19 JULY 1957, Page 35

Meeting

He smiles in a mirror, shrinking the whole Sun-swung zodiac of light to a trinket shape On the rise of his eye : it is a role In which he can fling a cape, And outlobm life like Faustus. But once where On an empty mountain slope A black goat clattered and ran Towards him, and set forefeet firm on a rock. Above and looked down A square-pupilled yellow-eyed look, The black devil head against the blue air, What gigantic fingers took Him up and on a bare Palm turned him close under an eye That was like a living hanging hemisphere And watched his blood's gleam with a ray Slow and cold and ferocious as a star Till the goat clattered away.

TED HUGHES