The Mythologic Prize Pony

Now I am the fierce, the fiery

Living steed that is small

Enough for a boy-I can live

In the woodshed, come at call,

Bear your avenge for scantness,

Hunger, malice, over them all!

I graze in the sun-warmed wheat

When porridge is winter-thin-

And I am the gift you could have

From an uncle as rich as sin

But for pride, and your mother's eyes-

But I am the horse you can win!

For the contest is all to the brave

And you know by the look in my eyes

I am yours! There is nothing to lose-

And nothing shall come as surprise,

And to enter the lists you must have

Only great soul, small size!

There are wares you must peddle and sell-

A thousand or more, but aye-

Thats a number you reckon well

By stars in the pasture sky

And for every star, there's a human

And each will need something to buy!

And the moon is the Fast Express

With a great spread cone of light-

It hurls through the prairie of stars

And shaken with love and fright

You know I am FOB

And the star on my forehead is whitel

But I do not come-not I!

Though I whinnied at midnight wake,

Nudged for the apple you kept aside,

Rose up at your "Jesus-sake-

Amen" when your eyes were closed

For fear faith break.

(Did you read, then, that faith could move

Ponies? Mountains, it said!

Only mountains-and then what need

Of my fleetness to climb the dread

Inclines-with the flowing rivers

Of high airs round your head?

And what were the need beside

Such faith-if it be, indeed?

A hill and a pony to ride?

A vale and a rusty steed?

I am no pony to ride

By the spur and the whip of greed!)

I am the Christmas palfrey

White-stockinged, with crimson reins,

Bucephalus and the Unicorn

Race in my corded veins,

All night on the starry desert,

At dawn on the Indian plains.

Unroped, untamed to the end

In the mountain laurel I feed-

Faith, it is true, leads me forth

But more than the faith you need

The actual winning by worth,

By valiant and terrible deed.

Valiant and terrible deed-

And its deal and its hidden duel

The beanstalk's thousand rungs

Shall lattice the sky's clear blue-

And a thousand giants to slay

When you cannot lay hands on twol

God's child! I have lanes to run in

Tunnelling through

Deep green and shade, scout-trails

And post-roads leading to

Whiter towns than these! It is I

With proud and scornful feet

Who shall tramp your lilies and lie

In the gold of the bearded wheat

That you set store by-till I come

And I make you mine-the contest over and donel

Listen, the great winds rise-

The wind blows, and I run!

And you ride, ride, on forever,

My own-my hungering one!