A POET'S APPEAL FOR THE NATURAL: 4. THE HORSE by WILLIAM STEWARD GORDON

For native rhythm, and poetry
Of motion, there's nothing like the horse.
Think not of proper, prosy nag
That shambles down the city street,
With all the equus fire burnt out!
Give me the Texan of the plains—
The long, lithe, red-nostriled kind,
With eyes white-framed, and bearded chin—
With wind like tireless hurricane—

The untamed Spirit of the West,
With heart half devil and half man,
That keeps you hopping when you mount,
And gallops wolf-like with the wind.
Ah, this is poetry itself—
The rhythmic thrill and throb of life,
No chuggy-chug of mere machine!
This is old Pégasus himself,
And more, for oft methinks that all
The muses of the mystic Nine
Became incarnate in the horse.

Far better this for poet heart
Than all the coin-cast plays,
With artificial stage, and mob
Of money-mad and pleasure-crazed.
Let me gallop on and on, into
The mystic table-land of Night,
Where fade from sight all marks of man.

And now I walk my horse and gaze
Into the starry pasture lands
That hang o'erhead—and hark! I hear
Above the tinkle of my spurs
The frozen echoes of the clang
Of steel, as in the icy still
The Great Bear drags his clinking chain
Across the trembling firmament.

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