My pony knickers at the corral bars, <br />The fog drifts landward from the evening sea: <br />The trail we rode is dim beneath the stars... <br />Do you remember, friend who rode with me? <br />Shadowy range and range, and at each bend, <br />A pit of black as fathomless as the space <br />A trail with not beginning and no end, <br />Where even Silence hid her listening face? <br />Beyond each step there spread the deep Unknown; <br />Below, the mountain stream sang ceaselessly: <br />We rode together -- yet each rode alone -- <br />Do you remember, friend who rode with me? <br />Down from the height to valley deep and still, <br />Where no star shone within the forest gloom; <br />Where sense of place was lost, and Time stood still, <br />The shuttle trembling midway in the loom. <br />Only our patient ponies knew the way, <br />Plodding with slow assurance through the night: <br />Would we could read as clearly in the day, <br />Each step beyond, in valley or on height. <br />Forgive the preachment -- I had lost the trail. <br />To eulogize the horses is my theme, <br />To sing the blue wherein the eagles sail, <br />To chant of mountains and the cañon-stream: <br />The glory of the sunset and the dawn, <br />The wind that drew a lyric from the pines, <br />And made us wish the clothing we had on <br />Were not so thin, and shaped on different lines. <br />The trail brings hardship, toil, and goodly sweat: <br />As Homespun says: 'Thereon you flirt with Death': <br />It knocks one floating ribs ashore--and yet, <br />It lengthens friendship, though it shortens breath. <br />Beyond each step there spread the deep Unknown; <br />Below a hidden stream sang ceaselessly: <br />We rode together -- yet each rode alone, <br />Do you remember, friend who rode with me?<br /><br />Henry Herbert Knibbs<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/do-you-remember-62/
