THE WHITE STEED OF THE PRAIRIES
Mount, mount for the chase! let your lassos be strong,
And forget not sharp spur and tough buffalo thong;
For the quarry ye seek hath oft baffled, I ween,
Steeds swift as your own, backed by hunters as keen.
Fleet barb of the prairie, in vain they prepare
For thy neck, arched in beauty, the treacherous snare;
Thou wilt toss thy proud head, and with nostrils stretched wide,
Defy them again, as thou still hast defied.
Trained nags of the course, urged by rowel and rein,
Have cracked their strong thews in the pursuit in vain;
While a bow-shot in front, without straining a limb,
The wild courser careered as ’twere pastime to him.
Ye may know him at once, though a herd be in sight,
As he moves o’er the plain like a creature of light—
His mane streaming forth from his beautiful form
Like the drift from a wave that has burst in the storm.
Not the team of the Sun, as in fable portrayed,
Through the firmament rushing in glory arrayed,
Could match, in wild majesty, beauty and speed,
That tireless, magnificent, snowy-white steed.
Much gold for his guerdon, promotion and fame,
Wait the hunter who captures that fleet-footed game;
Let them bid for his freedom, unbridled, unshod,
He will roam till he dies through these pastures of God.
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And ye think on his head your base halters to fling!
So ye shall—when yon Eagle has lent you his wing;
But no slave of the lash that your stables contain
Can e’er force to a gallop the steed of the Plain!
His fields have no fence save the mountain and sky;
His drink the snow-capped Cordilleras supply;
’Mid the grandeur of nature sole monarch is he,
And his gallant heart swells with the pride of the free.
The legend of the White Steed of the Prairies has almost died out. One can pick it up now only from the older generation, from those who have recollections of the open country when Texas was held together by rawhide and dominated by horsemen. When one of these early Texans was asked if he had heard of the Pacing White Stallion, he replied: “Yes, I have heard of him from the Canadian to the Llano.” But one finds little variation in these stories. There is no room for the White Steed of the Prairies in a country where horses are no longer wild and free. He is now all but a forgotten memory of a past unreality.[4]
[1] George Wilkins Kendall gave this account in his Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, New York, 1844, pp. 89–90. Prior to this Kendall had written some sketches for the New Orleans Picayune, one of which was about the Pacing White Stallion. It was this account that he incorporated in the book. Doubtless many of the later written accounts are based upon Kendall’s. [↑]
[2] The reason some of the mustangs were alone was due to the fact that the stallion leader had driven the younger and weaker horses from the herd. Since these horses were young, they would naturally often have good form. The color is hard to account for. Many of the mustangs were vari-colored, but it is doubtful if there was ever a solid white horse. [↑]
[3] The poem appeared in The Democratic Review, XII, 367f., accompanied by a condensation of Kendall’s story taken from the Picayune. [↑]
[4] Destined to be preserved for generations yet in his offspring in Emerson Hough’s North of 36. Zane Grey has also introduced him into fiction, in The Last of the Plainsmen.—Editor. [↑]