Soporific

NO SHELTER

SOPORIFIC

Last night I dared not turn my head

And let Sleep ride upon my brain

Till all that you had done and said

Lay beaten out like faulty grain.

And at the tracks of stinging dust

The courser whinnied in mistrust:

Sleep would not pace along that way.

I cut a valley then through mountains

With every crag a glacier-goad,

And set a wall of frigid fountains

Down either side the narrow road;

And stabbing through the steely spray,

An eagle curved and cried for day,

And Sleep shied frantically away.

With images however strange

I cannot close you from the range

Where distantly the dark hooves pound.

And, in the end, your hands are wound

White in the clouded mane of Sleep,

When, down the canyons cold and steep,

He canters with a chiming neigh.