Page:Pocahontas, and Other Poems.djvu/156

 140 THE DEAD HORSEMAN.

Down, down the precipice wild he breaks,

Where the foaming waters roar ; And his way up the cliff of the mountain takes,

Where man never trod before.

No checking hand to the rein he lends,

On slippery summits sheen ; But ever and aye his head he bends

At the plunge in some dark ravine.

Dost thou bow in prayer to the God who guides

Thy course o'er such pavement frail ? Or nod in thy dream o'er the steep, where glides The curdling brook, with its slippery tides, Thou horseman, so young and pale ?

Swift, swift o'er the breast of the frozen streams,

Towards Lyster church he hies, Whose holy spire 'mid the glaciers gleams,

Like a star in troubled skies.

Now stay, thou ghostly traveller stay,

Why haste in such mad career ? Be the guilt of thy bosom as dark as it may,

'Twere better to purge it here.

On, on ! like the winged blast he wends, Where moulder the bones of the dead :

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