Astride, like a man, on a dun-colored mare,
Thro’ the wan shadows that herald the night,
Down the long valley comes riding Despair.
Sharply the hoof-beats wake up the dull air!
Who would have guessed that I’d know her at sight―
Astride, like a man, on a dun-colored mare!
Bent are her eyebrows beneath her black hair,
Firm is her seat and her rein-torch is light―
Down the long valley comes riding Despair.
Ah, she resembles her pale sister, Care―
She who comes riding, defiant, to-night,
Astride, like a man, on a dun-colored mare!
With eyeballs gleaming and eyelids aflare,
Nostrils distended and thin lips set tight,
Down the long valley comes riding Despair.
(I have a good sword named Courage. I swear,
Back to the wall I will stand up and fight!)
Astride, like a man, on a dun-colored mare,
Down the long valley comes riding Despair.
“Despair” as it appears in Higginson’s When the Birds Go North Again (1898).