The Bestiary

IN pale moon fields the unicorn,
Crowned by his diamond-piercing horn,
Is hunted, though with poor success.
Man’s trespass he will not endure;
Woman, to tame him, must be pure.
Alas! This causes awkwardness.

Through hoary legend and old rhyme
He swims Atlantic tides of time.
Andromeda was once his prey,
And rumor says to Jonah he
Showed depths of hospitality,
And that he sails the blue to-day.

He was the ancient Hebrews’ friend
That to the desert they would send
With all their sins for company,
While, good and dull, they stayed behind.
The emissary did not mind:
‘Why, these are pleasure trips,’ said he.

About the blacksmith’s red forge dance
Elves whom King Francis First of France
Bore on his shield. And, leaping higher,
Around the family hearth they flit.
But men grow bald if on them spit
These glowing scarlet sprites of fire.

Twelve-footed, with a puppy’s whine,
On sea salts only did she dine
(Homer himself has told us this).
Thrusting her six heads through the wave
She snatched up sailors to her cave,
And had for neighbor Charybdis.

White-pinioned steed whose flight is far —
To realms beyond the utmost star,
Where is your glory soaring now?

Here lies a feather from your wing;
There, in your hoofprint, flowers spring;
But men have chained you to a plough.

Cathedrals are the habitat
Of these unlovely creatures that
Perform their sacred office well.
The sins loosed in confessionals
They spout, with water, from the walls,
Ejecting thus both rain and hell.

Horses that fed on men were these,
Captured by mighty Hercules
In sanguine pasture fields of Thrace.
Then on Arcadian hill and hollow
They roved till wild beasts of Apollo
With redder fangs destroyed their race.

The webbed and clawed porphyrions
Abode with family skeletons
Because their magic was to know
When wives betrayed, and then they cried
On husbands’ bosoms till they died. . . .
They were extinct long, long ago.

Once, through old sacred mountain glades,
Galloped the man-horse cavalcades.
Ixion, their bright sire, then
Wheeled overhead; their dam, the cloud,
Bathed their sleek sides. . . . O base and proud,
Now your sharp hoofs tear hearts of men!

This lion-eagle’s flaming breast
Guards in the sun his golden nest
And orbs of fire strike thieves dead.
So, to his treasure, men are blind —
Still , . . one or two declare him kind; Poets can charm him, it is said.

High-eyried on an Eden palm,
His gold wings dripping sweetest balm,
One sings with everlasting breath
Whom Eve sought vainly to entice. . . .
Now, nowhere, save in Paradise,
Dwells Beauty free from taint of death.