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Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

The Wild Ride

By Louise Imogen Guiney (1861–1920)

I HEAR in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,

All day, the commotion of sinewy, mane-tossing horses;

All night, from their cells, the importunate tramping and neighing.

Cowards and laggards fall back; but alert to the saddle,

Straight, grim, and abreast, vault our weather-worn, galloping legion,

With a stirrup-cup each to the one gracious woman that loves him.

The road is through dolor and dread, over crags and morasses;

There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us:

What odds? We are knights, and our souls are but bent on the riding!

I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses,

All day, the commotion of sinewy, mane-tossing horses;

All night, from their cells, the importunate trumping and neighing.

We spur to a land of no name, out-racing the storm-wind;

We leap to the infinite dark, like the sparks from the anvil.

Thou leadest, O God! All’s well with Thy troopers that follow.