Quest

When all the world was fresh and young
   he ventured out alone
to seek the corners of the earth
and find a woman of true worth
   that he could call his own.  

And so he saddled his grey mare
   and when the sun was out
he rode into the month of May
for full a twelve month and a day
when all of nature was at play
   and nothing held a doubt.  

A bottle of wine in his saddle-bag,
   a hat to shade his eyes,
he felt he was borne from a life forlorn
   to milder and brighter skies.  

He rode uphill and down the dale,
along the river in the vale
and listened to the songbird's' tale
   and slept in soft, tall grass -
he hid in a church from the seaborne gale
and watched the very sun turn pale
to come back laughing, without fail,
   when the storm did pass.  

He met with rain and snow and ice,
   with waters salt and sweet,
in dusk or dew, each day anew,
   his mare was brisk and fleet.  

He rode her north, he rode her south,
   he rode her east and west
and tried his hand at the desert sand
   but nowhere felt at rest.  

And he met women, bold and shy,
and nice and nasty, honest, sly,
   and yet he couldn't see
in all those faces passing by
the one in which his heart could lie,
   his sweetheart for to be.  

Too coy, too clinging or too soft,
   too far out of his sphere,
too dim or dreary, sharp or eerie,
   too cheap or else too dear,
not one of them was the precious gem
   he searched for all that year.  

And when the year was past and done
   he turned his horse around -
and right at the door he'd left before
   that very face he found.