If I call, will you hear me, O comrades of mine, <br />When the sky in the East holds the grey of the dawn, <br />When the soft wind is stirring the plumes of the pine <br />And the shadow goes gliding beneath like a fawn? <br />If I call, will you hear me, 0 long-ago friends, <br />As you pass to the stockyard with bridle on arm, <br />Where the song of the magpie to Heaven ascends <br />And the buddah-bush blooms with its delicate charm? <br />If I call, will you hear me? Heart calling to heart <br />Across the wide water, across the long years. <br />In the life that you live have I, too, not a part? <br />Do I share not its laughter, its hopes and its fears? <br />If my saddle hangs idle, if no more I bind <br />The spurs of adventure to gleam on the heel, <br />Along Memory's paths may I stray not and find <br />The beat of bare hoofs and the jingle of steel? <br />Where we rode shall I ride not? Through scrubs where we raced <br />With the rein lying loose as some favourite flew <br />Through the ragged grey stems, through the boughs interlaced <br />Have ye ridden one ride where I rode not with you? <br />If I call, will you hear ? - Nay; for Time will be king, <br />And the wind on wide water bears voices away. <br />The spurs as they glisten, the hoofs where they ring, <br />Are the servants of Youth at the dawn of the day.<br /><br />William Henry Ogilvie<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/comrades-0-mine/
