Norman Cameron: Shepherdess

All day my sheep have mingled with yours. They strayed
Into your valley seeking a change of ground.
Held and bemused with what they and I had found,
Pastures and wonders, heedlessly I delayed.

Now it is late. The tracks leading home are steep.
The stars and landmarks in your country are strange.
How can I take my sheep back over the range?
Shepherdess, show me now where I may sleep.


Written in the late 1940s or early 1950s. The third in a sequence entitled "Three Love Poems". Using sheep - soft, silly, flighty but not without solidity - as a symbol of love works superbly, if Cameron intended to depict the love as domesticated yet resisting domestication.