Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, DEAD-HORSE GATE, by RODERIC JOSEPH QUINN


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

DEAD-HORSE GATE, by                    
First Line: The track that ran through hunthaway
Last Line: Along the lachlan-side.
Subject(s): Animals; Death; Drought; Horses; Legends; Dead, The


THE track that ran through Hunthaway
Runs there no more, 'tis said;
No more the brumbies take that track
With swaying mane and head.

Their bones have mouldered into dust,
'Tis scattered far and wide;
Their story is a legend now
Along the Lachlan-side.

There spear-grass grows, and barley-grass,
And crow-foot green and high,
Hoof-trod no more nor flattened down
As in the days gone by.

Yet he who talks of bygone days,
As I so talked of late,
May chance to hear, as late I heard,
The tale of Dead-Horse Gate.

Their manes were wild; their tails were wild;
No mark nor brand they bore;
They roamed the rugged Lachlan-side,
A hundred head and more.

An outlaw band, a roving band,
The hollow lands they trod,
Or galloped down the stony ways
Unbroken and unshod.

Unbridled by the hand of man,
Unfettered by his chains,
They watched their fellows as they moved
Across the red-soil plains.

Beneath the wilga and the box
They sheltered through the noon,
Or clattered down the piny steeps
Beneath the winter moon.

A chestnut lord was in their lead,
A sire of noble size;
None dared the impact of his hoofs,
The challenge in his eyes.

Lithe-limbed was he and lion-strong,
And broad of chest, and tall;
By right of power and grace and speed
He held the herd in thrall.

By right of spirit, fierce and fine,
Their chosen chief was he;
Not man, nor dog, nor whip, nor fang
Could daunt him utterly.

An outlaw chief, an outlaw band,
Rough-hoofed and rough of hide,
They browsed and drowsed and romped and camped
Along the Lachlan-side.

The Drought came marching o'er the plains,
The plains grew sere and parched;
His milestones were the bleaching bones
Adown the road he marched.

He drew a smoke-shroud round the sun,
Around the moon a haze;
He filled the west with wizard lights
And phantom water-ways.

He came and triumphed, struck and slew,
And all the stricken land
Lay gasping, like a prostrate man,
Within his strangling hand.

And then, when all the skies were brass,
And all the days were black,
A gated-fence of wire was thrown
Across the brumbies' track.

The Drought came marching up the hills,
His stride a giant's stride,
The herbage wilted at his breath,
The grasses crisped and died.

No dewy sweetness went before,
No wind that soothes and cools;
His red tongues searched the hidden nooks,
And lapped the little pools.

The waters vanished from the creeks,
From shadowed hole and cleft;
In all the tumbled countryside
No little drop was left.

No more the brumbies romped and played,
But stood a herd accurst;
Thin-flanked, wild-eyed, with drooping heads,
And aching throats athirst.

Yet now and then, by night or day,
Blown-over rocks and trees,
The Lachlan waters came to them
Upon the western breeze.

And night and day, when this befell,
Though weary-hoofed and spent,
They raised their nostrils, drinking in
The cool, sweet water-scent.

And thus it chanced that on a day
Of dust and heat and smoke,
An ancient instinct spurred their blood,
A sudden urge awoke.

Then head to tail, a trudging file,
Their nostrils red and wide,
They took the track their fathers took
Unto the riverside.

With drooping heads, and heaving flanks,
And eyes deep-sunk and red,
They took the ancient brumby-track,
The chestnut at their head.

They reached the fence at Hunthaway,
And bitter was their fate!
For no man rode along the track
To let them through the gate.

O fateful gate at Hunthaway;
O red, unsparing sun!
The Lachlan waters on the wind—
They perished one by one!

Their bones have mouldered into dust,
'Tis scattered far and wide;
Their story is a legend now
Along the Lachlan-side.





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