I tried to ride my Pegasus indoors, Twisting and turning, bending over backwards To clear each lintel and get through every door. Like Doctor Johnson’s standing dog, I made Such tricks a legend in the riding trade — The wonder that it could be done at all, But poetry’s a wild and willful jade Not easily tamed, nor locked up in a stall; Not made for pawing in a lecture room Or fancy jumping at a riding school Or prancing children on the carousel.

I tried to ride my Pegasus indoors To please a pack of asses, come to bray At my fool antics, grudging me applause And letting me collect a little hay. I should have seen they hated my high horse — The naked force of poetry itself (Unless it was book-glue, bound on the shelf). I throw away the bridle, bit and whip: My Pegasus was made to mount the stars. What if he throws me, breaks my neck in mud. I clutch his mane and whisper in his ear And hug him closer to me than my blood.