By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
The speaker watches a figure lose his radiance and become a cocky shink. He then rejects loving an image and considers how respect affects mortal things.
The fountain, sunlight, electricity, and unknown fire belong to the figure before the change. The speaker's vow follows that loss; his closing concern is the harm or support that respect can bring.
The speaker watches 'The Sell before my eyes' as 'his fountain folded, / the sun lit glisten / was gone', the electric 'beneath stoped' and 'the / fire of the unknown / left'. He came down to 'a cocky shink', and the speaker says he would 'never / love an image again' and now knew 'the eternal diferance' that 'the long line of respect / will make or brake'.
The page records disillusionment with a figure whose water, light and power all shut off at once. The speaker turns that collapse into a lesson about loving images and about respect deciding the fate of things 'that are / only mortal.' It is written as one long handwritten sentence broken by commas.