O SWIFT, O proud, O brave, O beautiful, Thou steed, thou charger for a god, What orient plateau has thou trod? Or, coursing steppes of heaven, didst thou pull The Lord of Song In gold car, full of joy, of rapture full For thou wast strong? Oh pain! Oh wrong! Oh shame! Oh misery! For now a groom, a base-born slave, Has lashed thee; curbed thee, once so brave; Thou to be noosed by cunning! furiously To plunge, to fall, Get up, rear, stumble, snort, foam, bleed, and be Cowed after all! Ah, favourite stallion of the sun! When "Morning's Wonder" was thy name, Effortless, dauntless wouldst thou run.. So noble once, art thou so tame? Once swift, once proud, once brave, once beautiful, What pain, what wrong, what shame, what misery Has thine been that thou art not free? That at this bridle thou shouldst pull? O rash Desire, whose untaught eyes knew love, Those tears are hot: True love has ceased, has ceased to be true love; What was is not. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AT SUNSET TIME by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR SUNKEN GOLD by EUGENE JACOB LEE-HAMILTON IN MEMORY: MISS JEWETT by GRACE ALLERTON ANDREWS A SALON SCENE by ANTON ALEXANDER VON AUERSPERG THE DAWN OF EVENING by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE THE DEATH OF A.G.A by EMILY JANE BRONTE AND THE COCK CREW by AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR BALLAD. TO THE TUNE OF 'SALLY IN OUR ALLEY' by GEORGE GORDON BYRON |