The Horse and Broken Beams

A Horse

A horse without a rider
In the reddish shade
Of a narrowing valley,
Smelling of hawthorn,
Turned its head backward
To where the peaks were set wider
And the earth was greyed.

What use was it to dally
So like a wayworn soul
Between eastward and westward
Immensities of broken stone?

But beneath the white blossoms
It sat alone,
Turning its hooves over kingdoms
It had known
Where the peaks were set wider
And the earth was greyed.

Broken Beams

Broken beams of gold
In primeval dawn;
The eyes of a fawn;
Spear-points making bold.

Where—in the tempered metal,
The lands that we settle,
The leafless shafts that fly:
There—the living learn to die.

The sun sets;
The hour turns;
Nature gets
What it earns.