My plunge into eternity she meant to dig my grave!
And I, that ne'er could calmly hear a horse's ears at play—
Or hear without a yard of jump his shrill and sudden neigh—
Whose foot within a stable-door had never stood an inch—
Whose hand to pat a living steed would feel an awful flinch,—
I that had never thrown a leg across a pony small,
To scour the pathless desert on the tallest of the tall!
For oh! it is no fable, but at ev'ry look I cast,
Her restless legs seem'd twice as long as when I saw them last!
In agony I shook,—and yet, although congealed by fears,