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| WHERE are the friends that I knew in my Maying, | |
| In the days of my youth, in the first of my roaming? | |
| We were dear; we were leal; O, far we went straying; | |
| Now never a heart to my heart comes homing!— | |
| Where is he now, the dark boy slender | 5 |
| Who taught me bare-back, stirrup and reins? | |
| I loved him; he loved me; my beautiful, tender | |
| Tamer of horses on grass-grown plains. | |
| |
| Where is he now whose eyes swam brighter, | |
| Softer than love, in his turbulent charms; | 10 |
| Who taught me to strike, and to fall, dear fighter, | |
| And gathered me up in his boyhood arms; | |
| Taught me the rifle, and with me went riding, | |
| Suppled my limbs to the horseman’s war; | |
| Where is he now, for whom my heart’s hiding, | 15 |
| Biding, biding—but he rides far! | |
| |
| O love that passes the love of woman! | |
| Who that hath felt it shall ever forget, | |
| When the breath of life with a throb turns human, | |
| And a lad’s heart is to a lad’s heart set? | 20 |
| Ever, forever, lover and rover— | |
| They shall cling, nor each from other shall part | |
| Till the reign of the stars in the heavens be over, | |
| And life is dust in each faithful heart! | |
| |
| They are dead, the American grasses under; | 25 |
| There is no one now who presses my side; | |
| By the African chotts I am riding asunder, | |
| And with great joy ride I the last great ride. | |
| I am fey; I am fain of sudden dying; | |
| Thousands of miles there is no one near; | 30 |
| And my heart—all the night it is crying, crying | |
| In the bosoms of dead lads darling-dear. | |
| |
| Hearts of my music—them dark earth covers; | |
| Comrades to die, and to die for, were they; | |
| In the width of the world there were no such rovers— | 35 |
| Back to back, breast to breast, it was ours to stay; | |
| And the highest on earth was the vow that we cherished, | |
| To spur forth from the crowd and come back never more, | |
| And to ride in the track of great souls perished | |
| Till the nests of the lark shall roof us o’er. | 40 |
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| Yet lingers a horseman on Altai highlands, | |
| Who hath joy of me, riding the Tartar glissade; | |
| And one, far faring o’er orient islands | |
| Whose blood yet glints with my blade’s accolade; | |
| North, west, east, I fling you my last hallooing, | 45 |
| Last love to the breasts where my own has bled; | |
| Through the reach of the desert my soul leaps pursuing | |
| My star where it rises a Star of the Dead. | |
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