| |
| A HORSE amongst ten thousand! on the verge, | |
| The extremest verge, of equine life he stands; | |
| Yet mark his action, as those wild young colts | |
| Freed from the stock-yard gallop whinnying up; | |
| See how he trots towards them,—nose in air, | 5 |
| Tail arched, and his still sinewy legs out-thrown | |
| In gallant grace before him! A brave beast | |
| As ever spurned the moorland, ay, and more,— | |
| He bore me once,—such words but smite the truth | |
| I’ the outer ring, while vivid memory wakes, | 10 |
| Recalling now, the passion and the pain,— | |
| He bore me once from earthly Hell to Heaven! | |
| |
| The sight of fine old Widderin (that ’s his name, | |
| Caught from a peak, the topmost rugged peak | |
| Of tall Mount Widderin, towering to the North | 15 |
| Most like a steed’s head, with full nostrils blown, | |
| And ears pricked up),—the sight of Widderin brings | |
| That day of days before me, whose strange hours | |
| Of fear and anguish, ere the sunset, changed | |
| To hours of such content and full-veined joy | 20 |
| As Heaven can give our mortal lives but once. | |
| |
| Well, here ’s the story: While yon bush-fires sweep | |
| The distant ranges, and the river’s voice | |
| Pipes a thin treble through the heart of drouth, | |
| While the red heaven like some huge caldron’s top | 25 |
| Seems with the heat a-simmering, better far | |
| In place of riding tilt ’gainst such a sun, | |
| Here in the safe veranda’s flowery gloom, | |
| To play the dwarfish Homer to a song, | |
Whereof myself am hero:
Two decades | 30 |
| Have passed since that wild autumn-time when last | |
| The convict hordes from near Van Diemen, freed | |
| By force or fraud, swept, like a blood-red fire, | |
| Inland from beach to mountain, bent on raid | |
| And rapine. * * * * * | 35 |
| So, in late autumn,—’t was a marvellous morn, | |
| With breezes from the calm snow-river borne | |
| That touched the air, and stirred it into thrills, | |
| Mysterious and mesmeric, a bright mist | |
| Lapping the landscape like a golden trance, | 40 |
| Swathing the hill-tops with fantastic veils, | |
| And o’er the moorland-ocean quivering light | |
| As gossamer threads drawn down the forest aisles | |
| At dewy dawning,—on this marvellous morn, | |
| I, with four comrades, in this selfsame spot, | 45 |
| Watched the fair scene, and drank the spicy airs, | |
| That held a subtiler spirit than our wine, | |
| And talked and laughed, and mused in idleness,— | |
| Weaving vague fancies, as our pipe-wreaths curled | |
| Fantastic in the sunlight! I, with head | 50 |
| Thrown back, and cushioned snugly, and with eyes | |
| Intent on one grotesque and curious cloud, | |
| Puffed upward, that now seemed to take the shape | |
| Of a Dutch tulip, now a Turk’s face topped | |
| By folds on folds of turban limitless,— | 55 |
| Heard suddenly, just as the clock chimed one, | |
| To melt in musical echoes up the hills, | |
| Quick footsteps on the gravelled path without,— | |
| Steps of the couriers of calamity,— | |
| So my heart told me,—ere with blanched regards, | 60 |
| Two stalwart herdsmen on our threshold paused, | |
| Panting, with lips that writhed, and awful eyes;— | |
| A breath’s space in each other’s eyes we glared, | |
| Then, swift as interchange of lightning thrusts | |
| In deadly combat, question and reply | 65 |
| Clashed sharply, “What! the Rangers?” “Ay, by Heaven! | |
| And loosed in force,—the hell-hounds!” “Whither bound?” | |
| I stammered, hoarsely. “Bound,” the elder said, | |
| “Southward!—four stations had they sacked and burnt, | |
| And now, drunk, furious—” But I stopped to hear | 70 |
| No more: with booming thunder in mine ears, | |
| And blood-flushed eyes, I rushed to Widderin’s side, | |
| Drew tight the girths, upgathered curb and rein, | |
| And sprang to horse ere yet our laggard friends— | |
| Now trooping from the green veranda’s shade— | 75 |
Could dream of action!
Love had winged my will, | |
| For to the southward fair Garoopna held | |
| My all of hope, life, passion; she whose hair | |
| (Its tiniest strand of waving, witch-like gold) | |
| Had caught my heart, entwined, and bound it fast, | 80 |
| As ’t were some sweet enchantment’s heavenly net! | |
| |
| I only gave a hand-wave in farewell, | |
| Shot by, and o’er the endless moorland swept | |
| (Endless it seemed, as those weird, measureless plains, | |
| Which, in some nightmare vision, stretch and stretch | 85 |
| Towards infinity!) like some lone ship | |
| O’er wastes of sailless waters: now, a pine, | |
| The beacon pine gigantic, whose grim crown | |
| Signals the far land-mariner from out | |
| Gaunt boulders of the gray-backed Organ hill, | 90 |
| Rose on my sight, a mist-like, wavering orb, | |
| The while, still onward, onward, onward still, | |
| With motion winged, elastic, equable, | |
| Brave Widderin cleaved the air-tides, tossed aside | |
| The winds as waves, their swift, invisible breasts | 95 |
| Hissing with foam-like noise when pressed and pierced | |
| By that keen head and fiery-crested form! | |
| |
| The lonely shepherd guardian on the plains, | |
| Watching his sheep through languid, half-shut eyes, | |
| Looked up, and marvelled, as we passed him by, | 100 |
| Thinking, perchance, it was a glorious thing, | |
| So dressed, so booted, so caparisoned, | |
| To ride such bright blood-coursers unto death! | |
| Two sun-blacked natives, slumbering in the grass, | |
| Just rose betimes to ’scape the trampling hoofs, | 105 |
| And hurled hot curses at me as I sped; | |
| While here and there the timid kangaroo | |
| Blundered athwart the mole-hills, and in puffs | |
| Of steamy dust-cloud vanished like a mote! | |
| |
| Onward, still onward, onward, onward still! | 110 |
| And lo! thank Heaven, the mighty Organ hill, | |
| That seemed a dim blue cloudlet at the start, | |
| Hangs in aerial, fluted cliffs aloft,— | |
| And still as through the long, low glacis borne, | |
| Beneath the gorge borne ever at wild speed, | 115 |
| I saw the mateless mountain eagle wheel | |
| Beyond the stark height’s topmost pinnacle; | |
| I heard his shriek of rage and ravin die | |
| Deep down the desolate dells, as far behind | |
| I left the gorge, and far before me swept | 120 |
| Another plain, tree-bordered now, and bound | |
| By the clear river gurgling o’er its bed. | |
| |
| By this, my panting, but unconquered steed | |
| Had thrown his small head backward, and his breath | |
| Through the red nostrils burst in labored sighs; | 125 |
| I bent above his outstretched neck, I threw | |
| My quivering arms about him, murmuring low, | |
| “Good horse! brave heart! a little longer bear | |
| The strain, the travail; and thenceforth for thee | |
| Free pastures all thy days, till death shall come! | 130 |
| Ah, many and many a time, my noble bay, | |
| Her lily hand hath wandered through thy mane, | |
| Patted thy rainbow neck, and brought thee ears | |
| Of daintiest corn from out the farmhouse loft,— | |
Help, help to save her now!”
I ’ll vow the brute | 135 |
| Heard me, and comprehended what he heard! | |
| He shook his proud crest madly, and his eye | |
| Turned for a moment sideways, flashed in mine | |
| A lightning gleam, whose fiery language said, | |
| “I know my lineage, will not shame my sire,— | 140 |
| My sire, who rushed triumphant ’twixt the flags, | |
| And frenzied thousands, when on Epsom downs | |
| Arcturus won the Derby!—no, nor shame | |
| My granddam, whose clean body, half enwrought | |
| Of air, half fire, through swirls of desert sand | 145 |
| Bore Sheik Abdallah headlong on his prey!” | |
| |
| At last came forest shadows, and the road | |
| Winding through bush and bracken, and at last | |
| The hoarse stream rumbling o’er its quartz-sown crags. | |
| |
| “No, no! stanch Widderin! pause not now to drink; | 150 |
| An hour hence, and thy dainty nose shall dip | |
| In richest wine, poured jubilantly forth | |
| To quench thy thirst, my Beauty! but press on, | |
| Nor heed these sparkling waters.” God! my brain ’s | |
| On fire once more! an instant tells me all; | 155 |
| All! life or death,—salvation or despair! | |
| For yonder, o’er the wild grass-matted slope | |
| The house stands, or it stood but yesterday. | |
| |
| A Titan cry of inarticulate joy | |
| I raised, as, calm and peaceful in the sun, | 160 |
| Shone the fair cottage, and the garden-close, | |
| Wherein, white-robed, unconscious, sat my Love | |
| Lilting a low song to the birds and flowers. | |
| She heard the hoof-strokes, saw me, started up, | |
| And with her blue eyes wider than their wont, | 165 |
| And rosy lips half tremulous, rushed to meet | |
| And greet me swiftly. “Up, dear Love!” I cried, | |
| “The Convicts, the Bush-rangers! let us fly!” | |
| Ah, then and there you should have seen her, friend, | |
| My noble, beauteous Helen! not a tear, | 170 |
| Nor sob, and scarce a transient pulse-quiver, | |
| As, clasping hand in hand, her fairy foot | |
| Lit like a small bird on my horseman’s boot, | |
| And up into the saddle, lithe and light, | |
| Vaulting she perched, her bright curls round my face! | 175 |
| |
| We crossed the river, and, dismounting, led | |
| O’er the steep slope of blended rock and turf | |
| The wearied horse, and there behind a Tor | |
| Of castellated bluestone, paused to sweep | |
| With young keen eyes the broad plain stretched afar, | 180 |
| Serene and autumn-tinted at our feet: | |
| “Either,” said I, “these devils have gone east, | |
| To meet with bloodhound Desborough in his rage | |
| Between the granite passes of Luxorme, | |
| Or else—dear Christ! my Helen, low! stoop low!” | 185 |
| (These words were hissed in horror, for just then, | |
| ’Twixt the deep hollows of the river-vale, | |
| The miscreants, with mixed shouts and curses, poured | |
| Down through the flinty gorge tumultuously, | |
| Seeming, we thought, in one fierce throng to charge | 190 |
| Our hiding-place.) I seized my Widderin’s head, | |
| Blindfolding him, for with a single neigh | |
| Our fate were sealed o’ the instant! As they rode, | |
| Those wild, foul-languaged demons by our lair, | |
| Scarce twelve yards off, my troubled steed shook wide | 195 |
| His streaming mane, stamped on the earth, and pawed | |
| So loudly, that the sweat of agony rolled | |
| Down my cold forehead; at which point I felt | |
| My arm clutched, and a voice I did not know | |
| Dropped the low murmur from pale, shuddering lips, | 200 |
| “O God! if in those brutal hands I fall, | |
| Living, look not into your mother’s face | |
Or any woman’s more!”
What time had passed | |
| Above our bowed heads, we pent, pinioned there | |
| By awe and nameless horror, who shall tell? | 205 |
| Minutes, perchance, by mortal measurement, | |
| Eternity by heart-throbs!—when at length | |
| We turned, and eyes of mutual wonder raised, | |
| We gazed on alien faces, haggard, worn, | |
| And strange of feature as the faces born | 210 |
| In fever and delirium! Were we saved? | |
| We scarce could comprehend it, till from out | |
| The neighboring oak-wood rode our friends at speed, | |
| With clang of steel, and eyebrows bent in wrath. | |
| But, warned betimes, the wily ruffians fled | 215 |
| Far up the forest-coverts, and beyond | |
| The dazzling snow-line of the distant hills, | |
| Their yells of fiendish laughter pealing faint | |
| And fainter from the cloudland, and the mist | |
| That closed about them like an ash-gray shroud: | 220 |
| Yet were these wretches marked for imminent death: | |
| The next keen sunrise pierced the savage gorge, | |
| To which we tracked them, where, mere beasts at bay, | |
| Grimly they fought, and brute by brute they fell. | |
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