Let the night keep What the night takes, Sighs buried deep, Ancient heart-aches, Groans of the lover, Tears of the lost; Let day discover not All the night cost! Let the night keep Love’s burning bliss, Drowned in deep sleep Whisper and kiss, Thoughts like white flowers In hedges of May; Let such deep hours not Fade with the day! Monarch is night Of all eldest things, Pain and affright, Rapturous wings; Night the crown, night the sword Lifted to smite. Kneel to your overlord, Children of night! HOW TO CATCH UNICORNS Its cloven hoofprint on the sand Will lead you—where? Into a phantasmagoric land— Beware! There all the bright streams run up-hill. The birds on every tree are still. But from stocks and stones, clear voices come That should be dumb. If you have taken along a net, A noose, a prod, You’ll be waiting in the forest yet ... _Nid—nod!_ In a virgin’s lap the beast slept sound, _They say_ ... but I— I think (Is anyone around?) _That’s just a lie_! If you have taken a musketoon To flinders ’twill flash ’neath the wizard moon. So I should take browned batter-cake, Hot-buttered inside, like foam to flake. And I should take an easy heart And a whimsical face, And a tied-up lunch of sandwich and tart, And spread a cloth in the open chase. And then I should pretend to snore ... And I’d hear a snort and I’d hear a roar, The wind of a mane and a tail, and four Wild hoofs prancing the forest-floor. And I’d open my eyes on a flashing horn— And see the Unicorn! Paladins fierce and virgins sweet ... _But he’s never had anything to eat!_ Knights have tramped in their iron-mong’ry ... But nobody thought—that’s all!—_he’s hungry!_ ADDENDUM _Really_ hungry! Good Lord deliver us, The Unicorn is not _carnivorous_! _John Hall Wheelock_ John Hall Wheelock was born at Far Rockaway, Long Island, in 1886. He was graduated from Harvard, receiving his B.A. in 1908, and finished his studies at the Universities of Göttingen and Berlin, 1908-10.