English

" And some are sulky, while some will plunge.
( So ho! Steady! Stand still, you! )
Some you must gentle, and some you must lunge.
( There! There! Who wants to kill you? )
Some — there are losses in every trade —
Will break their hearts ere bitted and made,
Will fight like fiends as the rope cuts hard,
And die dumb-mad in the breaking-yard. "
Thrown Away .

" 'Stopped in the straight when the race was his own —
Look at him cutting it — cur to the bone! "
Ask ere the youngster be rated and chidden
What did he carry and how was he ridden?
Maybe they used him too much at the start.
Maybe Fate's weight-cloth is breaking his heart.
In the Pride of his Youth .

Go, stalk the red deer o'er the heather,
Ride, follow the fox if you can!
But, for pleasure and profit together,
Allow me the hunting of Man —
The chase of the Human, the search for the Soul
To its ruin — the hunting of Man.
Pig .

Cry " Murder " in the market-place, and each
Will turn upon his neighbour anxious eyes
Asking: " Art thou the man? " We hunted Cain
Some centuries ago across the world.
This bred the fear our own misdeeds maintain
To-day.
His Wedded Wife .

When the earth was sick and the skies were grey,
And the woods were rotted with rain,
The Dead Man rode through the autumn day
To visit his love again.

His love she neither saw nor heard,
So heavy was her shame;
And tho' the babe within her stirred
She knew not that he came.
The Other Man .

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken any way you please, is bad,
And strands them in forsaken guts and creeks
No decent soul would think of visiting.
You cannot stop the tide; but, now and then,
You may arrest some rash adventurer,
Who — h'm — will hardly thank you for your pains.
Kidnapped .

PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS

Look , you have cast out Love! What Gods are these
You bid me please?
The Three in One, the One in Three? Not so!
To my own Gods I go.
It may be they shall give me greater ease
Than your cold Christ and tangled Trinities.
Lispeth .

" WHAT 's that that hirples at my side? "
The foe that you must fight, my lord.
" That rides as fast as I can ride? "
The shadow of your might, my lord.

" Then wheel my horse against the foe! "
He's down and overpast, my lord.
You war against the sunset-glow,
The judgment follows fast, my lord!

" Oh, who will stay the sun's descent? "
King Joshua he is dead, my lord.
" I need an hour to repent! "
'Tis what our sister said, my lord.

" Oh, do not slay me in my sins! "

Roses red and roses white
Plucked I for my love's delight.
She would none of all my posies —
Bade me gather her blue roses.

Half the world I wandered through,
Seeking where such flowers grew.
Half the world unto my quest
Answered me with laugh and jest.

Home I came at wintertide,
But my silly love had died
Seeking with her latest breath
Roses from the arms of Death.

It may be beyond the grave
She shall find what she would have.
Mine was but an idle quest —
Roses white and red are best!

Yet at the last, ere our spearmen had found him,
Yet at the last, ere a sword-thrust could save,
Yet at the last, with his masters around him,
He spoke of the Faith as a master to slave.
Yet at the last, though the Kafirs had maimed him,
Broken by bondage and wrecked by the reiver,
Yet at the last, tho' the darkness had claimed him,
He called upon Allah, and died a Believer!