Poems for Children

The dark ones fed on the unicorn.

I heard them roar as it fell to the ground

And saw it toss its gorgeous, proud horn,

And the queer, blackened creatures who brought it down:

 

Those low, repulsive, ravenous things

With their bloody teeth and bloody tongues!

And the sun was blackened by withered wings

As they swarmed to the kill, the old with the young.

 

They cried their weird cry, and long hollow groan,

And clawed at each other, and bickered, and fought

To strip the shivering flesh from the bone

And lap up the brains and swallow the heart.

 

At last a skeleton, fragile and white,

Was all that remained of the beautiful thing

And all the rude creatures had scattered from sight

As a low sun cast out its red and gold rings.

 

I slowly emerged from my hiding space

And wept at the brutishness I had seen.

How could I abandon the bones in that place

To crumble alone in the snow and the rain?

 

So I felt the wind stir, and I gathered each bone,

And I bundled them up with the gorgeous, proud horn,

And carried them all to a cavern of stone

Well-hidden in tangles of bramble and thorn.

 

Once back in the cavern, with skill I remade

The unicorn's frame: each joint was restrung

With red satin ribbon, new teeth of bright jade,

A polished and laughing mahogany tongue,

 

Bright jewels for the eye-socket, jewels for the skull:

Ruby and pearl.  From a spinning-wheel came

Threads of bright gold for the mane and the tail,

And the heart, a lantern of onyx and flame.

 

At night when the elm trees are whispering low,

I sing an old lullaby to him and name

The grief that his features are too proud to show,

And I kindle the lantern of onyx and flame.

 

And drowsing at last by the firelight, soon

I see a form leaping the bramble and thorn;

He shouts at the sun, and laughs at the moon,

And rears up, tossing his gorgeous, proud horn.