I OLIVER WEST came riding down;
His face was lean and keen and brown,
And his eyes were fixed on the desert town
At the end of the Sunset Trail.
2 Without the ghost of a good excuse,
He set his spurs in his roan cayuse,
"Lay to it, Sarko! Cut her loose!"
And the pebbles flew like hail.
3 "Hi! Yip! I can hear the silver strings,
And the song that the little Bonita sings;
Say, Sarko, I wish that your feet were wings,
But you're doin' your best, all right!"
The sun rolled down to the western range,
And he watched the shadows shift and change,
And the little lights of the town looked strange
As they beckoned across the night.
5 An hour-and he clinked to the doorway glare
Of the 'dobe. The singing girl was there,
With a southern rose in her midnight hair,
And lips like a bud of June.
6 "Onda, La Onda," the song began,
As softly the silver music ran
To the heart of the swart El Capitan,
'T was the Gringo lover's tune.
7 The little Bonita saw and smiled,
With the pouting lips of a teasing child;
She loved-but the Gringo was not beguiled;
'T was a heart that she could not tame.
1 From Songs of the Outlands: Ballads of the Hoboes and Other Verse, copyright, 1914, by Henry Herbert Knibbs. Reprinted by permission.
8 A word—and the swell of the music broke;
The room was a pit of flame and smoke,
But Oliver West not a word he spoke,
As into the night he came.
9 Then with more than the ghost of a good excuse,
He set his spurs in his roan cayuse;
"Lay to it, Sarko! Hell's broke loose!"
And the pebbles flew like hail.
10 "Onda, La Onda's a right good song," Said Oliver West as he loped along; "Was it he or she or me done wrong?
Well, she's there and I'm here, and we're goin' strong, Back over the Sunset Trail."
THE WAR-SONG OF DINAS VAWR
1 THE mountain sheep are sweeter,
But the valley sheep are fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition;
We met an host and quelled it;
We forced a strong position,
And killed the men who held it.
2 On Dyfed's richest valley,
Where herds of kine were browsing,
We made a mighty sally,
To furnish our carousing.
Fierce warriors rushed to meet us;
We met them, and o'erthrew them:
They struggled hard to beat us;
But we conquered them, and slew them.
As we drove our prize at leisure,
The king marched forth to catch us:
His rage surpassed all measure,
But his people could not match us.
He fled to his hall-pillars;
And, ere our force we led off,
Some sacked his house and cellars,
While others cut his head off.
4 We there, in strife bewild'ring,
Spilt blood enough to swim in:
We orphaned many children,
And widowed many women.
The eagles and the ravens
We glutted with our foemen;
The heroes and the cravens,
The spearmen and the bowmen.
5 We brought away from battle,
And much their land bemoaned them,
Two thousand head of cattle,
And the head of him who owned them:
Ednyfed, King of Dyfed,
His head was borne before us;
His wine and beasts supplied our feasts,
And his overthrow, our chorus.
HOME THEY BROUGHT
I HOME they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swoon'd, nor utter'd cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
"She must weep or she will die."
2 Then they praised him, soft and low,
Call'd him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stept,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.
4 Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee
Like summer tempest came her tears-
"Sweet my child, I live for thee."
HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX 16
I I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;
"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.
2 Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.
'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear; At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;
At Düffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be;
And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the halfchime,
So, Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time!"
At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,
And against him the cattle stood black every one,
To stare thro' the mist at us galloping past,
And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,
With resolute shoulders, each butting away
The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray:
5 And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back
For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;
And one eye's black intelligence, ever that glance
O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!
And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon
His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.
6 By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur!
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her,
We'll remember at Aix❞—for one heard the quick wheeze
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,
As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.
7 So, we were left galloping, Joris and I,
Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;
The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,
'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;
Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,
And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight!"
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