In the Saddle: A Collection of Poems on Horseback-Riding

The air of the valley has felt the chill:
The workers pause at the door of the mill;
The housewife, keen to the shivering air,
Arrests her foot on the cottage stair,
Instinctive taught by the mother-love,
And thinks of the sleeping ones above.
Why start the listeners? Why does the course
Of the mill-stream widen? Is it a horse —
Hark to the sound of his hoofs, they say —
That gallops so wildly Williamsburg way!

God! what was that, like a human shriek
From the winding valley? Will nobody speak?
Will nobody answer those women who cry
As the awful warnings thunder by?

Whence come they? Listen! And now they hear
The sound of the galloping horse-hoofs near;
They watch the trend of the vale, and see
The rider who thunders so menacingly,
With waving arms and warning scream
To the home-filled banks of the valley stream.
He draws no rein, but he shakes the street
With a shout and the ring of the galloping feet;
And this the cry he flings to the wind:
"To the hills for your lives! The flood is behind!"

He cries and is gone; but they know the worst —
The breast of the Williamsburg dam has burst!
The basin that nourished their happy homes
Is changed to a demon – It comes! it comes!

A monster in aspect, with shaggy front
Of shattered dwellings, to take the brunt
Of the homes they shatter – white-maned and hoarse,
The merciless Terror fills the course

Of the narrow valley, and rushing raves,
With Death on the first of its hissing waves,
Till cottage and street and crowded mill
Are crumbled and crushed.

But onward still,
In front of the roaring flood is heard
The galloping horse and the warning word.
Thank God! the brave man's life is spared!
From Williamsburg town he nobly dared
To race with the flood and take the road
In front of the terrible swath it mowed.
For miles it thundered and crashed behind,
But he looked ahead with a steadfast mind;
"They must be warned!" was all he said,
As away on his terrible ride he sped.

When heroes are called for, bring the crown
To this Yankee rider: send him down
On the stream of time with the Curtius old;
His deed as the Roman's was brave and bold,
And the tale can as noble a thrill awake,
For he offered his life for the people's sake.

    John Boyle O'Reilly.

A TALE OF PROVIDENCE

The tall green tree its shadow cast
Upon Howe's army that southward passed
From Gordon's Ford to the Quaker town,
Intending in quarters to settle down
Till snows were gone, and spring again
Should easier make a new campaign.

Beyond the fences that lined the way,
The fields of Captain Richardson lay;
His woodland and meadows reached far and wide,
From the hills behind to the Schuylkill's side,
Across the stream, in the mountain gorge,
He could see the smoke of the valley forge.

The Captain had fought in the frontier war;
When the fight was done, bearing seam and scar,
He marched back home to tread once more
The same tame round he had trod before,
And turn his thoughts with sighs of regret
To his ploughshares, wishing them sword-blades yet.

He put the meadow in corn that year,
And swore till his blacks were white with fear.
He plowed, and planted, and married a wife,
But life grew weary with inward strife.
His blood was hot and his throbbing brain
Beat with the surf of some far main.

Should he sack a town, or rob the mail,
Or on the wide seas a pirate sail?
He pondered it over, concluding instead,
To buy three steeds in Arabia bred,
On Sopus, Fearnaught, or Scipio,
He felt his blood more evenly flow.