Part 27 (1/2)

What care have I ever to know His owner by sight or by name?

The horse that I glory in so Is still the magnificent same.

I own I am proud of the pluck Of the sportsman that never was bought; But the nag that spread-eagled the ruck Is bound to be first in my thought.

For who that has masculine flame, Or who that is thorough at all, Can help feeling joy in the fame Of this king of the kings of the stall?

What odds if a.s.sumption has sealed His soulless hereafter abode, So long as he shows to his ”field”

The gleam of his hoofs, and the road?

Beyond Kerguelen

Down in the South, by the waste without sail on it, Far from the zone of the blossom and tree, Lieth, with winter and whirlwind and wail on it, Ghost of a land by the ghost of a sea.

Weird is the mist from the summit to base of it; Sun of its heaven is wizened and grey; Phantom of life is the light on the face of it-- Never is night on it, never is day!

Here is the sh.o.r.e without flower or bird on it; Here is no litany sweet of the springs-- Only the haughty, harsh thunder is heard on it, Only the storm, with the roar in its wings!

Shadow of moon is the moon in the sky of it-- Wan as the face of a wizard, and far!

Never there s.h.i.+nes from the firmament high of it Grace of the planet or glory of star.

All the year round, in the place of white days on it-- All the year round where there never is night-- Lies a great sinister, bitter, blind haze on it: Growth that is neither of darkness nor light!

Wild is the cry of the sea in the caves by it-- Sea that is smitten by spears of the snow; Desolate songs are the songs of the waves by it-- Down in the south, where the s.h.i.+ps never go.

Storm from the Pole is the singer that sings to it Hymns of the land at the planet's grey verge.

Thunder discloses dark, wonderful things to it-- Thunder and rain, and the dolorous surge.

Hills with no hope of a wing or a leaf on them, Scarred with the chronicles written by flame, Stare, through the gloom of inscrutable grief on them, Down on the horns of the gulfs without name.

Cliffs, with the records of fierce flying fires on them-- Loom over perilous pits of eclipse; Alps, with anathema stamped in the spires on them-- Out by the wave with a curse on its lips.

Never is sign of soft, beautiful green on it-- Never the colour, the glory of rose!

Neither the fountain nor river is seen on it, Naked its crags are, and barren its snows!

Blue as the face of the drowned is the sh.o.r.e of it-- Sh.o.r.e, with the capes of indefinite cave.

Strange is the voice of its wind, and the roar of it Startles the mountain and hushes the wave.

Out to the south and away to the north of it, Spectral and sad are the s.p.a.ces untold!

All the year round a great cry goeth forth of it-- Sob of this leper of lands in the cold.

No man hath stood, all its bleak, bitter years on it-- Fall of a foot on its wastes is unknown: Only the sound of the hurricane's spears on it Breaks with the shout from the uttermost zone.

Blind are its bays with the shadow of bale on them; Storms of the nadir their rocks have uphurled; Earthquake hath registered deeply its tale on them-- Tale of distress from the dawn of the world!

_There_ are the gaps, with the surges that seethe in them-- Gaps in whose jaws is a menace that glares!

_There_ the wan reefs, with the merciless teeth in them, Gleam on a chaos that startles and scares!

Back in the dawn of this beautiful sphere, on it-- Land of the dolorous, desolate face-- Beamed the blue day; and the bountiful year on it Fostered the leaf and the blossom of grace.

Grand were the lights of its midsummer noon on it-- Mornings of majesty shone on its seas; Glitter of star and the glory of moon on it Fell, in the march of the musical breeze.