirits haunt the void Between Orion and the Northern Wain, Make you their mouthpiece? Why have they employed So brassed a trumpet for so high a strain? Perhaps, like you, they count it little worth To pipe save for the piping; so they take You weak, infirm, uncertain as the earth, And down your tubes the thrill of music wake. Well, God preserve you!—and the Devil damn!— And nettles strew the bosom of Abraham!