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| THERE he moved, cropping the grass at the purple canyon’s lip. | |
| His mane was mixed with the moonlight that silvered his snow-white side, | |
| For the moon sailed out of a cloud with the wake of a spectral ship, | |
| I crouched and I crawled on my belly, my lariat coil looped wide. | |
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| Dimly and dark the mesas broke on the starry sky. | 5 |
| A pall covered every color of their gorgeous glory at noon. | |
| I smelt the yucca and mesquite, and stifled my heart’s quick cry, | |
| And wormed and crawled on my belly to where he moved against the moon! | |
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| Some Moorish barb was that mustang’s sire. His lines were beyond all wonder. | |
| From the prick of his ears to the flow of his tail he ached in my throat and eyes. | 10 |
| Steel and velvet grace! As the prophet says, God had “clothed his neck with thunder.” | |
| Oh, marvelous with the drifting cloud he drifted across the skies! | |
| |
| And then I was near at hand—crouched, and balanced, and cast the coil; | |
| And the moon was smothered in cloud, and the rope through my hands with a rip! | |
| But somehow I gripped and clung, with the blood in my brain aboil,— | 15 |
| With a turn round the rugged tree-stump there on the purple canyon’s lip. | |
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| Right into the stars he reared aloft, his red eye rolling and raging. | |
| He whirled and sunfished and lashed, and rocked the earth to thunder and flame. | |
| He squealed like a regular devil horse. I was haggard and spent and aging— | |
| Roped clean, but almost storming clear, his fury too fierce to tame. | 20 |
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| And I cursed myself for a tenderfoot moon-dazzled to play the part, | |
| But I was doubly desperate then, with the possé pulled out from town, | |
| Or I’d never have tried it. I only knew I must get a mount and a start. | |
| The filly had snapped her foreleg short. I had had to shoot her down. | |
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| So there he struggled and strangled, and I snubbed him around the tree. | 25 |
| Nearer, a little nearer—hoofs planted, and lolling tongue— | |
| Till a sudden slack pitched me backward. He reared right on top of me. | |
| Mother of God—that moment! He missed me … and up I swung. | |
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| Somehow, gone daft completely and clawing a bunch of his mane, | |
| As he stumbled and tripped in the lariat, there I was—up and astride | 30 |
| And cursing for seven counties! And the mustang? Just insane! | |
| Crack-bang! went the rope; we cannoned off the tree—then—gods, that ride! | |
| |
| A rocket—that’s all, a rocket! I dug with my teeth and nails. | |
| Why, we never hit even the high spots (though I hardly remember things), | |
| But I heard a monstrous booming like a thunder of flapping sails | 35 |
| When he spread—well, call me a liar!—when he spread those wings, those wings! | |
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| So white that my eyes were blinded, thick-feathered and wide unfurled, | |
| They beat the air into billows. We sailed, and the earth was gone. | |
| Canyon and desert and mesa withered below, with the world. | |
| And then I knew that mustang; for I—was Bellerophon! | 40 |
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| Yes, glad as the Greek, and mounted on a horse of the elder gods, | |
| With never a magic bridle or a fountain-mirror nigh! | |
| My chaps and spurs and holster must have looked it? What’s the odds? | |
| I’d a leg over lightning and thunder, careering across the sky! | |
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| And forever streaming before me, fanning my forehead cool, | 45 |
| Flowed a mane of molten silver; and just before my thighs | |
| (As I gripped his velvet-muscled ribs, while I cursed myself for a fool), | |
| The steady pulse of those pinions—their wonderful fall and rise! | |
| |
| The bandanna I bought in Bowie blew loose and whipped from my neck. | |
| My shirt was stuck to my shoulders and ribboning out behind. | 50 |
| The stars were dancing, wheeling and glancing, dipping with smirk and beck. | |
| The clouds were flowing, dusking and glowing. We rode a roaring wind. | |
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| We soared through the silver starlight to knock at the planets’ gates. | |
| New shimmering constellations came whirling into our ken. | |
| Red stars and green and golden swung out of the void that waits | 55 |
| For man’s great last adventure; the Signs took shape—and then | |
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| I knew the lines of that Centaur the moment I saw him come! | |
| The musical-box of the heavens all around us rolled to a tune | |
| That tinkled and chimed and trilled with silver sounds that struck you dumb, | |
| As if some archangel were grinding out the music of the moon. | 60 |
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| Melody-drunk on the Milky Way, as we swept and soared hilarious, | |
| Full in our pathway, sudden he stood—the Centaur of the Stars, | |
| Flashing from head and hoofs and breast! I knew him for Sagittarius. | |
| He reared, and bent and drew his bow. He crouched as a boxer spars. | |
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| Flung back on his haunches, weird he loomed—then leapt—and the dim void lightened. | 65 |
| Old White Wings shied and swerved aside, and fled from the splendor-shod. | |
| Through a flashing welter of worlds we charged. I knew why my horse was frightened. | |
| He had two faces—a dog’s and a man’s—that Babylonian god! | |
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| Also, he followed us real as fear. Ping! went an arrow past. | |
| My broncho buck-jumped, humping high. We plunged … I guess that’s all! | 70 |
| I lay on the purple canyon’s lip, when I opened my eyes at last— | |
| Stiff and sore and my head like a drum, but I broke no bones in the fall. | |
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| So you know—and now you may string me up. Such was the way you caught me. | |
| Thank you for letting me tell it straight, though you never could greatly care. | |
| For I took a horse that wasn’t mine!… But there’s one the heavens brought me, | 75 |
| And I’ll hang right happy, because I know he is waiting for me up there. | |
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| From creamy muzzle to cannon-bone, by God, he’s a peerless wonder! | |
| He is steel and velvet and furnace-fire, and death’s supremest prize; | |
| And never again shall be roped on earth that neck that is “clothed with thunder” … | |
| String me up, Dave! Go dig my gravel! I rode him across the skies! | 80 |
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