The Song of the Dragoon

Black leather leggings
on that boy’s slender legs,
bitter stew
which your white hands, oh, woman, let burn,
and which he eats with a pewter fork
in the midst of the eternal lights
and his long lashes can be seen moving
and his white buttons
contending against the night
and his pensive cough can be heard
mingled with the barking
of the great purple-furred dogs
muzzles turned toward the stars.
It is then that he the convoy’s dragoon
rises and approaches the others
sitting on the wells
and all by himself intones the ballad that rises
and under the green heaven makes
the rats tremble in their kingdom.