The Wild Knight and other Poems: Cyclopean

A mountainous and mystic brute / No rein can curb, no arrow shoot, / Upon whose domed deformed back / I sweep the planets scorching track.

Old is the elf, and wise, men say, / His hair grows green as ours grows grey; / He mocks the stars with myriad hands. / High as that swinging forest stands.

But though in pigmy wanderings dull / I scour the deserts of his skull, / I never find the face, eyes, teeth. / Lowering or laughing underneath.

I met my foe in an empty dell, / His face in the sun was naked hell. / I thought, 'One silent, bloody blow. / No priest would curse, no crowd would know.'

Then cowered: a daisy, half concealed, / Watched for the fame of that poor field; / And in that flower and suddenly / Earth opened its one eye on me.