A letter from Aleta tells the speaker that May has changed. Once bold and fearless, she is now weak, burdened, and given to strange mutterings. She no longer leaps onto a difficult horse and rides without fear. Instead, she struggles alone to support three children.
But the speaker refuses to let go of the old image of her. He remembers Wild May as a vivid, reckless figure cantering down risky roads, her bright headscarf fluttering in the wind during December market days. Even other girls admired her. The closing lines create a bittersweet, almost angry mood: what broke her was not age or accident, but sex and the role it forced her into. The poem mourns a free spirit turned into a slave.