The Changeling by Fannie Stearns Davis

I have two horns upon my head. They please me, being garlanded With creepy pine, and berries red From some old secret hawthorn-tree.

I have two horns, and hoofs also: Brown questing hoofs, that clip and go Over the mountain, high and low, From sky-crack to the droning sea.

My Mother would have shame of me If she could see -- if she could see Those horns and hoofs that make too free With what she bore and bred so straight.

She taught me to be still and good; To walk demure as maidens should; Wear dainty slippers, silken snood, And not come loitering home too late.

But now I dance, I dance all night, By faint star-light or fierce moon-light, Over the mountain, -- till the white Dumb dawn comes fingering, soothing me.

With whom I dance, with whom I sing, -- Why need my Mother know this thing? In my green chamber slumbering She finds me sweet and white, when she

Strokes down my curls. She does not know Two horns beneath her fingers grow; Rough horns: and I have hoofs also, Not feet like pale flow'rs on the floor.

Oh, if you met me on the hill, Moon-maddened, dancing to my fill, O Mother, could you love me still, -- This wild-heart thing you never bore?