I crouched and I crawled on my belly, my lariat coil looped wide.
Dimly and dark the mesas broke on the starry sky.
A pall covered every color of their gorgeous glory at noon.
I smelt the yucca and mesquite, and stifled my heart’s quick cry,
And wormed and crawled on my belly to where he moved against the moon!
Some Moorish barb was that mustang’s sire. His lines were beyond all wonder.
From the prick of his ears to the flow of his tail he ached in my throat and eyes.
Steel and velvet grace! As the prophet says, God had “clothed his neck with thunder.”
Oh, marvelous with the drifting cloud he drifted across the skies!
And then I was near at hand—crouched, and balanced, and cast the coil;