(The lion-huntress accounts for one of her rather more unprepossessing guests)
SMALL crumbs of glass he had for eyes
That blinked, myopically wise.
Like midnight suns his laughter froze,
Suavely sterile and morose.
All bistre-brown, an eerie sight,
As shrivelled as a Cenobite
Long vagrant in the Thebaid,
He quite miraculously hid.
But after many years he came
To town, and found it just the same.
He had his hair cut in the Strand
And manicured each psychic hand.
He wrote a book on Cerements
Or some such furtive elements;
He got a title for his pains,
I’m told he has terrific brains!
He had his little eyes exchanged
For larger ones—Mix X. arranged
His skin (enamel so they say!)
And so I had him here to stay.
With eucalyptus in his hair,
He trims his beard if people stare.
He loves to sip beneath the shade
The languid green of lemonade.