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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=339855" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>From The Wreck</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Turn out, boys'—'What's up with our super. to-night ?<br>The man's mad—Two hours to daybreak I'd swear—<br>Stark mad—why, there isn't a glimmer of light.'<br>'Take Bolingbroke, Alec, give Jack the young mare ;<br>Look sharp. A large vessel lies jamm'd on the reef,<br>And many on board still, and some wash'd on shore.<br>Ride straight with the news—they may send some relief<br>From the township ; and we—we can do little more.<br> <br>You, Alec, you know the near cuts ; you can cross<br>'The Sugarloaf' ford with a scramble, I think ;<br>Don't spare the blood filly, nor yet the black horse ;<br>Should the wind rise, God help them ! the ship will soon sink.<br>Old Peter's away down the paddock, to drive<br>The nags to the stockyard as fast as he can—<br>A life and death matter ; so, lads, look alive.'<br>Half-dressed, in the dark to the stockyard we ran.<br> <br>There was bridling with hurry, and saddling with haste,<br>Confusion and cursing for lack of a moon ;<br>'Be quick with these buckles, we've no time to waste ;'<br>'Mind the mare, she can use her hind legs to some tune.'<br>'Make sure of the crossing-place ; strike the old track,<br>They've fenced off the new one ; look out for the holes<br>On the wombat hills.' 'Down with the slip rails ; stand back.'<br>'And ride, boys, the pair of you, ride for your souls.'<br> <br>In the low branches heavily laden with dew,<br>In the long grasses spoiling with deadwood that day,<br>Where the blackwood, the box, and the bastard oak grew,<br>Between the tall gum-trees we gallop'd away—<br>We crashed through a brush fence, we splash'd through a swamp—<br>We steered for the north near 'The Eaglehawk's Nest'—<br>We bore to the left, just beyond 'The Red Camp',<br>And round the black tea-tree belt wheel'd to the west—<br> <br>We cross'd a low range sickly scented with musk<br>From wattle-tree blossom—we skirted a marsh—<br>Then the dawn faintly dappled with orange the dusk,<br>And peal'd overhead the jay's laughter note harsh,<br>And shot the first sunstreak behind us, and soon<br>The dim dewy uplands were dreamy with light ;<br>And full on our left flash'd 'The Reedy Lagoon,'<br>And sharply 'The Sugarloaf' rear'd on our right.<br>A smother'd curse broke through the bushman's brown beard,<br>He turn'd in his saddle, his brick-colour'd cheek<br>Flush'd feebly with sundawn, said, 'Just what I fear'd ;<br>Last fortnight's late rainfall has flooded the creek.'<br> <br>Black Bolingbroke snorted, and stood on the brink<br>One instant, then deep in the dark sluggish swirl<br>Plunged headlong. I saw the horse suddenly sink,<br>Till round the man's armpits the waves seemed to curl.<br>We follow'd,—one cold shock, and deeper we sank<br>Than they did, and twice tried the landing in vain ;<br>The third struggle won it ; straight up the steep bank<br>We stagger'd, then out on the skirts of the plain.<br> <br>The stockrider, Alec, at starting had got<br>The lead, and had kept it throughout ; 'twas his boast<br>That through thickest of scrub he could steer like a shot,<br>And the black horse was counted the best on the coast.<br>The mare had been awkward enough in the dark,<br>She was eager and headstrong, and barely half broke ;<br>She had had me too close to a big stringy-bark,<br>And had made a near thing of a crooked sheoak.<br> <br>But now on the open, lit up by the morn,<br>She flung the white foam-flakes from nostril to neck,<br>And chased him—I hatless, with shirt sleeves all torn<br>(For he may ride ragged who rides from a wreck)—<br>And faster and faster across the wide heath<br>We rode till we raced. Then I gave her her head,<br>And she—stretching out with the bit in her teeth—<br>She caught him, outpaced him, and passed him, and led.<br>We neared the new fence, we were wide of the track;<br>I look'd right and left—she had never been tried<br>At a stiff leap ; 'twas little he cared on the black.<br>'You're more than a mile from the gateway,' he cried.<br>I hung to her head, touched her flank with the spurs<br>(In the red streak of rail not the ghost of a gap) ;<br>She shortened her long stroke, she pricked her sharp ears,<br>She flung it behind her with hardly a rap—<br>I saw the post quiver where Bolingbroke struck,<br>And guessed that the pace we had come the last mile<br>Had blown him a bit (he could jump like a buck).<br>We galloped more steadily then for a while.<br> <br>The heath was soon pass'd, in the dim distance lay<br>The mountain. The sun was just clearing the tips<br>Of the ranges to eastward. The mare—could she stay?<br>She was bred very nearly as clean as Eclipse ;<br>She led, and as oft as he came to her side,<br>She took the bit free and untiring as yet ;<br>Her neck was arched double, her nostrils were wide,<br>And the tips of her tapering ears nearly met—<br>'You're lighter than I am,' said Alec at last ;<br>'The horse is dead beat and the mare isn't blown.<br>She must be a good one—ride on and ride fast,<br>You know your way now.' So I rode on alone.<br> <br>Still galloping forward we pass'd the two flocks<br>At M'Intyre's hut and M'Allister's hill—<br>She was galloping strong at the Warrigal Rocks—<br>On the Wallaby Range she was galloping still—<br>And over the wasteland and under the wood,<br>By down and by dale, and by fell and by flat,<br>She gallop'd, and here in the stirrups I stood<br>To ease her, and there in the saddle I sat<br>To steer her. We suddenly struck the red loam<br>Of the track near the troughs—then she reeled on the rise—<br>From her crest to her croup covered over with foam,<br>And blood-red her nostrils, and bloodshot her eyes,<br>A dip in the dell where the wattle fire bloomed—<br>A bend round a bank that had shut out the view—<br>Large framed in the mild light the mountain had loomed,<br>With a tall, purple peak bursting out from the blue.<br> <br>I pull'd her together, I press'd her, and she<br>Shot down the decline to the Company's yard,<br>And on by the paddocks, yet under my knee<br>I could feel her heart thumping the saddle-flaps hard.<br>Yet a mile and another, and now we were near<br>The goal, and the fields and the farms flitted past ;<br>And ‘twixt the two fences I turned with a cheer,<br>For a green grass-fed mare 'twas a far thing and fast ;<br>And labourers, roused by her galloping hoofs,<br>Saw bare-headed rider and foam-sheeted steed;<br>And shone the white walls and the slate-coloured roofs<br>Of the township. I steadied her then—I had need—<br>Where stood the old chapel (where stands the new church—<br>Since chapels to churches have changed in that town).<br>A short, sidelong stagger, a long, forward lurch,<br>A slight, choking sob, and the mare had gone down.<br>I slipp'd off the bridle, I slacken'd the girth,<br>I ran on and left her and told them my news ;<br>I saw her soon afterwards. What was she worth ?<br>How much for her hide ? She had never worn shoes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Adam+Lindsay+Gordon">Adam Lindsay Gordon</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=339855" data-title="From The Wreck de Adam Lindsay Gordon" data-description="'Turn out, boys'—'What's up with our super. to-night ?
The man's mad—Two hours to daybreak I'd swear—
Stark mad—why, there isn't a glimmer of light.'
'Take Bolingbroke, Alec, give Jack the young mare ;
Look sharp. A large vessel lies jamm'..."></div>
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