182 THE HORSE 



This motley from the Past flung down; 



This work with no artificer; 



This prince, this poet, and this clown, 



Deific, and a driveler; 



This bequeathed brain which shall conceive 



What things this borrowed frame shall do; 



This will to serve, and will to leave 



The outworn old, the untried new; 



This quick made up of all the dead, 



And this deep heart inheiited, 



I call these mine, and I will be 



King, emperor, tsar, and Deity! 



The tenement may like me ill, 



The garment ill -befitting be: 



I will inhabit kingly still, 



And wear my rags right regally. 



These hands shall work my will, not hers 



Who fashioned them to other use; 



These feet fare not as he prefers 



Who shaped them, but as I shall choose; 



Mine be the words these lips shall frame; 



And through my great-grandmother's eyes 



I front my world, not hers, and claim 



Under no dead soul's sovereignties. 



Ay, borrowed husk, head, heart and hand, 



Slave on, and serve me till we die! 



I am your Lord and your Command ! 



But only God knows what am I. 



GRACK ELLEEY CHANNINO, 



Atlantic Monthly, January. 1902 



Every skilled breeder is satisfied that vigor, speed, 

 beauty and all other qualities are, more or less, hered- 

 itary; but, when variation appears, he is slow to search 

 for the causes which have antagonized or arrested the 

 law of transmission, and which, undisturbed, should 

 produce close similarity. 



