I was The Gateway. Here they came, and passed,

The homespun centaurs with their arms of steel

And taut heart-strings: wild wills, who thought to deal

Bare-handed with jade Fortune, tracked at last

Out of her silken lairs into the vast

Of a man’s world. They passed, but still I feel

The dint of hoof, the print of booted heel,

Like prick of spurs—the shadows that they cast.

I do not vaunt their valors, or their crimes:

I tell my secrets only to some lover,

Some taster of spilled wine and scattered musk.

But I have not forgotten; and, sometimes,

The things that I remember arise, and hover,

A sharper perfume in some April dusk.