Sure as the wild gulls make seaward,
    From the west gate to the beach
    Rode these two for whom now freedom
    Landward lay beyond their reach.

    And the great horse, scenting peril,
    Snorted at the flying spume,
    Flicked with courage, as how often,
    When the tides were racing doom,

    Ridden, he had plunged to rescue
    From that seething icy hell
    Some poor sailor wrecked a-fishing
    On the coast.  What fears should quell

    That high spirit?  Knee to shoulder,
    King and stallion reared and sprang
    Clear above the long white combers
    And that turmoil’s iron clang.

    What a launching!  For a moment,
    While the tempest held its breath
    And a thousand eyes looked wonder,
    Swimming in that trough of death,

    Steering seaward through the welter,
    Ere they settled out of sight,
    Waved above them one gold streamer. 
    Valor, bid the world good-night!...

    Not a trace, while the long summers
    Warm the heart of Brittany,
    Save one stone of Ys, as remnant,
    For a white mark in the sea.

THE KELPIE RIDERS

I

    Buried alive in calm Rochelle,
    Six in a row by a crystal well,

    All Summer long on Bareau Fen
    Slumber and sleep the Kelpie men;

    By the side of each to cheer his ghost,
    A flagon of foam with a crumpet of frost.

    Hear me, friends, for the years are fleet;
    Soon I leave the noise and the street

    For the silent uncompanioned way
    Where the inn is cold and the night is gray.

    But noon is warm and the world is still
    Where the Kelpie riders have their will.

    For never a wind dare stir or stray
    Over those marshes salt and gray;

    No bit of shade as big as your hand
    To traverse or trammel the sleeping land,

    Save where a dozen poplars fleck
    The long gray grass and the well’s blue beck.

    Yet you mark their leaves are blanched and sear,
    Whispering daft at a nameless fear.

    While round the hole of one is a rune,
    Black in the wash of the bleaching noon.

    “Ride, for the wind is awake and away. 
    Sleep, for the harvest grain is gray.”

    No word more.  And many a mile,
    A ghostly bivouac rank and file,

    They sleep to-day on the marshes wide;
    Some far night they will wake and ride.

    Once they were riders hot with speed,
    “Kelpie, Kelpie, gallop at need!”

    With hills of the barren sea to roam,
    Housing their horses on the foam.

    But earth is cool and the hush is long
    Beneath the lull of the slumber song