A Doe At Evening

A poem by David Herbert Lawrence

As I went through the marshes a doe sprang out of the corn and flashed up the hill-side leaving her fawn.

On the sky-line she moved round to watch, she pricked a fine black blotch on the sky.

I looked at her and felt her watching;
I became a strange being.
Still, I had my right to be there with her,

Her nimble shadow trotting along the sky-line, she put back her fine, level-balanced head.
And I knew her.

Ah yes, being male, is not my head hard-balanced, antlered?
Are not my haunches light?
Has she not fled on the same wind with me?
Does not my fear cover her fear?

IRSCHENHAUSEN