Sudden lit road they run together
Just as the cloven mist-wreaths close!
Each, each strives by a stirrup-leather
Where some glimmering horseman goes!

Iron in sinew, steel persuasion
Now of the weak and sobbing will;
Scorn that beats on the old evasion;
Limbs that move for the further hill.

Teeth clenched hard on an execration,
Chin sunk deep on a laboring chest--
Racing death with a revelation,
Dead and done with--but forging abreast,

Forging past them and past, and gaining
Once again to my hard-fought place.
Lord of Runners, requite my feigning!
Help me only to run this race!

Head-down, plunged through the roiling weather,
Flinging the sweat from a straining brow,--
_Now, I run by your stirrup-leather.
Golden Horseman, I see you now!_


QUE SAIS-JE?

If I could answer that sob of the brave little heart,
If I could answer that silence I suddenly fear,