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

That cannot reach him. From the highest hill,
He gazes o'er the wild whose plains he spurned,
And his eye kindles, and his breast expands,
With an upheaving consciousness of might.
He stands an instant, then he breaks away,
As revelling in his freedom. What if art,
That strikes soul into marble, could but seize
That agony of action, – could impress
Its muscular fulness, with its winged haste,
Upon the resisting rock, while wonder stares,
And admiration worships? There, – away —
As glorying in that mighty wilderness,
And conscious of the gazing skies o'erhead,
Quiver for flight, his sleek and slender limbs,
Elastic, springing into headlong force —
While his smooth neck, curved loftily to arch,
Dignifies flight, and to his speed imparts
The majesty, not else its attribute.
And, circling, now he sweeps, the flowery plain,
As if 'twere his – imperious, gathering up
His limbs, unwearied by their sportive play,
Until he stands, an idol of the sight.

He stands and trembles! The warm life is gone
That gave him action. Wherefore is it thus?
His eye hath lost its lustre, though it still
Sends forth a glance of consciousness and care,
To a deep agony of acuteness wrought,
And straining at a point – a narrow point —
That rises, but a speck upon the verge
Of the horizon. Sure, the humblest life,
Hath, in God's providence, some gracious guides,
That warn it of its foe. The danger there,
His instinct teaches, and with growing dread,
No more solicitous of graceful flight,
He bounds across the plain – he speeds away,
Into the tameless wilderness afar,
To 'scape his bondage. Yet, in vain his flight —
Vain his fleet limbs, his desperate aim, his leap
Through the close thicket, through the festering swamp,
And rushing waters. His proud neck must bend
Beneath a halter, and the iron parts
And tears his delicate mouth. The brave steed,
Late bounding in his freedom's consciousness,
The leader of the wild, unreached of all,
Wears gaudy trappings, and becomes a slave.

He bears a master on his shrinking back,
He feels a rowel in his bleeding flanks,
And his arched neck, beneath the biting thong,
Burns, while he bounds away – all desperate —
Across the desert, mad with the vain hope
To shake his burden off. He writhes, he turns
On his oppressor. He would rend the foe,
Who subtle, with less strength, had taken him thus,
At foul advantage – but he strives in vain.
A sudden pang – a newer form of pain,
Baffles, and bears him on – he feels his fate,
And with a shriek of agony, which tells,
Loudly, the terrors of his new estate,
He makes the desert – his own desert – ring
With the wild clamors of his new born grief.
One fruitless effort more – one desperate bound,
For the old freedom of his natural life,
And then he humbles to his cruel lot,
Submits, and finds his conqueror in man!

    W. G. Simms.

CHIQUITA

Beautiful! Sir, you may say so. Thar isn't her match in the county.
Is thar, old gal, – Chiquita, my darling, my beauty?
Feel of that neck, sir, – thar's velvet! Whoa! Steady, – ah,
will you, you vixen!
Whoa! I say. Jack, trot her out; let the gentleman look at her paces.

Morgan! – She ain't nothin' else, and I've got the papers to prove it.
Sired by Chippewa Chief, and twelve hundred dollars won't buy her.
Briggs of Tuolumne owned her. Did you know Briggs of Tuolumne? —
Busted hisself in White Pine, and blew out his brains down in 'Frisco?

Hedn't no savey – hed Briggs. Thar, Jack! that'll do, – quit that foolin'!
Nothin' to what she kin do, when she's got her work cut out before her.
Hosses is hosses, you know, and likewise, too, jockeys is jockeys;
And 'tain't ev'ry man as can ride as knows what a hoss has got in him.

Know the old ford on the Fork, that nearly got Flanigan's leaders?
Nasty in daylight, you bet, and a mighty rough ford in low water!
Well, it ain't six weeks ago that me and the Jedge and his nevey
Struck for that ford in the night, in the rain, and the water all round us;

Up to our flanks in the gulch, and Rattlesnake Creek just a bilin',
Not a plank left in the dam, and nary a bridge on the river.
I had the grey, and the Jedge had his roan, and his nevey, Chiquita;
And after us trundled the rocks jest loosed from the top of the cañon.

Lickity, lickity, switch, we came to the ford, and Chiquita
Buckled right down to her work, and afore I could yell to her rider,
Took water jest at the ford, and there was the Jedge and me standing,