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We neared the new fence, we were wide of the track;
I look’d right and left–she had never been tried
At a stiff leap; ’twas little he cared on the black.
“You’re more than a mile from the gateway,” he cried.
I hung to her head, touched her flank with the spurs
(In the red streak of rail not the ghost of a gap);
She shortened her long stroke, she pricked her sharp ears,
She flung it behind her with hardly a rap–
I saw the post quiver where Bolingbroke struck,
And guessed that the pace we had come the last mile
Had blown him a bit (he could jump like a buck).
We galloped more steadily then for a while.

The heath was soon pass’d, in the dim distance lay
The mountain. The sun was just clearing the tips
Of the ranges to eastward. The mare–could she stay?
She was bred very nearly as clean as Eclipse;
She led, and as oft as he came to her side,
She took the bit free and untiring as yet;
Her neck was arched double, her nostrils were wide,
And the tips of her tapering ears nearly met–
“You’re lighter than I am,” said Alec at last;
“The horse is dead beat and the mare isn’t blown.
She must be a good one–ride on and ride fast,
You know your way now.” So I rode on alone.

Still galloping forward we pass’d the two flocks
At M’Intyre’s hut and M’Allister’s hill–
She was galloping strong at the Warrigal Rocks–
On the Wallaby Range she was galloping still–
And over the wasteland and under the wood,
By down and by dale, and by fell and by flat,
She gallop’d, and here in the stirrups I stood
To ease her, and there in the saddle I sat
To steer her. We suddenly struck the red loam
Of the track near the troughs–then she reeled on the rise–
From her crest to her croup covered over with foam,
And blood-red her nostrils, and bloodshot her eyes,
A dip in the dell where the wattle fire bloomed–
A bend round a bank that had shut out the view–
Large framed in the mild light the mountain had loomed,
With a tall, purple peak bursting out from the blue.

I pull’d her together, I press’d her, and she
Shot down the decline to the Company’s yard,
And on by the paddocks, yet under my knee
I could feel her heart thumping the saddle-flaps hard.
Yet a mile and another, and now we were near
The goal, and the fields and the farms flitted past;
And ‘twixt the two fences I turned with a cheer,
For a green grass-fed mare ’twas a far thing and fast;
And labourers, roused by her galloping hoofs,
Saw bare-headed rider and foam-sheeted steed;
And shone the white walls and the slate-coloured roofs
Of the township. I steadied her then–I had need–
Where stood the old chapel (where stands the new church–
Since chapels to churches have changed in that town).
A short, sidelong stagger, a long, forward lurch,
A slight, choking sob, and the mare had gone down.
I slipp’d off the bridle, I slacken’d the girth,
I ran on and left her and told them my news;
I saw her soon afterwards. What was she worth?
How much for her hide? She had never worn shoes.