Old Horse O' Mine

Hoof-beats that rang on the crowded street,
Had never beat unto me
All the wealth of the gold in your old black hide,
All the grit of you loyalty;
But deep in the sand of a lonely land,
Out on many a far flung trail,
Your old hoofs spoke of a heart you broke
For me, that you might not fail.

Great eyes, that dusked in the green gums' wave,
Though I recked not that you were there,
That danced or dulled at the whim mayhap
Of a fancy unaware -
How the mateship grew in the depths of you,
When the waste spread its gauntness wide.
How you parched with me, how you marched with me,
Through that Hell of a thirst denied.

Brave Soul that sprung in the colt of you,
Unguessed in the years far back,
Ere your Fate ran out from a land of streams
To the drought of a sun-blazed track -
For the days since seen, for the pals we've been,
When Old Time sees us through -
O! If then there be for the likes o' me,
A Heav,n - it must hold you too.