POETRY: A Magazine of Verse
Between the pale green light of the heech leaves
And the ground ivy's bluer light, a stag
Whirer than curds, its eyes the tint of the sea.
Because it stood upon his path and seemned
More hands in height than any stag in the world
He sat with tightened rein ainazed, his horse
Trembling beneath him, and then drove the spur
Not doubting to have shouldered it away.
But the stag stooped its heavy branching horns,
And run at hiin, and passed, and as it passed
Ripped through the horse's flanks. King Eochaid reeled,
But diew his sword, and thought with levelled point
To stay the stag's next rush. When sword met horn
The horn resounded as though it had been silver.
Hor locked in sword, they rugged and struggled there
As though a stag and unicorn were met
In Africa on mountain of the moon,
Until at last the unlocked horn hd tumn
Through the entrails of the horse. Dropping his sword
Eochaid seized both the horns in his strong hands
And stared into the sea-green eyes, and so
Hither and thither to and fro they trod
Till all the place was beaten into mire,
The strong thigh and the agile thigh were nier
The hands that gathered up the might of the world,
And hoof and horn that had sucked in their speed
Amid the elaborate wilderness of the air.
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