She has a lover and will have a child And I’m alone. I had forgotten that, Though you’d not think it easy to forget. No, we’ll not go together. The cries beat Like hail upon the cold panes of my heart Faster and faster, till they crack the glass And I can know at last how old I am.

That is my punishment and my defence, My ecstasy and my deep-seated bane. I prayed to life for life once, in my youth, Between the rain and a long stroke of cloud Till my soaked limbs felt common with the sky And the black stone of heaven swung aside, With a last clap of water, to reveal Lonely and timid, after all that wrath, The small, cold, perfect flower of the new moon And now, perhaps, I’ll pray again tonight, Still to the life that used me as a man Uses and wears a strong and riotous horse, Still to the vagrants of no fortunate word.