My bride enticed me from afar,
Nyx’s gloaming urging haste;
Stirred, toasted I the rosy bar
As dusk’s long shadows raced.
I made to mount my chestnut mare,
She nickered, nostrils flared:
There in the gutt’ring stable-light
A cowled figure, turning, stared.
Hoof-prints stamped the acrid straw, my
Steed skirted crabwise past,
I kept tight rein to lead her by;
One parting nod then cast.
From cobble-sparks to mudded tor,
Unfolded countryside,
We cantered to a tumult roar,
Where moss and lichens vied.
Heather gave way to tumbled stone,
Rock echoed a whistle,
Fear pierced the marrow, iced the bone:
Horse gave man to thistle.
Head spinning as I chased blurred stars,
Bare-necked: my pendant lost,
Soles came unstuck from sodden boots
Jewelled by creeping frost.
As the windswept moor blew my hair
Through moonlit shades of gray,
Artemis left a cairn dark there
Where dead bulrushes lay.
Formed as my misting breath grew sharp,
Fog thick with midden must,
A ghoul horse-backed: I pulled my dirk;
Nails cracked, steel turned to rust.
I, mortal man becoming fey,
Knelt in the barrow mound:
My lost St. Christopher there lay,
Tarnished under the ground.
Wraith, spider fed, was manifest;
Spawn of that barren womb,
I, hapless donor laid to rest,
Took its eternal tomb.
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