The huntsman waited
    in tanned leather,
sword in hand—at last, to
  gaze upon the creature.

Around its neck, a wealth
  of mane—striking golds,
    and fur gilded by
  the feverish crimson dusk,

and a goat’s head
  whose ragged ebony horns
curved, and the scales of its
  quicksilver back glistening.

In his slights, an utterance…
  a guttural growl upon movement,
yet he stands in its presence,
    unafraid; fascinated...

abandoning the pallid
  still-life of great beasts’
    mounted to our stony,
chamber walls of hollow conquest.

No longer intending to kill,
  instead pondering the
antiquity of Typhoeus
Echidna, Cerberus,

the Sphinx;  the mighty
plangency of those deep roars
through the temples
  of archaic gods!
 

And as if the creature knew
  to leave hostility alone as well,
it turned to the darkling brush,
  receding back in mystery.

At this, we lay down
our weapons,
        and honor
its complex design.