* * *
Honour is due and reverence
To you whose weight I shoulder,
For you are well advanced in years
Or else a wounded soldier.
ON SADDLES
* * *
Sit on your horse, until your fingers fumble.
Or from a blow or mortal wound you tumble.
* * *
Seek a brave man on his horse
Or asleep beneath the gorse.
* * *
Before the girth you loosen, rider, pause:
I shall not fit a horse that is not yours.
* * *
Here shall you grow, become a man:
Your cushion and your bed I am!
ON CRADLES
* * *
No sage weeps here. No fool here laughs from folly.
No coward and no hero—just my lodger.
* * *
May happy dreams appear to you,
And just as happily come true.
* * *
The child won’t let you sleep
For tears and merry laughter?
You, too, did howl and cheep—
It’s you the child takes after.
ON ROCKS
* * *
Weep, stricken hero, weep
And have no fear!
A rock, too, has been seen
To shed a tear.
* * *
An eagle, or a horseman who’s in love,
Will never ask how high the rock above.
* * *
Courage reached the summit,
Despair leapt from it.