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| THE BRIDLE reins hang loose in the hold of his lean left hand; | |
| As the tether gives, the horse bends browsing down to the sand, | |
| On the pommel the right hand rests with a smoking briar black, | |
| Whose thin rings rise and break as he gazes from the track. | |
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| Already the sun is aslope, high still in a pale hot sky, | 5 |
| And the afternoon is fierce, in its glare the wide plains lie | |
| Empty as heaven and silent, smit with a vast despair, | |
| The face of a Titan bound, for whom is no hope nor care. | |
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| Hoar are its leagues of bush, and tawny brown is its soil, | |
| In that immensity lost are human effort and toil, | 10 |
| A few scattered sheep in the scrub hardly themselves to be seen; | |
| One man in the wilderness lone; beside, a primaeval scene. | |
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| Firm and upright in his saddle as a soldier upon parade, | |
| Yet graceful too is his seat, for Nature this horseman made; | |
| From childhood a fearless rider, now like a centaur he, | 15 |
| And half of his strength is gone when he jumps from the saddle-tree. | |
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| Back from his sweat-wet hair his felt is carelessly placed, | |
| Handkerchief at his throat, sagging shirt round a lank firm waist; | |
| True to the set of strong loins the belted moleskins are tight, | |
| Plain from forehead to stirrup a virile vigour in sight. | 20 |
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| Yet scarce more than a boy, but the long blaze not more sure | |
| Has left on the countenance spare a hue that shall ever endure, | |
| Than the life of the plains has set reliance and courage there, | |
| Constancy, manliness frank in a young face debonair. | |
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| He should be no less who rides for ever each spacious bound, | 25 |
| Better than human speech he knows the desert around. | |
| He journeys from dawn to dusk, and always he rides alone, | |
| The hue of the wilderness takes, as his mind its monotone. | |
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| He hears the infrequent cries, shrieking or hoarse and slow, | |
| Sheep bleating, the minah’s scream, the monologue of the crow; | 30 |
| He rides in a manless land, and in leagues of the salt-bush plain, | |
| Seeks day after day for change, and seeks it ever in vain. | |
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| In his hands his life each morn as he swings to his leathern seat, | |
| Woe to him if he falls where as water the plain sucks heat, | |
| Alone in a vast still tomb, cruel and loth to spare, | 35 |
| Death waits for each sense and slays whilst the doomed wretch feels despair. | |
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