Hounds on the Mountain

Slow the dull fulcrum, slow the arched leanings

Of hill on hill and witless lifting of stark eyes

To craven stone. White the wet lattice of morning

Over dusty drums, and keen the agony of dry roots

Questing beneath the earth.

Lean as brown straws

The hounds of day tread out thickets of darkness,

Damp the grasses their bodies have brushed in passing,

Thinner than fly-wings, heavier than words in a cavern,

Wilder than thoughts creaming the tongue unspoken.

Hounds on the mountain . . .

Grey and swift-spinning, the quarry shall turn

At the cove’s ending, at the slow day’s breaking,

And lave the violent shadows with her blood.