The Wild Ride
By Louise Imogen Guiney (1861-1920)
Louise Imogen Guiney was a catholic poet and essayist born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts. After working a variety of jobs around New England, she moved to Oxford, England to pursue poetry and criticism full time in 1901. Today she is perhaps more well known for her literary scholarship than her poetry.
The Wild Ride I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses, All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing. Let cowards and laggards fall back! but alert to the saddle Weather-worn and abreast, go men of our galloping legion, With a stirrup-cup each to the lily of women that loves him. The trail is through dolour and dread, over crags and morasses; There are shapes by the way, there are things that appal or entice us: What odds? We are Knights of the Grail, we are vowed to the riding. Thought’s self is a vanishing wing, and joy is a cobweb, And friendship a flower in the dust, and glory a sunbeam: Not here is our prize, nor, alas! after these our pursuing. A dipping of plumes, a tear, a shake of the bridle, A passing salute to this world and her pitiful beauty: We hurry with never a word in the track of our fathers. I hear in my heart, I hear in its ominous pulses All day, on the road, the hoofs of invisible horses, All night, from their stalls, the importunate pawing and neighing. We spur to a land of no name, out-racing the storm-wind; We leap to the infinite dark like sparks from the anvil. Thou leadest, O God! All’s well with Thy troopers that follow.
The chase for the Holy Grail is a great metaphor for life, don’t you think? The urgency of riders on a chase captures the way the good things of this world are simultaneously so powerful and so fleeting. I don’t have much more analysis, I was just moved by a lot of these metaphors and I found them true to life experience. Can you take a moment to savor them with me?
“Joy is a cobweb, and friendship a flower in the dust, and glory a sunbeam: not here is our prize, nor alas! after these our pursuing.”
I also hear in my heart the “hoofs of invisible horses” urging me to give a “passing salute to the world and her pitiful beauty.” I might add though that the earth’s beauty is pitiful only by comparison.