FullReads

With lightning eyes, and thunder mane, and hurricanes of legs,
Tempestuous tail–to picture him description vainly begs!
His fiery nostrils send forth clouds of smoke instead of breath–
Nay, was it not a Horse that bore the grisly Shape of Death?
Judge then how cold an ague-fit of agony was mine
To see the mistress of my fate, imperious, make a sign
To which my own foreboding soul the cruel sense supplied:
“Mount, happy man, and run away with your Arabian bride!”

Grim was the smile, and tremulous the voice with which I spoke,
Like any one’s when jesting with a subject not a joke,
So men have trifled with the axe before the fatal stroke.

“Lady, if mine had been the luck in Yorkshire to be born,
Or any of its ridings, this would be a blessed morn;
But, hapless one! I cannot ride–there’s something in a horse
That I can always honor, but I never could endorse–
To speak still more commercially, in riding I am quite
Averse to running long, and apt to be paid off at sight:
In legal phrase, for every class to understand me still,
I never was in stirrups yet a tenant but at will;
Or, if you please, in artist terms, I never went a-straddle
On any horse without ‘a want of keeping’ in the saddle.
In short,” and here I blush’d, abash’d and held my head full low,
“I’m one of those whose infant ears have heard the chimes of Bow!”

The lady smiled, as houris smile, adown from Turkish skies,
And beams of cruel kindness shone within her hazel eyes;
“Stranger,” she said, “or rather say, my nearest, dearest friend,
There’s something in your eyes, your air, and that high instep’s bend,
That tells me you’re of Arab race,–whatever spot of earth,
Cheapside, or Bow, or Stepney, had the honor of your birth,
The East it is your country! Like an infant changed to nurse
By fairies, you have undergone a nurtureship perverse;
But this–these desert sands–these palms, and cedars waving wild,
All, all, adopt thee as their own–an oriental child–
The cloud may hide the sun awhile–but soon or late, no doubt,
The spirit of your ancestry will burst and sparkle out!
I read the starry characters–and lo! ’tis written there,
Thou wert foredoom’d of sons of men to ride upon this Mare,
A Mare till now was never back’d by one of mortal mould,
Hark, how she neighs, as if for thee she knew that she was foal’d!”

And truly–I devoutly wish’d a blast of the simoom
Had stifled her!–the Mare herself appeared to mock my doom;
With many a bound she caper’d round and round me like a dance,
I feared indeed some wild caress would end the fearful prance,
And felt myself, and saw myself–the phantasy was horrid!–
Like old Redgauntlet, with a shoe imprinted on my forehead!
On bended knees, with bowing head, and hands uprais’d in pray’r,
I begg’d the turban’d Sultaness the issue to forbear;
I painted weeping orphan babes, around a widow’d wife,
And drew my death as vividly as others draw from life;
“Behold,” I said, “a simple man, for such high feats unfit,
Who never yet has learn’d to know the crupper from the bit,
Whereas the boldest horsemanship, and first equestrian skill,
Would well be task’d to bend so wild a creature to the will.”
Alas! alas! ’twas all in vain, to supplicate and kneel,
The quadruped could not have been more cold to my appeal!
“Fear nothing,” said the smiling Fate, “when human help is vain,
Spirits shall by thy stirrups fly, and fairies guide the rein;
Just glance at yonder animal, her perfect shape remark,
And in thy breast at once shall glow the oriental spark!
As for thy spouse and tender babes, no Arab roams the wild
But for a mare of such descent, would barter wife and child.”