I was The Gateway. Here they came, and passed, <br />The homespun centaurs with their arms of steel <br />And taut heart-strings: wild wills, who thought to deal <br />Bare-handed with jade Fortune, tracked at last <br />Out of her silken lairs into the vast <br />Of a Man’s world. They passed, but still I feel <br />The dint of hoof, the print of booted heel, <br />Like prick of spurs--the shadows that they cast. <br />I do not vaunt their valors, or their crimes: <br />I tell my secrets only to some lover, <br />Some taster of spilled wine and scattered musk. <br />But I have not forgotten; and sometimes, <br />The things that I remember rise, and hover. <br />A sharper perfume in some April dusk.<br /><br />Karle Wilson Baker<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/nacogdoches-speaks/
