Page:The Poems of Henry Kendall (1920).djvu/353



the beams of a beautiful day,

Made soft by a breeze from the sea,

The horses were started away,

The fleet-footed thirty and three;

Where beauty, with shining attire,

Shed more than a noon on the land,

Like spirits of thunder and fire

They flashed by the fence and the stand.

And the mouths of pale thousands were hushed

When Somnus, a marvel of strength,

Past Bowes like a sudden wind rushed,

And led the bay colt by a length;

But a chestnut came galloping through,

And, down where the river-tide steals,

O'Brien, on brave Waterloo,

Dashed up to the big horse's heels.

But Cracknell still kept to the fore,

And first by the water bend wheeled,

When a cry from the stand, and a roar

Ran over green furlongs of field;

Far out by the back of the course—

A demon of muscle and pluck—

Flashed onward the favourite horse,

With his hoofs flaming clear of the ruck.

But the wonderful Queenslander came,

And the thundering leaders were three;

And a ring, and a roll of acclaim,

Went out, like a surge of the sea:

"An Epigram! Epigram wins!"—

"The Colt of the Derby"—"The bay!"

But back where the crescent begins

The favourite melted away.

And the marvel that came from the North,

With another, was heavily thrown;

And here at the turning flashed forth

To the front a surprising unknown;