STRENGTH BEYOND STRENGTH
"If thou hast run with the footmen and they have wearied thee, what wilt thou do with the horsemen?"
Breathless, beaten as with whips of wonder,
Scourged and naked to the flying sky,—
Yet have I heard the hoofs of thunder,
Seen the horsemen glimmering by.
Head back, teeth bared, eyes aglitter,
Questioning still the black reply,
Laboring stride and breath grown bitter—
Phantom horsemen swerving by!
Foot on the flint and burning, parching
Death at the throat, with gall to taste.
Rank on rank are the footmen marching,
Wave on wave do the footmen haste!
Past and past me toiled and slowing,
Gasping breathing and straining limb,—
Rank on rank are the footmen going
Forward to fog and the distance dim.
Sledge on the brain and huge hands crushing
Hard on my heart that they wring at will.
Wave on wave are the footmen rushing,
Surging in silence across the hill.
Sudden lit road they run together
Just as the cloven mist-wreaths close!
Each, each strives by a stirrup-leather
Where some glimmering horseman goes!
Iron in sinew, steel persuasion
Now of the weak and sobbing will;
Scorn that beats on the old evasion;
Limbs that move for the further hill.
Teeth clenched hard on an execration,
Chin sunk deep on a laboring chest—
Racing death with a revelation,
Dead and done with—but forging abreast,
Forging past them and past, and gaining
Once again to my hard-fought place.
Lord of Runners, requite my feigning!
Help me only to run this race!
Head-down, plunged through the roiling weather,
Flinging the sweat from a straining brow,—
Now, I run by your stirrup-leather.
Golden Horseman, I see you now!