Poem by Robert Graves

Unicorn and the White Doe

  ‘Alone
  Through forests evergreen,
  By legend known,
  By no eye seen,
  Unmated
  Unbaited
  Untrembling between
  The shifting shadows
  The sudden echoes,
  Deathless I go
  Unheard, unseen,’
  Says the White Doe.

  Unicorn with bursting heart
    Breath of love has drawn
  On his desolate crags apart
    At rumour of dawn,

  Has volleyed forth his pride
    Twenty thousand years mute,
  Tossed his horn from side to side
    Lunged with his foot.

  ‘Like a storm of sand I run
    Breaking the desert’s boundaries,
  I go in hiding from the sun
    In thick shade of trees

  Straight was the track I took
    Across the plains, but here with briar
  And mire the tangled alleys crook
    Baulking my desire.

  Ho, there! what glinted white?
    (A bough still shakes)
  What was it darted from my sight
    Through the forest brakes?

  Where are you fled from me?
    I pursue, you fade;
  I run, you hide from me
    In the dark glade.

  Towering straight the trees grow,
    The grass grows thick.
  Where you are, I do not know,
    You fly so quick.’

  ‘Seek me not here
  Lodged among mortal deer,’
  Says the White Doe,
  ‘Keeping one place
  Held by the ties of space,’
  Says the White Doe.
  ‘I
  Equally
  In air
  Above your bare
  Hill crest, your basalt lair,
  Mirage reflected drink
  At the clear pool’s brink
  With tigers at play
  In the glare of day
  Blithely I stray,
  Under shadow of myrtle
  With Phoenix and his Turtle
  For all time true,
  With Gryphons at grass
  Under the Upas,
  Sipping warm dew
  That falls hourly new,
  I, unattainable
  Complete, incomprehensible
  No mate for you.
  In sun’s beam
  Or star-gleam,
  No mate for you
  No mate for you,’
  Says the White Doe.

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2. Cynics and Romantics
3. Sullen Moods
4. In the Wilderness
5. The Cool Web

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