A Houyhnhnm's Scrapbook/Number 1/Idyll

When I was least intent upon
finding a naked person with
small eyes and nose and a
head of smooth stubble like
a newly shaved convict’s head,
playing on a thin reed
flute at repose in my
own private bosk where
round about the hot sun
failed to attack his flesh,
there he enigmatically was—
an allegory with one part
missing of an omen too
ridiculous in a vision one
attributes qualmlessly to
the heat—and I, always having
feared eerie noon sounds,
nakedness and shorn hair,
trembled at my wild eyes’
fragile intelligence,
breaking the glazed moment as,
startled, he fled.