THE UNICORN AND THE WHITE DOE

Unicorn with bursting heart
  Breath of love has drawn:
On his desolate crags apart,
  At rumor of dawn,

Has blared aloud his pride
  This long age mute,
Lurched his horn from side to side,
  Lunged with his foot.

`Like a storm of sand I run
  Breaking the desert's boundaries,
I go in hiding from the sun
  In thick shade of trees.

`Straight was the track I took
  Across the plains, but here with briar
And mire the tangled alleys crook,
  Baulking desire.

`O there, what glinted white?
  (A bough still shakes.)
What was it darted from my sight
  Through the forest brakes?

`Where are you fled from me?
  I pursue, you fade;
I run, you hide from me
  In the dark glade.

Towering high the trees grow,
  The grass grows thick.
Where you are I do not know,
  You run so quick.'


		Robert Graves