Page:Poetry, a magazine of verse, Volume 3 (October 1913-March 1914).djvu/8

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.