The Mountain Hare

Every night when I was wed In my mind’s eye, in my wishful head I’d leave my man in the marriage bed And dance like a mountain hare When day was done and the small things said The dishes dried and the papers read I would lie in the house like a thing half dead Till I danced like a mountain hare When was the second I knew love fled? When I hung on a hook like a shot deer, bled And my heart stopped still like a ball of lead Till I danced like a mountain hare For the bounds of life had shrunk to a shed Spidery-dark, with a noose-like thread Where ill-will glutted by grievance fed No place for a mountain hare I would wish each wife who lies in dread Waiting the creak on the stairs, the tread Of the mate who shares her daily bread The joy of the mountain hare Up where the setting sun burns red To run like the wind, with the whole world spread Under your feet, to freedom bred The flight of the mountain hare