Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE RIDING, by GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE RIDING, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I said to my young soul riding
Last Line: Wheresoever I go.
Subject(s): Ancestry & Ancestors; Blood; Horseback Riding


I SAID to my young soul riding,
"Thou shalt not await the hour,
Though no strength in thy arm be abiding,
Though thy virtue hath put forth no flower,
And life be all thy having,
And only hope thy dower;
Courage will fly from thy laggard breast
Till thy sword be out, and thy lance in rest,
And ever the deed that man does best
Is a deed beyond his power."

I ride in lands of danger
Where wakes unknown alarm;
But the strength that I find there is stranger
Than is any magical charm;
From the grave is this befriending,
And it hides in my life-blood warm;
From hearts that are dust is the nameless flow,
The strengthless dead in my muscles glow,
And I muse, as I lean o'er the monstrous foe, --
"It was my father's arm."

Through wide wastes I ride finding
Strange sights by lonesome strands;
And wounds that none knows I stoop binding
Through the dumb and woeful lands;
Out of my body goes healing
From the touch of my wandering hands;
But my hands that I feel go confessing
Strange wrongs, and strange sacrifice blessing,
The dark children of sorrow caressing, --
They are not my mortal hands.

I set the reed to my lips,
Where my soul and my breath are wed;
On far heights the song from me slips,
Down the slopes of the world it has sped;
Out of my heart that goes mourning
The beautiful life has fled;
But my song that I hear go singing,
Half over the wide world winging,
To the hearts and lips of men clinging,
Is the breath of poets dead.

Through dark night I go dreaming
Where unknown oceans roll;
My thoughts, in flights, sweep gleaming
With the spirit's aureole;
I know not where they have vanished
That from my bosom stole;
But my dream that goes unreturning,
Fulfilled of the millions yearning,
And wraps the whole world burning,
Is the flaming of man's soul.

Through endless barren spaces,
Apart from all men thrown,
I ride through lonely places
In ways to no man known,
With none before nor after,
But I do not ride alone;
Though there none names me brother,
I am ware, in my heart, of some other,
And my deeds are the deeds of another,
And none of my deeds is my own.

I never saw them shining
In that phantasmal air;
But I feel dark hearts inclining
Round mine, in hostings fair;
Though I ride sole and lonely,
They are thousands everywhere;
In the scarlet desert sterile,
By the beaches' stormy beryl,
They stand about my peril,
And I can feel them there.

They lean from old bronzed races
Who plied red spears at morn;
They troop from nameless places,
The lords of shame and scorn;
And the souls of the uncreated
Flock to the way forlorn;
I feel them grope and hover,
Where dark night clouds me over,
On the route of the lonely lover
Of the dead and the unborn.

Out of the unapparent
Doth the breath of all being blow;
From a million natures errant
Doth the stream of man's blood flow;
The nerves are the burning current
Of the universe aglow;
Of the infinite was my making,
And I ride of the infinite taking
The strength that knows no breaking,
Wheresoever I go.





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