The Race

Your pursed lips suddenly sucked in a sound that your horse Leapt to. He tossed his head and stretched his muzzle, Hauling the reins, and started off at a canter. Riding astride in your heavy McClellan saddle, With straight flat back—in white shirtwaist and high white stock And black cocked hat—you wavered against the hills, On that broad white road, a clear, clean flame to me, Blowing into the glory of the sun Over the marshes. Caleppit—caleppit—caleppit! The hoofs of my horse rang out in sudden pursuit Little puffs of dust like shots from gnomish rifles Followed your horse's flying heels. The road Rose and fell before us, as over a ridge By a ranch we clattered, and slanted around a curve Where a sheep-dog barked from a byre. The high sun moved Following us. I saw you sling your quirt Lightly over the flank of the reaching roan, And the easy cradle-motion beneath me told How my horse was nearing a run. The wind from the Straits Came slashing into our faces. The dusty road, Hard under hoof, racketed with our flight. A dooryard fluttered orange poppies. A team Drew into the dusty, bitten border grass To watch us by. A winding herd of cows Stopped to stare from a mounded hill, in the cloak-spread shadow Of crooked live-oaks. Out on that strip of steel, Beyond the marshes, some veering red-brown sails Of Portuguese fishermen made for a ramshackle pier. The hills, like a humping school of porpoises, Kept pace with us on the left, and luring white The road ran on before. A stretch of sand Muffled the hoofs, and seemed to check us. Then Caleppit—caleppit—caleppit! again. And neither gaining ... Pursuer, pursued, and all a flowing illusion! You rode in a cloud, and I in a cloud. We moved Like the wistful-tinging sunlight of afternoon That glinted far out on the slowly-turning wings Of an inland-drifted gull. And high and still A dark hawk hovered. Our eyes, astare with speed, Dilated into a bright indifferent sky. And then you pulled on the reins, and I tugged, and the horses, Snorting and sweating, were wrestled back to a trot, And we laughed 'and ambled along in companionship While I was thinking, 'I wonder if she is the One?' And you, perhaps, 'I really wonder if he?' Both meanwhile talking scattered half-chaffing things, One of your leather gauntlets busied about your hair, I fumbling in my khaki coat for a pipe, Each in youth's calm pursuit Of a magnificent and mateless dream!