Page 2242 - Shakespeare - Vol. 4

What recketh he his rider’s angry stir,
His flattering «holla» or his «Stand, I say?»
What cares he now for curb or pricking spur, [285]
For rich caparisons or trappings gay?

He sees his love, and nothing else he sees,
For nothing else with his proud sight agrees.

Look when a painter would surpass the life
In limning out a well-proportion’d steed, [290]

His art with nature’s workmanship at strife,
As if the dead the living should exceed:
So did this horse excel a common one,
In shape, in courage, colour, pace and bone.

Round-hoof’d, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, [295]

Broad breast, full eye, small head, and nostril wide,
High crest, short ears, straight legs and passing strong,
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender hide:
Look what a horse should have he did not lack,
Save a proud rider on so proud a back. [300]

Sometime he scuds far off, and there he stares;
Anon he starts at stirring of a feather.
To bid the wind a base he now prepares,
And where he run or fly, they know not whether,

For through his mane and tail the high wind sings, [305]
Fanning the hairs, who wave like feather’d wings.

He looks upon his love, and neighs unto her:
She answers him, as if she knew his mind.
Being proud, as females are, to see him woo her,

She puts on outward strangeness, seems unkind, [310]
Spurns at his love, and scorns the heat he feels,
Beating his kind embracements with her heels.

Then like a melancholy malcontent,
He vails his tail that like a falling plume