Poems (Hardy)/A wedding-day gallop

by Irenè Hardy

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS

A WEDDING-DAY GALLOP

(EARLY CALIFORNIA)

GALLOP with me, love, away and away,To the infinite blue at the end of the day.     Here at the gateCrimhild and Brunswicker wistfully wait;Up to the saddle, away and away,Far away, far, to the end of the day.

Here by the river and there by the plain,Here in the sunlight and there in the rain;Off round the mountain's bewildering base,Off at a joyously perilous pace,— Off and away, love.

There by the sea, along the gray shore,Across the dim desert, miles score and score;Away and away and always with me,Gallop and gallop forever with me.

     Now by the sea!Feet on the sand keeping time with the waves, Smile on the lips and flush on the cheek,—Now a smile, just a glance, all our happiness saves Each for the other; that language we speakAs we gallop and gallop o'er weed and o'er shell.Hark to the waves as they rise and they swell, At the swing of the berylline sea.

Now the waves gallop on like hounds at our feet,And ever the wavering moments repeatCrimhild's and Brunswieker's gallopings fleet,    Along by the sea, The chalcedonine, wavering, berylline sea.

     The dun desert now!Level sand, ever sand, not a hillock or cleft;Lizard here, squirrel there, hurries right, scurries left;Sagebrush and bitterwood mingle and flow,Wavelike and serpentine, on as we go.Shadow as scant as the dews and the damp— 'Ware, there, good Crimhild! a snake coils to spring!Ah, her foot cleaves him dead with a metrical stamp,With a flash of the eyes like the flare of a lamp.Now a lift of white mane like the beat of a wing,Neck to neck she is matching black Brunswicker's swing.

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      A palm-shadowed pool,      Deeply dark, deeply cool,Desert-girt, green-jeweled, alone in the land,Like the emerald engraven I've set on this hand.Rest, rest in its shade here, thou heart of my heart.Here's a cup from my scrip. Here is fruit ripe and rare.Juice of citron, bread of snow, yellow figs in a rimeOf sweet dust; jellied cherries, white once on a time—Dost remember?—in bloom overheadWhen hearkened thy heart to the word that mine said.

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Dim lie the blue mountains; and there waits the dusk With a star in her forehead,—a home, O my heart,  To enfold us and hold us; a gardened reposeOf lilies in alleys, and roses, and musk Of ripe grapes from the vineyard, all agleam and apart,  In green oaken glades as my heart sees and knows.     As my heart sees and knows,There 's thy window, netted round with a jasmine that gropes,Overclimbing the purple of low heliotropes,To look with its numberless stars on thy face,And sweeten the garden with new-gathered grace.

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There shines the home-candle, through alley and vine.Home, home, at last, love,—thine, thine! And mineOnly so! Wide the gate, dear and blessed the door.Now enter, and dwell, be at rest, heart and thought, evermore.

    So endeth our gallop, our day of all days,     Through the land, by the sea,    Through the desert wild ways,     Together, together, and always to be.