English Narrative Poems

Narrative poetry, English; Readers -- Poetry
A moment, with a faint low neigh,                                690
      He answer'd, and then fell;
    With gasps and glazing eyes he lay,
      And reeking limbs immoveable;
        His first and last career is done!
    On came the troop--they saw him stoop,                           695
      They saw me strangely bound along
      His back with many a bloody thong:
    They stop--they start--they snuff the air,
    Gallop a moment here and there,
    Approach, retire, wheel round and round,                         700
    Then plunging back with sudden bound,
    Headed by one black mighty steed
    Who seem'd the patriarch of his breed,
      Without a single speck or hair
    Of white upon his shaggy hide.                                   705
    They snort--they foam--neigh--swerve aside,
    And backward to the forest fly,
    By instinct, from a human eye.--
      They left me there to my despair,
    Link'd to the dead and stiffening wretch,                        710
    Whose lifeless limbs beneath me stretch,
    Relieved from that unwonted weight,
    From whence I could not extricate
    Nor him nor me--and there we lay
      The dying on the dead!                                         715
    I little deem'd another day
      Would see my houseless, helpless head.

    "And there from morn till twilight bound,
    I felt the heavy hours toil round,
    With just enough of life to see                                  720
    My last of suns go down on me,
    In hopeless certainty of mind,
    That makes us feel at length resign'd
    To that which our foreboding years
    Presents the worst and last of fears                             725
    Inevitable--even a boon,
    Nor more unkind for coming soon;
    Yet shunn'd and dreaded with such care,
    As if it only were a snare
    That prudence might escape:                                      730
    At times both wish'd for and implored,
    At times sought with self-pointed sword,
    Yet still a dark and hideous close
    To even intolerable woes,
      And welcome in no shape.                                       735
    And, strange to say, the sons of pleasure,
    They who have revell'd beyond measure
    In beauty, wassail, wine, and treasure,
    Die calm, or calmer oft than he
    Whose heritage was misery:                                       740
    For he who hath in turn run through
    All that was beautiful and new,
      Hath nought to hope, and nought to leave;
    And, save the future (which is view'd
    Not quite as men are base or good,                               745
    But as their nerves may be endued,)
      With nought perhaps to grieve:--
    The wretch still hopes his woes must end,
    And Death, whom he should deem his friend,
    Appears, to his distemper'd eyes,                                750
    Arrived to rob him of his prize,
    The tree of his new Paradise.
    To-morrow would have given him all,
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English Narrative Poems

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