THE RIDER by ARTHUR GLYN PRYS-JONES

I

HE rode out over the moorland,
He rode out over the way,
And a singing lark rose up to Heaven
In praise of the eyes of day:
And he saw the dew on the heather-bells
And the sunlight on the may.

II

And he said: 'Tis good to wander
When the blood runs blithe and gay,
And a man must take his journeyings
And his questing while he may—
That the dark of his long December
Shall glow with the sunlit way
Of the warmth and the colour of cities
Which he knew in his life's hey-day:
For how comes wisdom to any man
Who has not had his play
In the silver riot of Springtime
When the years go like a day?
But the soul of me is as strong as steel
And it will not fall astray.'

III

He rode back over the moorland,
He rode back over the way,
But he heard no song rise up to Heaven
And he saw no hawthorn spray—
For his eyes were dim with the city mists,
And his ears were stopped with clay.

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