Where The Ponies Come To Drink

Up in Northern Arizona there's a Ranger-trail that passes Through a mesa, like a faëry lake with pines upon its brink, And across the trail a stream runs all but hidden in the grasses, Till it finds an emerald hollow where the ponies come to drink. Out they fling across the mesa, wind-blown manes and forelocks dancing, Blacks and sorrels, bays and pintos, wild as eagles, eyes agleam; From their hoofs the silver flashes, burning beads and arrows glancing Through the bunch-grass and the gramma as they cross the little stream. Down they swing as if pretending, in their orderly disorder, That they stopped to hold a pow-wow, just to rally for the charge That will take them, close to sunset, twenty miles across the border; Then the leader sniffs and drinks with fore feet planted on the marge. One by one each head is lowered, till some yearling nips another, And the playful interruption starts an eddy in the band: Snorting, squealing, plunging, wheeling, round they circle in a smother Of the muddy spray, nor pause until they find the firmer land. My old cow-horse he runs with 'em: turned him loose for good last season; Eighteen years; hard work, his record, and he's earned his little rest; And he's taking it by playing, acting proud, and with good reason; Though he's starched a little forward, he can fan it with the best. Once I called him-almost caught him, when he heard my spur-chains jingle; Then he eyed me some reproachful, as if making up his mind: Seemed to say, 'Well, if I have to- but you know I'm living single…' So I laughed. In just a minute he was pretty hard to find. Some folks wouldn't understand it,- writing lines about a pony,- For a cow-horse is a cow-horse,- nothing else, most people think,- But for eighteen years your partner, wise and faithful, such a crony Seems worth watching for, a spell, down where the ponies come to drink.