Riders To Avalon Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

Beautiful flaxen-haired one
Daughter of the Sea-King
Riding alone from the beach
Outlined on the hillside
As the sun sets westward.

Spindrift lady of the wave-crests
On your father's white horse
Chased inland by the deer hunters
The protectors of the shores
Brought to bay by their leader.

Too late in chastened hesitation
To break the encirclement
Fascinated by the strangers
So much like and so much not
In the meeting's enchantment.

Pale princess, fairy and bewitched
At the mercy of a love of the land
Taken aback by the hero youth -
The bright bronze bridle seized
That she should come to fastness.

But her horse stalled and would not move
At which, while holding her gaze he
Mounted the sure-swift steed
To take its reins and she for fear
Grasped his waist as the stallion flinched.

Then the wondrous horse Enbarr,
Shaking his mane, free now of curb and rein
Bolted abruptly, swiftly for the shore
Galloping down to the broad, dry beach
Thence into the sun-dipped shallows.

Until his furious hooves, plashing the surf
Bore his prize of lovers to the open sea
And across its waves and wastes
To Avalon the Blossomed Isle of Apples -
Home to the mares and fillies of his following.

It was thus the riders were borne to Eden,
Neve the pearl-pale high-born lady of the sea
And Oisin the land-guardian, hunter and hero -
Set down at last on the gold-screed beach
All former longings faint and only scarce recalled.

O treacherous and self-willed steed
Tremulous, headstrong and untrammelled
Bearing heedlessly, endlessly into the night
Those lost to the ride's enticements
Amidst the sea-spray moonlit storm

How many others have you deceived
Coupled by your breakneck homeward flight
Thighs and limbs locked against your flanks
Aching for release from clouded blissful pain
In the headlong riding of the tides of love?