Do You Remember?

My pony knickers at the corral bars,
The fog drifts landward from the evening sea:
The trail we rode is dim beneath the stars...
Do you remember, friend who rode with me?
Shadowy range and range, and at each bend,
A pit of black as fathomless as the space
A trail with not beginning and no end,
Where even Silence hid her listening face?
Beyond each step there spread the deep Unknown;
Below, the mountain stream sang ceaselessly:
We rode together -- yet each rode alone --
Do you remember, friend who rode with me?
Down from the height to valley deep and still,
Where no star shone within the forest gloom;
Where sense of place was lost, and Time stood still,
The shuttle trembling midway in the loom.
Only our patient ponies knew the way,
Plodding with slow assurance through the night:
Would we could read as clearly in the day,
Each step beyond, in valley or on height.
Forgive the preachment -- I had lost the trail.
To eulogize the horses is my theme,
To sing the blue wherein the eagles sail,
To chant of mountains and the cañon-stream:
The glory of the sunset and the dawn,
The wind that drew a lyric from the pines,
And made us wish the clothing we had on
Were not so thin, and shaped on different lines.
The trail brings hardship, toil, and goodly sweat:
As Homespun says: "Thereon you flirt with Death":
It knocks one floating ribs ashore--and yet,
It lengthens friendship, though it shortens breath.
Beyond each step there spread the deep Unknown;
Below a hidden stream sang ceaselessly:
We rode together -- yet each rode alone,
Do you remember, friend who rode with me?