IV. The Curée ( from A Quartet For the Falcon)

The secretive hart turns at bay, lowers his tines to the hounds’ cry. The sword enters the bull’s heart— still he stands, amazed on the red sand as the stony unbeliever might, who has seen God. Soon now horns will sound dedow for the unmaking. Beaters flush the grey heron like a coney from its warren, the peregrine’s jet eyes flash. They go ringing up the air, each in its separate spiral stair to the indigo rim of the skies, then descend swift as a murderer’s hand with a knife. Death’s gesture liquefies in bringing the priestly heron down. Her prize, the marrow from a wing-bone in which she delights, her spurred fleur-de-lys tongue stained gold-vermilion— little angel in her hangman’s hood.