Graham Fredriksen

I am dreaming tonight of the old horses galloping;
     when my children were children we rode on the wind,
thro' the thunderstone sidlings and spring valleys well up in
     the high Childhood Hills where the level lands end.

Ah, those valiant horses! ! in visions come duly yet,
     stirrup to stirrup and foam on the bar
of the bridle, and breast to breast: yellow bay Juliet,
     and the roman-nose outlaws, Black Belle and Belle Star.

Strain on the martingale, down thro' the clover, in
     centaur-like swiftness, the dream horses go:
wings under Magpie and sparks under Sovereign,
     and the skewbald with vagabond heart, Little Joe.

Hawks thro' the wild wood and wilful hearts under us,
     game as of old in that bold yesterday:
the braw spotted Drifter, arch-leaping and thunderous,
     and bonny red Billy and Rocky, the grey.

O for the years of lost youth and its radiance! !
     joy at the gallop, the hoofbeats' refrain,
thro' lightning-flash breakaways, rainbow-ride gradients—
     the power and pull of the loosely-flung rein.

The rides of a Pegasus,—mythical, mystical—
     light of the hand and the knee's gentle touch;
hear the bush cattle low and the windsong's majestic call—
     and the mountains, they loved us, and told us as much.

... I awake; it is dawn; it is time to be saddling:
     I am riding Millennium, badge of her dam,
coal black mare with her legacy, bringing the cattle in—
     but there's none who ride with, for alone now I am.

I have only my dreams of my children a-galloping,
     for my children are gone like the horses of old;
they are grown and moved on—the long years enveloping
     these hidden high mountains and memories they hold.

Yet, of tunes, on Millennium, hard thro' the forest hill,
     I swear it's her mother I'm sitting astride
as the bush cattle wheel; and the hoofbeats in chorus still
     echo my children there racing beside—
     on the old horses, bold horses, fevered with pride—
     the old horses, bold horses, they used to ride.