Classic Poem

It may well have been that my thought was heady
Or that lone drinking had spoiled my blood,
But I saw a cloud-staring lady
Ride into the light that edged a wood.

By the slim pressure of white knees
She swayed the pride of a unicorn
To swerve between the sapling trees
And score the leaves with his silver horn.

Picked up by the wind, her hair was lost
In a flutter of light against the sun;
Riding she caught in a scarf or tossed
Above her a smooth black-polished stone.

Suddenly she stopped and gazed
As though her eyelids twitched with soot;
Spurred with her heels; galloped and grazed
My trembling hand with her warm foot.

‘Where has he gone’—she leaned her head—
‘Who had so sweet a weight of limb,
Whose hair was red as the lion's is red?
It is long since I have dreamed of him.

‘Already before I had upwound
The loosened ends of my girl's hair,
Or my girl's breasts had come to the round,
He took me in a dismaying stare.

‘Although I can no longer count
What lips of lovers I have kissed,
I ride for him still; mount and dismount.
But make me a stirrup of your wrist—

‘Tonight my shoulder shall be laid
With pressure, with longing, against your own,
Till my disquiet is allayed;
And you sleep; and I mount and ride on.