“Old Horse o’ Mine”
Hoof-beats, that rang on the crowded street,
Had never beat unto me
All the wealth of the gold in your old black hide,
All the grit of your loyalty;
But deep in the sand of a lonely land,
Out on many a far flung trail,
Your old hoofs spoke of a heart you broke
For me, that you might not fail.
Great eyes, that dusked in the green gums’ wave,
Though I recked not that you were there,
That danced or dulled at the whim mayhap
Of a fancy unaware—
How the mateship grew in the depths of you,
When the waste spread its gauntness wide.
How you parched with me, how you marched with me,
Through that Hell of a thirst denied.
Brave Soul that sprung in the colt of you,
Unguessed in the years far back,
Ere your Fate ran out from a land of streams
To the drought of a sun-blazed track—
For the days since seen, for the pals we’ve been,
When Old Time sees us through—
O! If then there be for the likes o’ me,
A Heav’n—it must hold you, too.
T. V. B.
