Yes, glad as the Greek, and mounted on a horse of the elder gods,

With never a magic bridle or a fountain-mirror nigh!

My chaps and spurs and holster must have looked it? What's the odds?

I'd a leg over lightning and thunder, careering across the sky!

And forever streaming before me, fanning my forehead cool, Flowed a mane of molten silver; and just before my thighs (As I gripped his velvet-muscled ribs, while I cursed myself for a fool),

The steady pulse of those pinions-their wonderful fall and rise!

The bandanna I bought in Bowie blew loose and whipped from my neck.

My shirt was stuck to my shoulders and ribboning out.

behind.

The stars were dancing, wheeling and glancing, dipping with smirk and beck.

The clouds were flowing, dusking and glowing. We rode a roaring wind.

We soared through the silver starlight to knock at the planets' gates.

New shimmering constellations came whirling into our ken. Red stars and green and golden swung out of the void that

waits

The Horse Thief

For man's great last adventure; the Signs took shape—

and then

I knew the lines of that Centaur the moment I saw him come!

The musical-box of the heavens all around us rolled to a

tune

That tinkled and chimed and trilled with silver sounds that struck you dumb,

As if some archangel were grinding out the music of the

moon.

Melody-drunk on the Milky Way, as we swept and soared hilarious,

Full in our pathway, sudden he stood-the Centaur of the Stars,

Flashing from head and hoofs and breast! I knew him for Sagittarius.

He reared, and bent and drew his bow. He crouched as

a boxer spars.

Flung back on his haunches, weird he loomed-then leaptand the dim void lightened.

Old White Wings shied and swerved aside, and fled from the splendor-shod.

Through a flashing welter of worlds we charged. I knew why my horse was frightened.

He had two faces-a dog's and a man's-that Babylonian

god!

ን

Also, he followed us real as fear. Ping! went an arrow past. My broncho buck-jumped, humping high. We plunged . I guess that's all!

I lay on the purple canyon's lip, when I opened my eyes at last

Stiff and sore and my head like a drum, but I broke no bones in the fall.

So you know-and now you may string me up. Such was the way you caught me.

Thank you for letting me tell it straight, though you never

And I'll hang right happy, because I know he is waiting for me up there.

From creamy muzzle to cannon-bone, by God, he's a peerless wonder!

He is steel and velvet and furnace-fire, and death's suprem

est prize;

And never again shall be roped on earth that neck that is "clothed with thunder"

String me up, Dave! Go dig my grave! I rode him

across the skies!

William Rose Benét

CROSS PATCH

Her ardent spirit ran beyond her years

As light before a flame.

At fifteen, the tennis medal; at sixteen, the golf cup; Then the coveted!-bluest of blue ribbons

For faultless horsemanship.

No man in all that country,

Whatever his sport,

But had to own the girl a better man.

As that she merely laughed saying that triumph
Is all a matter of thrill: who tingles most,

He wins inevitably.

Half bewilderment, half jest,

They called her Sprite, those ordinary folk

Who thought such urge, such instinct of life to joy

Was somehow mythical.

And having named her, they no longer thought of her,
To their relief, as young or old, one sex or other—
Just herself, apart, a goddess of out-of-doors.
School boys never dreamed of her tenderly
As one to send a perfumed valentine;

But when she strode among the horses in the field
They pawed the ground.

No leash could hold a dog when she passed by.

Then, despite her ardent race with time— Ardent as though each moment were a dare

To some adventure of freed muscle and thrilled nerve

A fleeter runner overtook her flight

And bound her tightly in a golden net

Hands, feet and bosom; lips and hair and eyes

Beauty, beauty of women.

Or was it she, unconscious what she raced,

Ran suddenly, breathless, glad and yet dismayed,
Into the arms of her own womanhood?

Which, no one knew, herself the least of all.
But no more did she fly beyond herself,

As eager to leave the very flesh behind,

But stayed with it in deep and rapturous content;
Her ardor turned

Henceforth within upon a secret goal.

Spirit and beauty seemed to flow together,

Each rapt in each

Like a hushed lily in a hidden pool.

Only at dances did the sprite peep out,

Ardent and yet controlled,

Alive to every turn and slope of the rhythm

As if the music spread a path for her

To what she truly sought.

'Twas at a dance she found it-found the man

And no one had to question what she found:

Her eyes, her very finger-tips, proclaimed

The marvel it was to be a part of her,

A part of love.