WOLF AND HOUND 



Or by instinct urged or impelled by fate — 

 I care not to solve these things — 



Certain it is that she took me straight 

 To the Warrigal water springs. 



I can shut my eyes and recall the ground 



As though it were yesterday — 

 With a shelf of the low, grey rocks girt round 



The springs in their basin lay ; 

 Woods to the east and wolds to the north 



In the sundown suddenly bloom'd ; 

 Dead black on a curtain of crimson cloth 



Large peaks to the westward loomed. 

 I led Miladi through weed and sedge, 



She leisurely drank her fill ; 

 There was something close to the water's edge, 



And my heart with one leap stood still. 

 For a horse's shoe and a rider's boot 



Had left clean prints on the clay ; 

 Someone had watered his beast on foot, 



'Twas he — he had gone. Which way ? 

 Then the mouth of the cavern faced me fair, 



As I turned and fronted the rocks ; 

 So, at last, I had pressed the wolf to his lair, 



I had run to his earth the fox. 



199 



