The splintering hail of the night was continued

By the shimmering beams of a morning that sinewed

The lowlands with silver, and trawled to the plains,

Rill-threaded, the sweep of its glittering seines:

As we rode to the summit (high over a cliff

It would dizzy the kestrel to plummet) the wind was a stiff

Bee-line to the sun, that it flew like a thundering kite,

Tunny-finned, and humming with gems, in the ocean of light.

And red on the blue-black blinding azure, your coat

Like a banner of fire in the storming of heaven afloat,

A flaunted bridle challenge was swung for the sunbeam to gore

By the jewelled Aquilon, a glittering toreador;

And under the blue-black buffeted rook of your hair

Your face was a silvery cry in the solitude there,

As you reared your white horse on the summit reminding me this—

That the steepest nevadas of rapture rise over the deepest abyss.