Now who rides rushing on the sight
Hard down yon rocky long defile,
Swift as an eagle in his flight,
Fierce as winter's storm at night
Blown from the bleak Sierra's height!
Such reckless rider! -I do ween
No mortal man his like has seen.
And yet, but for his long serape
All flowing loose, and black as crape,
And long silk locks of blackest hair
All streaming wildly in the breeze,
You might believe him in a chair,
Or chatting at some country fair
He rides so grandly at his ease.

     But now he grasps a tighter rein,
A red rein wrought in golden chain,
And in his tapidaros stands,
Turns, shouts defiance at his foe.
And now he calmly bares his brow
As if to challenge fate, and now
His hand drops to his saddle-bow
And clutches something gleaming there
As if to something more than dare.

     The stray winds lift the raven curls,
Soft as a fair Castilian girl's,
And bare a brow so manly, high,
Its every feature does belie
The thought he is compell'd to fly;
A brow as open as the sky
On which you gaze and gaze again
As on a picture you have seen
And often sought to see in vain,
A brow of blended pride and pain,
That seems to hold a tale of woe
Or wonder, that you fain would know
A boy's brow, cut as with a knife,
With many a dubious deed in life.

    Again he grasps his glitt'ring rein,
And, wheeling like a hurricane,
Defying wood, or stone, or flood,
Is dashing down the gorge again.
Oh, never yet has prouder steed
Borne master nobler in his need!
There is a glory in his eye
That seems to dare and to defy
Pursuit, or time, or space, or race.
His body is the type of speed,
While from his nostril to his heel
Are muscles as if made of steel.

   What crimes have made that red hand red?
What wrongs have written that young face
With lines of thought so out of place ?
Where flies he ? And from whence has fled ?
And what his lineage and race?
What glitters in his heavy belt,
And from his furr'd cantenas gleam?
What on his bosom that doth seem
A diamond bright or dagger's hilt?
The iron hoofs that still resound
Like thunder from the yielding ground
Alone reply; and now the plain,
Quick as you breathe and gaze again,
Is won, and all pursuit is vain.